YouTube Deep Summary

## Welcome and Why Career-Focused Summers Matter [00:00] Hello everyone, welcome. Uh my name is Coach Victor with Eagle here to present on a workshop called creating a career focused summer, the professional growth that colleges notice. For those who don't know, uh colleges and admissions really care about if you are being intentional about the summer. uh the summer is like the perfect time to really be able to differentiate yourself from the rest. And so we're going to talk about how is it that we can uh plan it out to be the most successful. So today, what we're going to cover, we're going to design a career exploration summer that demonstrates your passion and commitment to your field. Uh we're going to talk about the strategies to build that professional network as a high school student and how to transport your typical summer experiences into compelling narratives for your application. If uh this is your first. ## The 3 Phases: Shadow... Project-Based Learning... Internships [01:00] time uh being able to hear one of my presentations, uh I'm Coach Victor. Uh again, and in terms of my background, I used to work at UC Berkeley's admissions office where I went to different high schools to talk about the college admissions process and also taught a class on how to get into graduate school. And also, fun fact, I went to Berkeley for undergrad and graduate school on a full ride scholarship. So, that being said, I know a thing or two about all these things. And also, fun another fun fact, I did my uh my uh was it my research thesis or my master's thesis on um uh uh on workforce development for high school youth. So that being said, let's dig into it. And so uh first thing to uh to think about is like work experience, they're not all created equal. Okay, there's different kind of phases to it. And a lot of people tend to skip around and don't realize that you might not be ready for a particular phase. So for example, a lot of people always talk about internships. They think that you need to get an internship this summer when in reality you might not be ready for that. So, uh, starting off with phase one, you want to at least try to shadow somebody being able to learn how does the job actually work so that you gain more awareness and also start developing your professional network. That helps you understand the field. So that way you can start thinking about what are the particular problems uh that you are interested in solving and also what are the skills that are necessary to develop that. Once you've gone through that round of observing and talking to people in the field, that brings you into phase two where you can do project- based learning. And within project based learning, the goal is to be able to apply those particular skills that you've uh realized are important for the job and to try to apply it to pro problems that you care about and also um what many people in that field might struggle with. That way you can be able to show that you are delivering value. If you've been to one of my uh webinars before web, uh one of the things that we talked about is value is a combination of your hard skills and your soft skills. And by doing a project- based learning, you're developing your hard skills in this case. And it's possible that maybe you already done this in your high school class, but the goal is to be intentional about what skill you're developing. Then that goes into phase three of the internship where you can be able to create your own. The thing about internship is that a lot of students or a lot of uh employers really don't want high school students as an intern. The reason for that is because there tends to be a lot of costs associated with them that they have to pay attention to them, they have to worry about them, they have to like guide them every single step of the way. You want to be that intern where you are self-sufficient that you don't necessarily need somebody to always tell you what to do. So, the goal here is that once you've kind of done the shadowing, you've understand the landscape, you develop those skill sets, then you're able to apply it to that particular uh employer. And so by being able to demonstrate those skill sets, you can be able to uh get high be highly employable in this case. So remember to think about if you haven't uh got to phase one yet, then that's the first thing that you want to try to uh prioritize. If if you already kind of done some shadowing, you kind of done. ## Choosing a Career Field Based on Real Interests [04:00] some uh research on what the job entails, then go into project base. And then once you're ready and you develop those skills, then it's the time to go to internship. So let's go into talking about a career focused summer. Okay, there's three parts to it. And so when it comes to it, um first off, you want to understand what are you really passionate about. What do you really care about. Okay, the whole point about the admissions process is to understand and communicate to the uh to the admissions reader is that you are being very self-aware. You are very aware of your own interest and what is it that you want to learn later on in the future based off the activities that you are currently doing. So for example, if you are very much interested in engineering, the question I have as a reader is how do you know you want to do engineering. Did you actually do anything related to that. Have you actually exposed yourself. And so for some students who are just like, oh, I just really love math, so I think engineering is the right major. That is selling setting yourself up for failure if you don't have any of these work experiences on your summer. So really be uh intentional about the uh thing that you care about. And that helps you also understand if this is something that you really do want to major