Guardian Volunteering Week 2013: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson school, leadership day

What did students gain from the day of workshops with Guardian volunteers? Below are one student's thoughts on the experience.
VolWeek EGA leadership students
Guardian volunteering week 2013, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School: Students create a video of their ideas and thoughts on leadership. Photograph: Dali Kaur for the Guardian Dali Kaur/Guardian

As a 15-year-old student, I believe one of the best things you can gain from school is experience. You can use these experiences in the present to push yourself further and apply them in the future to achieve your full potential.

In June, staff from the Guardian visited our school, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (EGA) in Islington, London, to talk to EGA Seniors - pupils in prefect and mentoring roles - about leadership.

We started the day discussing our responsibilities at school and compared them to roles in the work place. This raised many questions about life after school. How can we pay our way through university with rising fees? How long might it take to find a job afterwards? My head had been full of fears about leaving school and moving on, but I calmed down after hearing about the journalists' own experiences, especially those who had recently graduated. The job market didn't seem quite as bleak as it is portrayed.

Talking to a group of working people helped me to consider my priorities to the school alongside my personal priorities. I realised that to achieve balance you need to have control over your time and the choices that you make. Control is something that everyone needs to develop and succeed; after all you need to be able to lead yourself before you can lead a group of people.

Later that day, I was given the opportunity to visit the Guardian's offices. Walking around I was struck by the newspaper jargon everywhere so many uses of new technology that I hadn't come across before - live feeds on TV screens, entry pads for meeting rooms and iMacs everywhere - to make communication more efficient. We visited different areas of the company and I felt a sense of maturity from having a window into this busy working world.

The experience has definitely broadened my knowledge of the different skills needed in your working life and improved my understanding of what good leadership is. I will carry these skills with me as I move on to college, university and beyond.

It has also given me the courage and motivation to push myself further to pursue my big ambition in life, which is to become a business development manager - or perhaps even consider journalism.

Razia Sobratty is a student at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's Girls School