Ultimate Passion Project

I did with Grace, can you give us a little bit more insight as to what you are thinking you're going to major in?

I'm looking into business finance or economics.

Okay, so, so far we've got some high-thinking, high-level achieving students doing some really cool stuff. So I thank you for that. Let's go ahead and Take it away.

Okay, um, well, my biggest passion is in biology and psychology and learning about, especially in teenagers, like our behaviors and why we do the things that we do. So what I'm working on is I'm beginning a survey-based research project and it's focused on COVID. And I'm beginning to produce this survey and trying to get it verified so that I can distribute it to teenagers and see their stress levels and how they're coping. And hopefully to be able to, with that research, I was actually also thinking about maybe starting a podcast or like a blog or something and being able to use that research to like, use that research as well as like interviewing professional psychologists, neurologists, just like people like that. And also interviewing other teenagers and seeing if I can bring greater awareness for the fact that teenagers' brains aren't fully developed yet. So we act differently and just trying to inform other teenagers about that kind of thing. That kind of, yeah. And also something that I'm working on right now is I started a tutoring community service organization. So it's free online tutoring and it's called Tutoring 4 U. And I've gathered a group of other students, and we've been providing free online tutoring ever since COVID began, and we've been able to reach a lot of people. Like recently, we have students from, like international students who contacted me, and we've been able to give them service, and it's been really cool to do that.

Amazing, and what are you thinking about majoring in?

I'm thinking about either neuroscience or biology. I'm probably gonna go into the med route.

Excellent. Do you all believe me now when I say you're all amazing? Heck yeah, you guys are unbelievable. So you're each doing some really neat things, but the leadership part is always the hardest because you have to count on others to follow through. So I thought of you, bringing you together and an attempt to let leaders lead and be supported by other leaders. So it's, if you think of it as a board of directors, right, you have the executive board of directors that are going to set the pace or the tone, and what could you possibly do? It's, it's not one of you lead, the rest follow. It is truly an executive board where you're going to reach out and lead others to something. I saw a lot of overlap, and that's why I thought this would be beneficial. I know we were talking at one of our meetings about how you need somebody who understands statistics. Have either of you taken statistics?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. So when you do a survey, You need somebody to analyze the results, right?

Yeah.

So we figured out, okay, there's an opportunity to bring somebody else in to that. Could you take her finding and put it on a podcast? For sure. Could you take Grace's research and put it on a podcast? For sure. Can you see value in sharing this with other students because you're the top of the class and you're kind of wondering how all the, how do I do all this? Think about the other students who are maybe struggling a little bit more. Your insight would give them hope that, well, if they did it, I can do it. It's been done. The concept's been proven. So that's why I wanted to bring you all together. As you know, I'm not big on telling you what to do. I'm really big on you all working at it and me just kind of guiding you. So with that, I'd like to go opposite direction, and I'd like to, to see how you all would love to use your genius, your leadership, your diversity to create some life-changing or community-changing, some kind of be the change you wish you want to see in the world. That's what I'd like to figure out, how we can do that together, because the essay, which was important, is now critically important. And so this is an opportunity where you all can be like, okay, I see now where we need to go, and it needs to be big. It absolutely— I want you guys to get so far out of your comfort zone. I want you just to really expand, and I think I'm frozen. All right, I'm back. So let's go ahead, let's do the reverse circle, and let's just brainstorm for a little bit how we can use the gifts and talents from all of you. It may be a complete mishmash And I may be completely off my rocker, but I want to see if you all feel that there would be value in connecting. All right. You want to start us off?

Okay.

Okay. We're just brainstorming. There's no rolling of the eyes, none of that.

So I think, um, I feel like it's possible for us to all bring what we're good at and create something that maybe everyone can connect to. So like whether it's a podcast or something else, like there could be a medical side to it, there could be a chemical, you know, chemistry, business, like we could create something where like what we're passionate about can come together and overlap and like we can present something that everyone can you know, that may resonate with more than just people who are interested in one subject. So maybe a podcast, I don't know, we could think of others. Yeah.

Yeah. That one screams like, it just screams like, I can't imagine how you could be more impactful, right? But you have to get an audience. So you need somebody on your team who is good on the business side and the marketing side and the virtual side and all of that because You could bring all of your genius together and nobody listens, and then you guys are just kind of cool on a podcast. So do you see how it's, it's got to build? So Vijay, what are you thinking? How do you feel that maybe this group can benefit?