in. Second part is the action you're doing, creating or contributing and not just passively observing. So as I mentioned right um are you able to show that you are taking initiative to learn more about that field where you don't necess necessarily need to wait till college to really start learning about it. You're doing it right now based off your day-to-day activities. And lastly is relevance. Uh does it connect to your future goals or potential career path. Uh so it's not just about um doing any kind of passion project. The goal is to think about that passion project that is most relevant either to your major that you want to apply to or something that gives you a sense of what your career might be. Within the admissions process, you don't have to necessarily state that you want to be a doctor, engineer, lawyer, whatever it is. Um, what you need to understand though is what is it what exactly do you want to learn and what about this school or this higher education can give you that learning. And so, uh, the relevance here, right, is being able to show how the experiences that you've gained up until this point have taught you about certain things that you care about and the things that you want to learn about next. And so, that's the relevance piece. So, let's talk about some examples of what uh these DIY projects might look like. If you were to just to create it by yourself, let's just say that you weren't able to uh get an internship this summer because it's already the summer right now in June and you you need to develop that project based learning. So an example for medicine, right, is uh some typical ones we've seen at least within our company is that uh students like to start a health blog. They might talk about some issues they really care about. Uh they volunteer at a clinic and of course it might be very difficult to get a volunteership. And so one of the strategies for being able to get a volunteer opportunity is to reach out to the small local clinics. You don't want to go for like the large hospitals like Kaiser because they tend to be very competitive. So think about your networks, your connections and we'll talk about that a little bit later in terms of how to develop that. That's. ## Active vs. Passive Summer Activities [07:00] where usually you can be able to get that opportunity. And also interview local healthcare workers, right. Uh this is the self uh the discovery, right. If you're not able to really shadow in the uh medical workplace, right. because that is really difficult to be able to attain. You probably know somebody who works in the healthc care field. So, you could be able to just talk to them. And so, one strategy we'll talk about later is informational interviews, which we'll cover. And so, this is an example of something to help you gain awareness about what about the healthcare field that you really care about because I'm sure many folks might know if you want to study medicine, there's tons of different kinds of uh specialties that you can go into. you know, there's like cardiology where it's the study of the heart and uh OBGYn. Um, so there's a lots of uh different types of of health scenes that you could be able to look into. And so that's why interviewing would be very valuable here. And also some other things uh I forgot to add into here too is doing research. So for example, being able to work with a professor at your local college to be able to produce a research paper about a uh particular health issue that you really care about. So next, let's go into law. So when it comes to law, uh some students what they've done is that they join a mock trial program, they read a landmark court cases, and they shadow a public defender. So, these are things that might be uh a little bit difficult, but what it does is that it shows that you really are taking initiative because when it comes to like pre-law, you know, you're not studying to applying to go into law school right away, but you might be studying something like psychology or sociology or political science and all these other things. And so, the goal is to be able to showcase um what exactly are you doing right now and how has it taught you like this major might be the right one for yourself. So, for example, um just by being able to go through a mock trial program that talks a lot about like uh politics or polit political science, the way to be able to see how to view uh certain issues in uh in particular ways and debating that. And so that can give students the experience to understand like oh I really like to debate and also talk about like what is the fundamental uh rights or laws that should be put into place and by being able to participate in that you're showing that you're you're uh uh taking a little bit of a sample of that. Next is business. So when it comes to business the most typical way is to start a business right. Uh a lot of a lot of students are selling products. they are trying to sell a digital product, build a website, they get into marketing, uh they get into product and so uh business is a starting a business is one of the quickest ways to be able to show that you really want to learn business fundamentals. Some students they started like a t-shirt company uh where they go to a screen printer and print a lot and then sell it to their peers. Some they purchase a whole bunch of like large candy bags from like Costco and then they distribute it to. ## Sample Projects for Medicine... Law... Business... Engineering [10:00] their own like friends and they have everyone sell it. Or some people do like a reselling business where they uh sell shoes uh or they sell like their old clothes. Those are all perfect examples of what a business might look like. Of course, you don't necessarily need to start like a um like a official business license or anything of that sort. It's not