Exploring Summer Opportunities for STEM

Webinar Transcription

2023-05-21 – Exploring Summer Opportunities for STEM

Hi everyone and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant and I will be your moderator today. I am a Senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor and today’s webinar will be “Exploring Summer Opportunities for STEM.” Apologies. Before we get started, just wanna orient everyone with the webinar timing.

Our presenter will share some tips, resources, and guidance, and then we will open up the floor to respond to your questions in the live Q&A on the sidebar. You can download our slides under the handouts tab and you can start submitting questions whenever you get ready. In the Q&A tab, please only submit your questions through the Q&A tab, not through the chat or the DMs.

It’s a little distracting. We’ll try to get to as many questions as we can. Now let’s meet our presenter Lily. Hi Lily? Yeah. Hi Anesha. And hi everyone here. It’s really nice to meet you guys. Just to give you a little bit of background about myself I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis back in the class of 2020. While I was there, I majored in biomedical engineering and then also in computational biology. Right after undergrad, I went straight into grad school. And so I started a PhD at Stanford University in microbiology and immunology. And so that’s where I am currently.

I’m a third year grad student and I’m here to tell you guys all about different kinds of summer, summer opportunities. You can do more specific to stem. All right. We’re looking forward to it, but before we hand it over to you, we’re gonna do a quick poll. So please let us know what grade level you are in.

Eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade. And if you’re parents or teachers, we would ask that you put other, and while we’re reading for those poll results to come in. Lily, do you have a favorite place to eat in Palo Alto? Ooh, I think in Palo Alto. I really like the downtown Palo Alto area.

There’s a bunch of restaurants. I really like this place called Zarins. It’s like this Indian place and I feel like they have the best Tikka Masala. But I think, yeah, pretty much all around campus and just sort of, if you go off campus, there’s a lot of places to explore. Okay. I live in Oakland, but I’m planning to visit Stanford in a couple weeks, and so Oh, nice.

I’m, I’m trying to find one of the things to do in Palo Alto, so, yeah. Yeah, I would say the food scene’s definitely really good. In the downtown area, there’s like a little bit of everything. Yeah. That’s so cool that you’re, you know, calling in from so close to here too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the time zone is nicer, but yeah.

Alright well I’d love to talk to you about Sanford and other things later, but we’ll move on with our webinar for now. Yeah. Alright, we’re gonna close it. I’ll just let you know that the majority of folks who are with us today are in the 11th grade. So folks who might be thinking about some summer opportunities for this summer or for next summer about 58% are in the 11th grade.

The next biggest percentage of others. So I’m gonna assume some parents or mentors or teachers followed by 10th graders. And then we do have a handful of 12th and ninth graders, so that’s who’s in the room with us. But I will hand it over to you. I’ll be off camera, but let me know when you’d like me to advance the All right.

All right, so just to get started, so basically, you know, why should you be even looking at summer opportunities? You know, why can’t you just, you know, do whatever over the summer? Basically using your summer is gonna be a really great time to actually show initiative and show your interest in stem.

And so a lot of the times during, you know, high school, you can take a lot of courses related to stem, but it’s gonna be a little bit hard to have a longer term opportunity or a more in depth opportunity if you’re limited by your school schedule. And then also maybe by what courses are offered at your high school.

And so the first bullet point here, I would say doing something over the summer could be a really great way to get some more hands-on applications or HandsOn experience in in the STEM area, while also being to show that you’re really interested which can help you show colleges that, you know, maybe you have a major that you have in mind that you wanna pursue.

Maybe you’re showing that you’re really serious about pursuing STEM in the future. Going off of the second point, just exploring a different activity or career path. I feel like doing a summer opportunity, it is a short term experience, so usually this is gonna be two or three months within your summer.

It can also be a great time to just see, you know, if it’s a, it’s if it’s an activity that you don’t wanna do in the future. And so for a lot of students within STEM opportunities, I would say a really common activity is doing research. But sometimes, you know, you can try out research and just realize after a few weeks maybe you, you don’t wanna do research when you’re in college or maybe you don’t wanna do research in the future.

And I think that’s something that’s really important to also figure out early on just to help guide where you might wanna apply to college and then also what kind of activities you wanna do in college. On the flip side, if you find out that you know, there’s an activity that you really, really love that you know you wanna pursue, that can also really help.

Sometimes doing any kind of camp that’s related to a career path can help you decide whether or not you wanna do that career. And so maybe you go to a camp that’s for pre-med students, you realize that you really love hearing, you know, stories that the doctors are telling and you wanna be your doctor yourself.

That can be something that can help you decide what career path you wanna choose. And then also something that can help supplement you, explain to colleges why that career path is the right one for you along with that. So a lot of times during your summer opportunities, you’re gonna be guided by different people.