I'm not sure exactly what we could do, but I feel like we all have common interests and similarities that overlap, and then we also have different things that we're interested in that differentiate us and make it more diverse. I think we really could do something that we all connect to, but also all contribute something different. I'm not really sure what, like, podcast is always a good idea, but I'm trying to think of other stuff too.

Okay, okay.

Grace, any other thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, for a podcast, um, like, I would be happy to talk. I've done other research apart from the lab that's like actually been completed and submitted and stuff, so I'd be happy to talk on that, but I've been trying to contact anyone related to a chemistry professor, anyone in the chemistry field, and I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone. So I just know that if we do actually go through with the podcast, it is hard to connect with people unless you know them personally. So if we do anything, I mean, anything that we wanted to do, like, Janine, I'm kind of interested in similar fields as you. And so anything, if we wanted to connect something similar in that way, and then anything we would do would need a business side to it to try and promote, so we could go pretty much any route with that.

Um, okay, so I was wondering— sorry.

No, you're good, this is what it's about. I'm out.

Okay, you guys be more interested in focusing on COVID specifically, or like, like making it more general and more, you know what I mean? Because like we could go the side of like how we're behaving right now, like, and, you know, how we're— what's happening during COVID or we can try and make it more, um, applicable to other times as well.

I think either could work. I'm just worried that, like, as we keep going, like, it's all progressing very rapidly with, like, changes every day, so I don't know what we would be able to predict.

Maybe that's kind of winding down in some sense, so I don't know whether we would have the right time frame for whatever we're doing unless we're doing like results of COVID Yeah, and I also feel like everyone, like different locations, there are different stages with it, with like different stages within the pandemic and reopening too, so it'd be kind of tough to gauge like where people are at and how that's affecting you.

So, okay, so back to me, because you guys are, are, um, uh, finding all the reasons that it may not work. I want to, I want to take it completely in the opposite direction. If you could dream up Sky's the limit with the IQ and the leadership that you have. What is possible? What would be— if you were college admission, what would you want to read and go, whoa, this, this, you all gotta see this, this is amazing? Okay, we need to think amazing. We keep getting stuck in the little this and that and this. I want to, I want to take you guys on a way bigger journey than just, um, focused on something small. So if you were college admission and you were reading your application, what could you imagine would make them go Oh my gosh, this is amazing. You all have to see what they're doing. Any thoughts on just way big?

I think instead of having the whole thing be a podcast, I feel like that's like, it's really good, but it could be a lot bigger than that. So if we wanted to make some kind of platform with like the podcast as one part of it, and then we could also have like, like I was talking to Shellee before about possibly writing a book, related to like kids' chemistry ideas, like projects or something along that line. But if we wanted to do ideas kind of like that with, we could like market on a website and have connections to like a podcast and then writing like blog or articles and then like resources for people to do, or I don't know, something along that line where we can branch out in different ways instead of stuck only on a podcast.

I agree.

I think that's a good idea. Definitely.

So when I was interviewed today, the first thing that the interviewer asked me is what is my why? Why do I do what I do? I want you all to think of what is the big need and why do you want to do something. Take college completely out of it. This is no longer for college admission. This is for you and either personal development or interest or passion. And blow the lid off of it and think of, this is a problem, and why I want to do it is I want to either see the problem go away, I want to see people understand, I want to give them resources, I want to give them information. What is that why that's going to get you up on a Saturday morning in summer and be on fire to make this happen? That's what we're missing is that the big reason why. Take admission out of it for a moment and think about you personally. Vache, any thoughts? Why would you want to do this? What change would you want to make? What's the problem? That you want to solve?

Personally?

Yeah, personally.

Well, for me, like, what I've been doing is I want to help give kids the opportunity to, like, start from nothing and become something. And because I have the privilege of having a foundation and my parents didn't and they built something. They built their lives. And a lot of kids are in an unfortunate situation where they— it's hard for them to do that. And that's why I'm working with— like, I have been working with the charity I've been working with to help kids do that. Like, that's my— I want to help people, like, capitalize on opportunities and build something for themselves. That's beautiful.

That's your why. Remember that throughout this whole process. Anybody else want to take a shot at their why?