expected that you should be uh doing that. And also same goes for people who think that you have to start a nonprofit. Getting a 501c3 or starting a comp or organization like that is not necessary in order to get into these top colleges. The goal is to focus about the learnings from it as opposed to the actual like actions uh related or the um official like certifications don't really matter as much. And then lastly is to offer a service in your community. So, it's not just about selling a product, but what exactly can you give to others. Like, for example, mowing lawns, uh being able to do chores around the house, uh being able to uh you know, do eyelashing uh like appointments. Those are all other examples of services that you can provide to somebody. And so, those are uh are all great examples of business. It doesn't matter about what exactly do you sell. It matters more so that you uh started that process and you re you iterated on that process. Okay, next part is engineering which is uh essentially just building anything. So you can build things via code, you can build things that are um like physical products. I think that goes into tech actually. These are very similar here. Uh so whether that's software or hardware, you can just be able to build anything from scratch that you care about. Uh make sure that you document the process throughout the entire time. And what other students have done with us is that they create a website. uh they try to put some type of product there or build some type of open application that people can be able to download and they release it and the goal is to show that you actually have an impact to if you can confidently say that you built an app that's uploaded onto the app store and there are more than 10,000 downloads to it, right. That shows that you're creating some type of uh impact on your community because you built something that's useful for 10,000 people. And that is an example of being able to talk about your results. Uh and lastly, contributing to open source projects. There's tons of open source projects on like GitHub that uh people are sharing with each other uh to be able to build new technology that could be useful for other things. So these are just a few examples, right. It's not limited to just this. And also the goal is to find something that is unique to yourself. And so you want to align the interests of your passions and also the kind of skill sets that you want to develop at the same time. And so an easy way to kind of figure out like what to do for the summer is uh just think about one uh just find a problem right find a problem that you really care about something that you find as a challenge whether it's about something is inefficient in the ways that you are uh doing some type of process or uh there is some type of uh challenge that a. ## How to Build a Project from Scratch with the Problem Framework [13:00] particular group that you care about like let's say senior citizens have trouble being able to connect with their like loved ones or uh I think the Best way to kind of think about the problem is who is your user. And usually the main user that you're trying to solve for is yourself. So if you can identify like who are you as a user, how would you describe your persona. Uh that can give you an idea about your population that you're trying to serve. Then you figure out you learn how to solve it. So you do your own research, you do your own due diligence, right. And and I'm sure many other people have tried to solve this problem in the past. And so the goal is to be able to learn uh the skill sets and the uh the solutions that people have built before. So that way you can be able to figure out how is it that you want to particularly solve this particular problem. Then you document how you solved it. So once you have uh like taken note of it, add it to your portfolio and be able to think about what uh what is it that put it into a document that you can be able to use later on for your personal statements. Then from there um that is something that you can utilize later on. And then you systemize uh your process uh being able to uh figure out how to replicate it for future um uh iterations. And then you share your discoveries out to the public where uh this is where you could uh allow people to be able to take the results of your project and to be able to build it for themselves as well. The goal is here is to just think about that problem that you care about and solve it and then share it out to the world. So this is essentially like what it's like to like just build a business essentially. And so uh just by being able to build a business off any type of problem that you care about that is going to be really huge at least in the college admissions process. So let's try to take an example right if you uh there's a few folks here um that are listening to the webinar. Out of curiosity for those who are listening uh share a career interest in the chat. Uh let's talk through like a particular problem and let's think about what is one particular interest or career interest that you might have that you need support on either developing that passion project or personal project or what to do with it for this summer. So we'll take it as an example if anyone wants to add. So take quick minute here business. Okay. So let's take uh that business example. Uh and so the goal is to think about the next part uh which part of business right business can be is a skill that could be applied to a lot of different fields. So the goal is to think about a domain that you really care about. So what is a particular problem that you might be interested in uh in exploring a little bit more. And this might be hard because I noticed that someone is typing also through their iPhone. So the so just to kind of like uh take it a step further right