You’re gonna, you know, meet people within your cohort, but you’re also gonna meet new mentors. And so your mentors are actually people who could write a supplemental optional letter. A rec when it comes to applying to colleges. And so for your college applications, usually you’ll ask for two letters from teachers.

So a STEM teacher and a humanities teacher. You’ll get a letter from your college counselor, and then you, for some schools they’ll let you add an optional letter of your choice. And this can be from a mentor that necessarily isn’t like from from your high school or from any of your classes. And so for this, this could be maybe a research mentor that you have.

If you’re working and doing an internship, maybe that’s gonna be your internship supervisor. And this can also be something completely, you know, separate from sim. So maybe if you are really into athletics, you’re gonna have your coach write you a letter and so you have that extra spot. And then sometimes having these.

Summer experiences, especially if you have a good connection with your mentor and you’ve really grown throughout the summer experience they can be a great person who can show to your growth and also your interest in stem outside of the classroom. For my fourth point here so basically what happens in your summer opportunities, these are really great experiences that you can actually use to write about in your essays.

Later in the slide deck, I’m gonna explain more about, you know, what kinds of essays schools are gonna be asking for that will relate back to these experiences. But I would say for a lot of these opportunities, you can think of your experiences in two different sections. One is gonna be what is, what are the technical stem elements of your opportunity?

So if you’re working on a research project, you know, what was the goal of that research? What kind of new data did you produce? What kind of protocols or skills did you learn? And the second part is going to be, you know, what did you learn from that experience? So this is gonna be more about your reflections in terms of.

You know, how did this impact your, what career you wanna choose in the future or how does this impact what future activities you wanna do and how does it really motivate you to pursue stem? And so you can think of things as the STEM side, more of the quantitative information and the facts about the experiment like the experience, and then also more of the qualitative side.

So what you learned from the process and how that is gonna support who you are and, and what drives you to do stem. And then lastly, I feel like summer opportunities are of course good for your resume. They can be something that can boost your resume, but they shouldn’t be the reason why you’re pursuing these summer opportunities.

Definitely pursue activities because you’re genuinely interested in them and, and interested in just doing more of stem. And then, yeah, it’s, it’s always gonna be a nice bonus to have on your resume, but make sure it’s not gonna be the first thing you wanna do. Yeah, Anesha if you wanna hit to the next slide.

From there I’m gonna tell you just about the general types of summer opportunities in stem and then also my own experiences doing them. Back when I was a high schooler applying to colleges and then also some of the experiments experiences that I did. In college myself. And so we have the first one.

Like I said earlier, summer research is gonna be probably the most common type of STEM opportunity just because we, like the summer is a really good time to have a solid, you know, 10 weeks or eight weeks to work on a project, really delve into a field and be able to have a more extended amount of time to actually do that activity, learn some protocols, and do some experiments.

Just to talk more about you know, how to find research opportunities or what that usually looks like. I would say I should, you should start by looking for some kind of summer program. So this could be as simple as Googling the area that you’re in, and then any kinds of colleges near you. And then high school summer research opportunity.

Usually you can find a pi, so that’s a principal investigator, and so that’s gonna be the person who’s running the lab. So you can, and usually ask the pi if you are able to do a summer research opportunity there. And then usually each college will either have its own program meant for high school students, Or if you get permission from the pi, you’re able to work in that lab.

And so this is gonna be usually from a more college to college basis and also a lab to lab basis. After that there are also internships. And so sometimes, you know, the internship category will overlap a little bit with the research category. This is, you know, your internship could involve doing research if you’re maybe working at a company.

But a lot of the times an internship opportunity will be involving working at, you know, a regular job or working a summer at a company like a tech like a tech company. Along with that, you can also volunteer. And so I know many of you guys are probably also volunteering during the school year, but to make this more STEM specific some types of volunteering that you can do pretty much year round are things like doing STEM tutoring or volunteering at a science center or doing some kind of unpaid internship.

Because you’re still trying to get the training for something. And so I would say the volunteering and the internship categories can sometimes mesh together, especially if you are starting a new position and you wanna volunteer first before getting paid and doing an internship. But there are definitely ways to make your volunteering more STEM related especially if maybe some of the volunteering activities that you’re doing are more general.

Along with that, it can be really common to take classes. When I was in high school, I first took classes, I think the summer after my sophomore year. And that was just a great way for me to just, you know, get ready and, and really get ahead of some of my coursework. I personally took classes at a community college near me and I took AP bio, not AP bio.

I took biology before taking AP Bio in high school. And then I also took their intro chemistry course before taking AP Chem in high school. And I felt like those classes were really helpful for just like learning more of the concepts and being able to help me handle a harder course load going into the next year.

