What does it mean to be a natural leader? Whatever it meant, I think it was safe to say I was not one. Not naturally, at least. I first realized this when I assumed the position of president of the Computer Science Club at my high school. When it came to planning and preparation, I made sure things got done. Conflict was nonexistant as most of the officers were already friends. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel slightly ashamed at being the figurehead of the club at my school. I was naturally more introverted and shyed away from crowds, my smaller stature meant I was quickly overlooked, and it was difficult for my voice to be heard over even the low chatter of the crowded meetings (I had to ask my treasurer to make announcements for me). Regardless, I still viewed the experience as a positive one. I took on more ambitious projects for meetings as time went on, coming up with a CS related escape room puzzle and a coding murder mystery game. With each success, I grew more confident as well. By the end of the year, I was leaving for UT feeling like I had made an impact on the computer science community at my school. I encountered my first technical leadership position when I became engineering lead for ECLAIR. I took on the position because I had an exciting idea for a project. Along with this idea came doubts: What if no one else was interested? What if my lack of experience or skill made me a bad leader? It was especially intimidating since I had little starting knowledge of maching learning. I confided in a friend who had previous experience being a technical leader at his high school. According to him, leadership was not something determined by your technical proficiency. It had more to do with how well you could facilitate the sharing of ideas in your team than how well you can actually code. You didn't have to be the smartest in the room (this was reassuring to me). However, I still had my worries about doing the things a leader should do. Making important decisions was difficult. Standing up and speaking over everyone was intimidating. Once again, I found myself with the same fears I had as club president, albeit now I was in a very different environment with very different responsibilities. What does it mean to be a leader in general? The first few meetings were stressful as I tried to figure out what my role as leader was. I was constantly worried about my image as a good leader, as well as appearing intelligent and well-spoken. I particularly remembered dreading meetings, going over what I would say in my head while walking to the meeting room. As time went on, (and I had more conversations with the aforementioned friend) it finally struck to focus on the big picture. I was there to ensure the team was on track to meet its goal, not necessarily to worry about the smaller details of getting code compiled. Decisions were still difficult, but I became accustomed to the thought patterns required to make them. One thing that proved helpful was listening to the thoughts of my teammates. I was not the smartest one in the room, but that only made my decisions easier as my more informed peers would suggest ideas and methods. In fact, I had learned an immense amount about machine learning simply by listening to my team. The day after the final presentation, our team went out to get boba at Gong Cha. It was the first time meeting outside a working environment. Conversation was easy, and I found that despite working under such professional conditions, we had formed a connection over working through problems. In fact, I'm writing this a few days after the kickoff, where I saw some of them again for the first time since May. To my surprise, there wasn't any awkwardness. It was as if we were simply meeting again, ready and excited to get started. What does leadership mean to me? Fast forward to now; I'm looking back on my experience as I write. Was I successful? We did have a complete and functional product to show at the end of the semester. The demo was well liked and the presentation went better than I could've imagined, despite all the hiccups we experienced along the way... but that wasn't necessarily what success meant to me. I wasn't just proud of myself, I was proud of all of us. We had made a community around this project that outlived the project itself (literally. The GitHub repo is blocked because we exceeded the queue limit. Unfortunate). I had learned and grown as a person, and I had watched others do the same. I had learned so much more about machine learning and AI than I had ever imagined I would. It's safe to say I am far more open to leadership roles after learning about what it meant to be one. I'm starting this semester in a completely different position than I had the previous one. I mean, I'm in the same position; I'm an engineering lead. But instead of being doubtful and nervous, I'm looking forward to another semester of learning and exploration.