once you identify what particular field that you're trying to go into then you want to think about the uh domain or the problem that you want to apply this skill into and then based on that right that's where uh you are able to find your niche in terms of what you are really valuing and that is if you ask yourself why is it that you want you care about this particular thing you can ask yourself the five W's why is it that you're interested in this. Why is it that that matters to you. And then you get to your values. So, uh taking a quick example like let's just say you are trying to um build a business on like uh keyboards, right. Uh someone really loves to build keyboards and share it with others. Why is it that you're interested in building keyboards. Well, it's because I really like the aesthetics of it. I really like to type on it. Uh why is it that you like to type on it or like to like the aesthetics of it. Well, because it gives me like a peace of mind. It's pretty therapeutic to be able to uh to type down on these uh really aesthetic keyboards and they have a very nice feeling to it. And why is that important. ## Building a Professional Network... Who to Contact and How [17:00] to you. Because we are typing almost all times of the day and the typing process should be enjoyable to everybody. So that's an example of just being able to dig deep into why is it are those things really important to you. So that way you can show that um this is a uh important problem to solve for multiple folks. Okay. So let's kind of transition here. Let's go into about building that professional network in high school and how to uh create those connections so that way uh you can ensure um you have future job prospects for yourself or internships or whatever that might be. So your professional network is more valuable than any resume that you develop for yourself. You want to work smarter not harder. And what I mean by that is you can invest so much time into your uh LinkedIn profile or your resume and try to make it look very beautiful, but it doesn't really matter if you're not actually sharing that to the right people. Your network is where you're able to identify uh new opportunities for yourself, whether that's being able to get a mentor, being able to get a job, or being able to uh find find your next like step in your in your growth process. So, the first people that you want to reach out to that you might not think of is first your family or your friends or your neighbors. There are tons of people who are in a part of your network right now that you could take advantage of. And even if there is uh a group of people that you're trying to connect to but you don't have any you don't know anyone directly. Let's say you're interested in the medical field but you don't have any medical professionals in your family. That is where uh you might have a friend or family that knows somebody that uh that is in the in the medical field and that's how you can be able to bridge that gap by asking them to create an introduction for you. Another thing is the alumni from your school. There are if you go on to LinkedIn, there are tons of people who actually list down their high school and you could be able to connect to those alumni and a lot of alumni are more than willing to be able to support you just because you have like a common ground. Uh local professionals list on LinkedIn which I'll cover in a bit in terms of how to be able to use LinkedIn and also professors or grad schools at nearby colleges. So we usually within the education space, right, a lot of these places are uh very open to talking to high school students because they know that high school students are still very much learning and uh especially in these education institutions that they're that's their goal. They're trying to train the next generation to be able to uh to like run the economy or run the next like businesses. So this is example of where LinkedIn could come into play where you have first, second and third connections. Your first connections are the people that you are directly connected with. These might be your mom, your dad, your uh friends or your peers and they can connect you to the second level connections. These are the people who you are interested in getting more knowledge from and they're not directly into your network and it's possible that those people are also connected to these third level connections that can even give you more value. So just to kind of show you about how LinkedIn works and if you're in high school I highly encourage folks to already uh create a LinkedIn but essentially in LinkedIn there is a ability to uh search right what particular fields or companies uh for uh things that you're interested for places that you might work at that you are interested in. So if you notice if I can if I just search up teacher and if I look up first connections I'm looking at all the people who I know directly that is currently a teacher or has worked as a teacher and also let's just say if I don't know anybody then I can go to my second connections and something I'll notice is that these people are connected to a mutual uh friend of mine in my network and that's I can reach out to these individuals here to be able to connect with them and It's not just about the roles, but also the company as well. So, let's just say you want to. ## Using LinkedIn and Informational Interviews [21:00] work at a uh company like LinkedIn, right. If I looked up at LinkedIn, then I know that there's tons of people here that I can potentially reach out to who currently work there. And if I don't have anyone yet, then that's where I go to my second connections. So, the goal is to be able to try to find out where is the common ground with the person that you're trying to connect with. And if you connect well with this person, they could