And so these classes can be, you know, classes that are at your high school. They can be classes at a nearby community college, like what I did, or also at a nearby college if they have some kind of dual enrollment program for high school students. In terms of, you know, class credit for me, I mean, if I took classes at my high school, it would transfer over to the next semester.

But if I took classes at community college or college, usually the credits, there was a case by case basis about what schools they might transfer to. But I wouldn’t really depend on having those credits transfer over to your future school. Along with that, it’s also an option to do a STEM camp, and so sometimes you can look online and look for a math camp or a science camp or a coding camp in your area.

I would say these are also a great opportunity just to show really a specific interest in a certain area. But do keep in mind that a lot of the times you have to pay for these STEM camps. So if you’re looking for a more affordable option, you might be looking at some of the other options where maybe you are getting paid or you are volunteering.

In addition, there are also just summer programs in general including pre-professional programs more specifically. And so this area again, might overlap with the research or internship section, especially if there is some kind of summer research program that you’re looking at. But I also wanna highlight pre-professional programs here.

Sometimes there’s gonna be some kind of, you know, coding bootcamp that’s gonna be a program or some kind of pre-Med Scholars program where you learn more about medicine. So I would also be on the lookout for these. And this is really gonna be more specific to what is gonna be available in your general area.

And so a lot of the times if you go into Google and you search your area, so for me that’s gonna be Palo Alto. You can add the words high school, summer and then add the words stem and sort of see what opportunities are there. I would say most commonly you can find research, it’s gonna be a little bit harder to look for internships just because there is a lot of training that needs to go in before you actually start a job.

And then I would say STEM camps are, are very, very common. And then classes will just depend on what is nearby. Along with that I also listed contests in hackathons. And so these opportunities are definitely more prevalent during the school year. But there are definitely still contests you can do over the summer or you can do some kind of project or research that will feed into a contest that you’ll apply for later in the fall.

In terms of contests, I’d say hackathons are gonna be really common. Usually hackathons are gonna be run year round, and so there will be just different hackathons. And if you haven’t heard of a hackathon before, this is usually some kind of coding competition or thinking design competition where you essentially get a really short timeframe.

So typically maybe two or three days to work on a project and demo it and present it and use that and submit that to a competition. And so if you go on websites like Dove Post you can usually find different kinds of hackathons. And then usually there’s a separate category for hackathons that are open to high school students.

Hackathons used to be more in person, but since the pandemic began, there’s a lot more that are available virtually. And so you can always check the calendar and see if you wanna maybe work on your coding skills before a hackathon, then apply for a hackathon, and then you know, submit whatever you make in those three days to a hackathon.

And that can be a great way to just get more competition experience and also just see if, you know, like, coding in, in a, in a time-pressured environment. And then lastly I also wanted to point out that you can also just do a personal project. This project will really be up to you and what kinds of things that you’re interested in.

Just for a few examples for what kinds of personal projects you can do. This could be something like, you know, if you’re really interested in computer science, maybe you’re gonna be coding a video game or you’re gonna code some kind of tool that you can use. Maybe if you really like writing and you wanna mesh that with science, you can work on science communication by writing a science blog about random, you know, science topics that really interest you.

And or maybe you want to read a bunch of scientific articles of your own and write up a research paper or review paper that summarizes those topics. And so I would say the personal project category is definitely really flexible. And feel free to ask me questions if you guys have questions about a personal project you’re thinking of pursuing or interested in in Anesha, if you wanna advance the next slide.

So you guys should start thinking about summer opportunities now. I would say in general, if you’re looking at more of the research programs or like official summer programs that are run by some kind of organization these applications will open as early as, you know, fall. So usually in October, and then they usually close in the spring, so February or March.

But this will also depend on, you know, what area you’re in. And what kinds of organizations are, are running these programs. In this case, since it’s May right now, don’t worry you’re not too late. There’s still enough time to find a STEM summer opportunity. And so say if you’re looking for the research category if all of the deadlines have already passed for the official programs, you can still cold email on PIs, so principal investigators and ask them if they would consider having you in the lab.

And then the same thing, you can also look at any kinds of science organization, organizations near you. So maybe if we’re really interested in doing an internship or volunteering at your nearby science museum, you can also see if there’s any information there about high school you volunteers or workers and find a person to reach out to.

And so a lot of this will depend again on just searching in your area, and I’ll talk a little bit more about, you know, what to actually look for when you’re looking for these opportunities. Right now. I’m Anesha if you wanna go to the next slide. All right. So how do you find these summer opportunities?