I mean, I kind of went to the same idea. If like something related to this would be if it's underprivileged kids who don't have the opportunity to get these resources where we could, like if we wanted to fundraise, we could fundraise to bring stuff actually to them and then do stuff with them. I don't know what it would be because of COVID if that would change anything, but, um, just giving them the resources and stuff they may not have had access to otherwise. And then even if it's younger kids, that could help set them up for high school and college and later on by growing some kind of interest in these fields. Or because I know when I was going into high school, like I was even talking to my brother about this the other day and we were like, what jobs are there? Like, we just haven't been exposed to tons of different types of jobs. So I think by showing all of these different areas that people might not think of, then it just opens up a lot more opportunities for what people can study and go into.

So your why is?

It's to show people, young underprivileged kids or any kind of teens who don't have access to as much stuff as we do, that there are these many opportunities and finding a love for whatever subject we're trying to promote, or like various subjects, I guess.

Excellent, you found your why. All right, we're ready. Are you thinking about it? Are you frozen? What? Oh no, you're up.

Okay, um, I was going to say that I think I, I agree. I think that providing resources that includes just providing information that's accessible, like information from other kids. So it's less intimidating, like because sometimes children hear things from their parents or like other adults and they feel like it's so far away. But if we're able to present information and like that, it's possible to do this and that, but like by showing examples, that may be more— I don't know, it's like kids doing this. And I think like giving, providing hope and information by sharing our examples and other people's examples.

What is your why?

And sharing stories.

So what, what is your why? Why would you want to get up on Saturday morning early in the dark to do this? What, what would What is the reason why you wanna do this?

To provide accessible information to other kids so that they can find the hope to get up and feel empowered and do what they wanna do and feel like it's possible.

Okay, you found your why, all right? Hold close to that why and think about, there's a couple things you can think about. You all have a why of wanting to serve to this underprivileged pre-high school student, call it, to inspire, to give hope. There's a lot of organizations out there, Boys and Girls Club, Girls, Inc. There's some really good programs. So you have to think, okay, If your mission now is the who, it's these underprivileged children, okay? Or not even underprivileged, but under, they just don't know. It could just be they're very wealthy and they don't know. They just don't know what they don't know is really what I call it. And so you can go to market many ways. What is the number one way teens communicate right now?

Social media.

Yeah, what else?

Text.

Text, oh yeah, what else? Text and social media and what?

FaceTime.

FaceTime, sure, yeah, we're doing a lot of Zooming, right? For sure. So with that, think about how you and your why can come together and divide it up between you and create your mission statement. You figured out who you want to serve is people who don't know what they don't know. Okay, that, that's them. That it could— they could be wealthy, they could be poverty, they, they could just be living in the middle of Nebraska. Like, it could be something geography-based. And then what do you want to do for them? That's the next thing. You know who you want to serve, but what do you want to do for them? Let's go the opposite direction.

Somebody starting with me?

I don't remember who we started with, that's why I said that.

Go ahead, Grace. Okay, um, what do you want to do? What are we doing for them?

Yeah, what do you want to do for them?

Um, I mean, I'm thinking providing resources, but I feel like that could also just be kind of understated as just like posting up something and never looking at it again. So I don't know whether we need to rephrase that as something that's more, um, I don't know, engaging, or like shows that we've put all this work into it and it's not just like something we quickly typed up and put online. So Um, somehow getting them either resources or just things that might fuel their interest for a certain subject, um, whether that's podcasts or, uh, I feel like we'd have to come up with ideas as to the best way to bring the information. It would have to be online if we want to reach like a bigger audience or across states or anything, but I feel like it would need to be more than just writing published on a website.

I have a couple thoughts. We all have our own interests, like you're helping people understand training and you're tutoring kids and you want to send out surveys to understand how kids' minds work. And we also want to provide them with the resources. So we all have our individual things and then a common goal. So like, I feel like a lot of kids, I'm really interested in like the news and politics and knowing what's going on, but I know a lot of people our age don't really know what's going on in our world. Like everyone knows what's happening with George Floyd in Minnesota, but people don't know the less national things that they should know. So like, are you providing resources? Or like, how do you know what's going on in the news? Different ways you can access the news. How do you apply to college? What do you need to do? Like, what makes you stand out? And also bringing in each of our individual things. Like, I'm starting my podcast about different careers. We could post that on the website. Like, here's some insight into careers. And then Grace is doing her thing with dogs. Here's like, if you have a dog but you don't have access to a trainer, you don't have the money to pay for it, here's how you can handle that. Or if you are having trouble in school, here's access to an easy tutor. So stuff like that, combining all the stuff we're working on individually will also having a common project too.