potentially be the one to create a job opportunity for you. So this is a quick example, right. Uh where I reached out to one of my first connections a long time ago uh to be able to uh my goal back in the day was to try to uh work at LinkedIn. Uh so this is a this is a actually direct example that I did. And so I reached out to one of my peers. This is somebody who uh went to school with me at Berkeley. And what I did at this very in this message was I tried to remind him like, hey, this is where this is how we met. I talked about like why I'm reaching out to them. And during this time, this is where my company was experiencing layoffs. And I was uh trying to figure out a way how to like get a referral or get an interview at LinkedIn. And so that's where I asked if I can go on a hop on a quick Zoom with them and have a quick chat to see how is it that they broke into LinkedIn. Based on that, I did have a conversation with them uh for about 30 minutes. And based on that connection, they actually connected me to another person named Baron. And Baron was able to give me insight about what it was like to work in the strategy and operations department. Even though Josh Park here uh used to work at LinkedIn, he was in product operations, which is different from product management from what I did before. And so by talking to a product manager in the strategy and operations department that gave me a better uh like leg in to be able to uh create a connection to understand how their company works, what their problems are and how to stand out in the uh process of getting interviewed. And so from there um Baron was uh referred me through his uh connection through LinkedIn and I was able to apply uh directly to their team and then I would have the recruiter be able to be the first to uh review my resume uh during that time. Uh it it didn't necessarily go out the I wasn't necessarily trying to pursue this even further. Uh there was other opportunities I considered it instead. And so, but at the very least, this gave me a leg up in the recruitment process because a recruiter that was working specifically for the strategy and operations uh department was able to look at my uh my resume. So, to kind of teach folks about how to take advantage of these uh networking connections, the goal is to develop the skill set in informational interviews. Withinformational interview interviews, it's not uh you going through a typical interview process where they try to evaluate if you're good for a particular role. The you you flip the script. Uh instead, you're trying to interview the other person to learn more about their background and their interest and their field and gives you more insight about how the uh uh how the industry works. And so here, first off, you want to identify the uh right person that you want to talk to. find the person in that field of interest and also somebody that isn't like too senior where they're like, you know, in a director level position or they're like the president or CEO, you want to talk to someone who might be at the same level of professional uh growth as you or career as as you. So, usually you might want to go to like if you're especially in your high school, you want to go for like an entry- level person, somebody that is new to the workforce as well because they're more likely to talk to you as a high school student. The reason why you don't want to go all the way further up in the chain is because if they see that someone is a high school student trying to connect with them, they're not likely to respond. And so that's going to be your again your second or third connection. If you're able to connect with just one of them um at the like entry level, then they can introduce you to the uh upper level management and. ## How to Turn Conversations into Opportunities [25:00] that upper level management might be the one to create that job for you. So you have to be strategic here, right. Don't just like randomly email like a whole bunch of like CEOs or presidents. You want to email the people who are more likely have time and uh can uh get you that relationship in. And that's very similar to what I did here, right. The first connection is the person who I knew and even though they weren't working in the role that I really cared about, they were still able to connect me with that second connection. All right. Next is to reach out uh professionally. So, just giving yourself uh giving them a brief intro of who you are and why you're reaching out very similarly to what I did and asking for a quick like 15 to 20 minute chat over Zoom or a phone call to be able to connect even further. I highly recommend doing over Zoom because you wanted that face toface interaction because you want to build a relationship with this person. Something to think about is you don't want to be transactional in this process. And what I mean by transactional is that you're just going to them for a favor. you're not uh doing it just for that, but you want to develop like a meaningful connection where they might want to invest into you. This is where I think high school students tend to have the most difficult challenge where you are asking people in like a kind of a Q&A format. Hey, question one, question two, question three, question four. But the reality of the case is you want to come in and have a normal conversation just like a human. So, um, that's that's something that we'll talk about in just a bit about how to kind of show that engagement. And so, you can use email or LinkedIn or get a referral to be able to try to connect with that person. And then, let's just say they are able to uh agree and uh they are willing to chat with you on the phone or Zoom. Then, you want to do your homework of doing research. You want to learn more about their background and prepare some questions that you can ask. The thing is, you don't want to ask questions that you can already find online. Like don't just go in there and ask like hey how many years or how many months have you worked at this role uh or the very surface level questions because your questions also reflect uh your level of preparation and also uh how professional that you are coming across. If you come across with just like very basic questions or that you're very nervous or you haven't practiced or rehearsed, then they might not necessarily feel like you are a consideration or a good fit to even be like an intern or to work with even further. The goal is to impress them and to create a strong impression and you do that by coming uh very prepared and uh about what exactly is it that you want to get out of this conversation. Next is plenty of questions. So some examples that you can ask which gets a little bit deeper is how did you get started in your career, right. Being able to keep it open-ended and understand what their pathway was because in that pathway that gives you a better sense and understanding of what can you do if you wanted to do the exact same thing as them. If you're talking to someone who's in your dream job or even your dream. ## Communicating Your Summer Growth on Applications [28:00] company, then that gives you a lot of insight about, okay, what do I need to copy in order to get to the same level as you. And this is the lessons that you can gain in a short amount of time. And this is why informational interviews are so powerful in comparison to taking a class. Some students natural inclination to uh learn more about a field is to take a community college class on it which makes sense you know it's totally fine but at the same time that's like 3 or 4 months worth of classes and is that really worth your time to do that when you could just have a simple conversation within 15 to 30 minutes to learn that right away. So the frequency of uh your learning happens more uh through informational interviews. Another question is who do you enjoy uh what do you enjoy the most about your work and this is can give you a better sense whether if your interests are aligned with this particular role. If you are self-aware about the things that make you happy the things that bring you a fulfillment then you can kind of see if these roles might have that similar similarity there. Uh what's one thing that you wish you had done earlier. being able to get a sense about like if they had any regrets, any things that um are life advice that you could be able to look out for. The best way to be able to learn from someone is someone who did it themselves, right. And you don't want to create the same mistakes that they've done. What advice would you give to a student interested in your field. Uh so that way you can be able to get a better sense of what do you need to study. What do you need to do as a per as a um personal skill project. and are there any uh summer experiences that you recommend. This is where it can actually lead to a very interesting conversation because it could be the case where they might have an opening or they might be able to create something for you. Um and you won't know if that opportunity exists unless you ask. You don't want to ask directly like, "Hey, do you uh can you make me an intern?" Like maybe you could if you have really great rapport with them, but you want to kind of keep it open-ended uh because you want them on your side. If you ask them directly of like, hey, can you uh hire me as an intern. Then you are putting yourself on the opposite side of the table as them because they are the ones that say yes, no, or maybe. And they are like the gatekeeper. You don't want them to be your gatekeeper. You want them to be on your team. and you make them on your team by asking an open-ended question of like are there any summer experiences you recommend because they will think about this problem with you. If you talk about a problem like saying like hey like I'm really struggling right now because I really want to gain work experience uh within this field uh but I don't know where to get started. What do you recommend. and and that's where they will ideulate with you about some potential plans and one of those plans could be that they work they uh create an opportunity for you or that they introduce you to someone who could do that uh for you. Next is to be grateful and engaged. So throughout at the very end or throughout this entire time making sure that communication is such an important uh skill. I mean it's something that everybody can always improve in including myself. And the thing is, you just don't want it to be an awkward conversation, right. You don't want it to be like a uh again like a Q&A format or that you are like feeling as if this um and if you're not smiling or not showing that you're engaged, then they then you might feel like you're wasting their time. Uh and also uh be respectful of their time limit. If they if you mention a 15-minute conversation, try to keep it at 15 minutes. And if it does get to that time, then ask them if they have additional time they're willing to stay and talk to you. And lastly, follow up with an email saying thank you. And uh within that email, mention that one takeaway that you're gaining from the conversation and that you hope to keep in touch. This is a way for you to be able to uh maintain that connection long term. And if you're on LinkedIn, then you can add them as a connection. All right. So now that we. ## STAR Framework for Writing About Your Summer [32:00] talked about uh how to get that experience right and through informational interviews the next part is once you've gained that experience how do you talk about it within the application process. So when it comes to admission officers, what we care about is what did you do, why did it