Love it, love it. All right.

I agree. I think aside from just posting, like, just giving information, we should also teach people how they can— like you were saying, like, how they can do— how can— how they can get the information that we're giving them and how they can change their lifestyle or like, like how they go about I don't know, like, I think that instead of just handing them information, teaching them how they can implement like a new— like we can give them resources and like different things that they can implement into their own lives so that it's more than just reading an article or— yeah.

So I'll give you a little hint without taking over. My student at Harvard right now, she started off in a very similar place where you're at, okay? And she, um, had a really good focus on what she wanted to change, okay? So that's number one. My saying is, be the change you wish to see in the world. What is that change you wish to see in the world? And then how are you going to create that change? That's what I think you could do it individually, but come back together and cross-promote, cross-support. My goal of bringing you together is to give you the opportunity to brainstorm with like-minded people. You have to be at a certain level of desire because this is not going to be easy. This is going to challenge you and teach you a lot about yourself, but that's what's going to set you apart. So, um, I would encourage you to think really about what is the change I wish to see in the world and what can I do to create that change. Set on that for a moment. Give yourself time to process that. And then I would encourage you to meet again and divide and conquer and start straight away. As soon as you're done with school, hit the ground running. You have about 3 months that you could take this and just make it work. So you can take it a bunch of directions, and I, I'm not going to tell you which way is the best. I just want you to know colleges are looking for changemakers, okay, and people who are passionate to create change. So if you just stay focused on those, the other thing you're going to find is what do you personally want out of it. Be specific and be measurable, okay. What do you want? What can you create? Those are the things that are kind of ambiguous, but they're the things that are gonna make you really stand out amongst your peers. Before I let you go, do you, any of you have questions for me or how I can support you?

Well, I, one thing that you just said about like measuring it, I don't know how we would do, we'd have to figure that out. If it's just a website, I don't know how we figure out how many people are accessing it or how many people are using the information. Clicks. Can you see that?

Oh yeah. Okay, I can tell you at what time somebody clicked on my page.

Okay.

Yeah, how many clicks per day, what hour. The analytics, one of you can have a whole lot of fun with. You can try, right, Vijay? I mean, I know your dad's in this world, technology and stuff like that, and my dad's very into it.

He's a business guy, and so he could help me with that.

You guys can measure this, right, Vijay? Every single Google click. So use his strength and the resource of what his dad does. And each of you have parents and their resources, and then you have friends. Like we were talking about, we need somebody who's taken statistics to analyze the data. Okay, well, let's find them. And then I suggest to take an AP Stats class over the summer if you can't find that person. Because now your why of you— why you took that class, that's an essay. Oh my gosh, I was gonna do this, I didn't have anybody to analyze my data, I went and learned. That's phenomenal. Colleges are gonna be like, oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, so every time you can think of a reason why or why not, I can give you two why yes you can. So just email them to me and I'll just send them right back to you and let you know for sure. You guys, you got this. I would not take my time on my day off to come here and just tell you a bunch of rhetoric. I'm going to encourage you. So how else can I be here to support you, or are there any other concerns?

Would we need to connect, like, in order for it to be considered leadership, would we need to connect with other students at some point?

Definitely.

Okay.

Okay. Um, like any business you build, you start with a vision and an idea, and then you bring in support, right? So that we don't want people just for the sake of people, but if you guys decide you want to go down the podcast route or you want to go down writing a book, or you want to go down, you know, publicizing or getting on the news or in the newspaper, however you want to get out this information, that's the person you bring in, right? You don't know how to analyze clicks online, but I know there are a lot of people who do. That's the person you bring on. Okay, so I would like to keep this as an executive board where you bring in people who are going to make your idea bigger and better, not just bodies. I'd be very protective this time of being, uh, only surrounding yourself by people who are going to offer a skill that you don't have, okay? Because the— between the 3 of you, you can divide this work and make it happen straight away. When I'm talking one-on-one with you individually, I get concerned that you're going to do it all and it's going to make you drowned. With the 3 of you in the same room, I don't have that concern. I truly think between you and your resources, you can pretty much change the world.

Okay.

Yeah, it's gonna cut out.

No, it's about to. I have a time limit on mine because—

okay, yeah, no worries. Okay, so you guys can text, communicate however you want. I'm here to support you. I am on fire for you guys. Go out there and be the change you wish to see.

Thank you.

All right, bye for now.

Bye.