matter, and how to shape your perspective, right. This is very similar to what I've told uh families in the past, right. That that uh the admission readers want to know why do you want to go to college. What is it exactly you want to study. And how do you know that based off what you're currently doing. And the how do you know uh that's what you want to do or as a major or as a study that is comes from the summer experiences that you're trying to communicate here. And so we talked about this before which is the STAR framework. As a quick reminder to those who don't know this is a way to be able to uh plan out your for your interviews and also within the way that you write your applications. So first off you start with the situation. What was the context of where you were working. uh task, what challenges or goals were you working on. Action, what did you do. And the result in reflection, what happened and what did you learn from it. The what did you learn from it is probably the most important part because this is you trying to demonstrate that you are very passionate or interested about this particular field and that by going to this particular college, it will give you the skills and experiences necessary to advance your particular goals. And really the the the thing that majority of students do as a common mistake is that they might write they might focus too much on the situation. Uh the situation is like the context of where exactly are you working at. You don't need to explain like the company's mission and everything that they typically do because we're not trying to accept the uh the company into college, right. We're trying to accept you as an individual. you can give a quick one-s sentence clarification about where is it that you're working and what's their mission and and then go directly into the task action and the result. So we're going to do a few examples together just so that people have a better understanding of what this actually looks like. So let's start off with uh working in tech and like particularly with like AI and mental health as an example. So the situation that you might be putting here is that uh you are experimenting with AI tools because you're curious about and and you're also curious about mental health issues in teens. So as a uh and because of that because of that interest what you did uh for yourself was that you built a chatbot to help teens check in with their emotions. Uh this is actually really common nowadays where a lot of companies are discovering like mental health support or services through like chat bots. And this is it ties directly to what's actually out there in the field as well. And imagine if you were able to just show this particular interest or this particular task that not a lot of people would have at all. Like that shows um a different level of like maturity in your career preparation. And then from there the action that you did was that you reached out to a counselor you found on LinkedIn for feedback on the tone and language and she helped you um make it feel uh supportive and not clinical. So what this is showing is that you are uh iterating on your particular project or your product. Uh it's not the fact that you just built the chatbot to support teams but you actually tested it in the field. you gave it to a counselor to be able to review like how did it work for them to make sure that it was like on the uh it was acceptable as like a support and also another way to check this is to uh test this out with teenagers as well. Get their feedback and see how well did it how well did it go and then from there you launched a demo and had 30 uh students use it over the summer and you're now improving it based on your feedback. So here again,. ## Final Examples... Next Steps... and Free Resources [36:00] what we're showing is this step-by-step process of what do you care about, what is it that you wanted to do, and then the specific actions that you took to do to get there, and then what did you learn from there. Uh, and then I would also like reflect this on even more to say like how does this tie to what you want to learn later in college or your career. Uh a lot of people in their personal statements or their personal insight questions something they always tend to forget is like the future aspect. I always talk about like past, present, future. The past is usually like the situation, right. And the present is your actions of what you're doing right now. And then the future is like from this result that you've done like what how does it teach you what you want to do later on in life. All right. Next is like a business uh and sustainable clothing. So the situation here is that you have an interest in uh thrifting and fashion and also at the same time you care about sustainability. Remember that you're you want to be the way to be unique here is think about the different varying interests and combining it all together. There's a lot of students who are going to love business. There's a lot of students who are going to love engineering but there's only so many people that love business and to talk about sustainable clothing uh in one particular area. So that is a very niche um area of interest and you want to figure out what is your niche based off of what your what your interests are. Then you go into the task uh you wanted to turn something bigger through a secondhand uh clothing popup. Uh and then from the action there you're able to uh interview a local boutique owner for tips on pricing and setup. She reviewed my budget and suggested ways to attract customers. So the cool thing about this right is that this student is showing that they are trying to take initiative and trying to start their own business from scratch. And generally speaking like who actually knows how to create a business right not many people not many students but the very first way to start right is talking to somebody talking to another business owner for the tips on that. And by being able to have that conversation in 30 minutes or maybe an hour you have someplace to start. And so you get that information and you're showing that you're taking initiative and you're testing it out yourself. And again, it doesn't have to be perfect. The fact is is that you tried. And here the result might be that you ran two pop-ups and you sold 40 pieces and you donated the profits included and on your college apps as like a social impact uh project. So this here right ties into uh your interest in like uh sustainability and also practicing the skill sets of business. Right. Next is medicine and health literacy. So situation here you notice that my immigrant your immigrant parents struggle to understand their prescriptions and because of that your task was to create a simple health translation guide for non-English speakers and so from there in order to do that you reach out to a medical student through the summer webinar uh and you ask them to fact check it and also explain how to um organize medical terms clean uh clearly. Uh so what this is showing is that you have this particular uh interest in health and you notice that the issue right the challenge is that the difficulty for people to understand. So it shows that you're you're critically thinking you're trying to problem solve something that is really real and then from there you're demonstrating your initiative by reaching out to a medical stu uh medical school student uh to fact check your information that you built. And not many students will actually do that. And then the result of it is you printed 50 copies, shared them to a local clinic and the doctor has offered to keep distributing it. So again, your impact doesn't necessarily need to be huge. The impact the like the the real thing that people are most interested in is what is your step-by-step process about what is it you cared about. What did you do about it. and why is it that this is so important to you. The more that you can be more self-aware throughout this uh entire application process, the uh the more comp the more competitive and beneficial that will be. Okay, let's talk about next about the last one which is engineering DIY pro uh statics. So the situation here is that you're really fascinated by lowcost 3D uh printed prosthetics and your task that you given yourself was to design your own using a home printer and open source files. So this is you like trying to be able to create something on like AutoCAD or something of that sort. And one of the actions that you did was that you reached out to a college engineering student that you met on Reddit to review your CAD design and help you troubleshoot. So again this shows like you had an initial interest about some particular skill set that you really like to do and also prosthetics which is a very niche kind of uh thing that you can print. uh you challenged yourself to build it and then also you fact checked it or worked on it with somebody else uh to to iterate on that process and the result of that you printed a working prototype shared with online community maker uh community for feedback and it's now part of your engineering portfolio. So there's a lot of like 3D uh printing communities online and by being able to share it, you can also take note of how many downloads that it had, how many views and also there's a lot of like engineering or uh 3D printing like design contests online that you can participate in as well. So again, you're trying to be able to share it with the community that you care about. All right. So, I hope that was uh helpful to folks in terms of how to communicate your uh summer projects or your uh you taking initiative. And this it doesn't have to just relate to summer, right. This can be anything relating to any activities that you've done throughout the year. So, let's go lastly into the resources and next steps. If you want the notes and the replay for this particular uh webinar, text uh notes or replay to 949-74-6950. And if you want a free four-step student networking guide, uh, which we created, uh, you can just text network guide to the same number. This is where, oh, actually, I realized this is a wrong number. Sorry. Give me one quick second. Wrong number. Wrong number here. So the number here is uh that's not the right number. Where is it. Oh, okay. Sorry. 775949. Okay, this is the right number to text. Uh 9497750865. And then if you want that networking starter guide, then text uh the same number and network guide. This will give you a little bit of a worksheet to work off of and identify who are your top people that you can connect with uh first. And if you want to get a free 15-minute coaching session, maybe this is your first time joining one of our webinars. Welcome. Uh we are Eagle and we are coaches that used to work in the missions space. And so because of that, we are giving free advice to everybody and all families about what exactly you can do to maximize your college admission chances. So similarly to what we talked about today, we will give you a uh strategy on how to maximize your chances uh through what we call the three A's, the application, the academics, and the activities. So uh that is a totally free session deck. Okay, awesome. And so we're going to the last part which is Q&A. Uh, so curious if folks here had any questions about anything that we covered so far. Okay, I know I have a few folks here on the attendees. All right, going once, going twice. All right. Well, thank you everyone for coming through and looking forward to uh being able to support folks in my office hours if uh you're interested in coming through. That's on Thursdays uh from 4 to 5:00 pm. Right. Take care everyone and have a good rest of the.