I would say, first off, I would use anyone in your network. So you can’t always use the internet, and I think that’s a great way to initially find what some of your opportunities you might be interested in. But then I think it’s always gonna be easier if you have someone or some kind of connection that can help get your foot through the door.

When you’re applying for different opportunities or reaching out to people you might think, okay, I don’t have a network. You know, I, I just go to school and I have my friends and my families and my teachers. But without knowing that you actually already have a huge STEM network for you, if there’s a STEM topic that you’re really interested in talk to any of your, your STEM teachers and see if your high school has any kinds of connections.

I remember when I was in high school, I had a friend who talked to their AP bio teacher about how much they loved biology, and their teacher actually had a friend who worked in a lab and they ended up working in that lab. And so you can really talk to your teachers, see if they know anyone who has any opportunities available.

And then also keep in mind that sometimes your high school might have a connection with another organization, and so they might have a partner organization that allows students to do internships. So I would also just ask your teachers about if there’s any kind of high school partnership that they know about that they can maybe recommend you for or just give you more information about.

Along with that, your network also just includes, you know your parents and also your friends as parents. I know some people, you know, even if their parents aren’t specifically working in stem, maybe their best friends’ parents are working in STEM and you can sort of see if they know anyone who can help you find opportunities.

I would say for me, I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, so I lived really close to Washington University in St. Louis, and they have a bunch of research labs. So for me, like chances were pretty high that, you know, my parents, they weren’t really working in the type of science that I was really interested in, but I had definitely had friends who had labs that were more biology focused or immunology focused.

Okay. Along with that if you have a LinkedIn account, you can definitely use that as well. I know high school is a little bit early to start using LinkedIn, but I know some of you guys already have an account and are, are getting ahead. LinkedIn is something that you’ll probably use more commonly when you’re in college, but it’s also not too early to start your LinkedIn account and start connecting with people and using that to look for different opportunities.

So after that, say if you’ve asked your STEM teachers, you’ve, you know, talked to people who are running organizations at your high school, you’ve talked to really, you know, all of the personal connections that you might have, and you’ve also searched LinkedIn what are some other things that you can do?

And so here I would really turn to the internet and just see what is available. If you look on a map, just look at what colleges are first near you, and then I think for each school look up any kinds of research opportunities. Some schools, if they don’t have a formal program or if the deadline for that program has closed for research, sometimes they’ll have a separate page that is basically just a consent form that will.

Allow you as a high school student to work in someone’s lab either as a volunteer or as a paid intern. And so that’s something that you can do for basically any college in your area that you’re able to, you know, drive to or commute to. Along with that, I feel like local science museums or centers are also a great way to look for different opportunities.

And so I would see if there’s any kind of internship program for high school students and apply to that if you’re able to. And then lastly, if you are looking for opportunities and, you know, someone who runs a program or maybe someone who, you know, works in a lab, you can also send cold emails to express your interest.

I would say cold emails are gonna be the hardest approach just because you don’t really have a personal connection with the person that you are trying to get in touch with. So it can be really common that they’ll just ghost you. They won’t reply. And so in order to get your emails you know, in order to try to get a response with a better frequency things that you can also do is really make your emails more specific to that person.

And so for example, if you’re writing a cold email about wanting to work in a lab, maybe you can say something about, you know, what you saw on their lab website and what really interests you and why you wanna work in that lab. That can really help your chances of getting response. And so I remember for me early on when I was looking at different, you know, biology labs that were in my local area, there were a few where, you know, I had read about one of the proteins that a lab was sitting in class and I thought it was really cool and I did some extra reading on it.

And that was something that I talked about in an email when reaching out to that lab. When you’re sending these cold emails, I would also include your resume. And so if you don’t have a updated version of your resume, I would definitely either make one or update it and make sure that it is up to date with essentially any relevant coursework that you might have.

And then also any kinds of activities that you’re doing, whether or not they’re related to stem. Anesha, if you wanna advance the next slide all. So what kind of things do you need to apply for these summer opportunities? So this is gonna be more specific to applications, but this is essentially a list of an all inclusive list of things that you will probably see either within applying for things or just things that you should have on hand.

I would say the first thing is gonna be having a resume ready. This is gonna be for if you’re sending out any messages to people or you want people to consider you for a summer opportunity they’ll need your resume just to get some more information about you, like, you know, where you go to high school what year you’re in, what kind of classes you’ve taken, and what kind of background experience you might have.

For your resume. You can really tweak your resume to be more specific to whatever you’re applying for. And so maybe if you are, you know, applying to a coding camp and you need a resume, maybe you’ll include some kinds of coding courses that you might have taken on your own or any kinds of coding languages that you already know just to show them that you do have the experience needed to apply for something.

Along with that, some of your summer opportunities might require a recommendation letter. I would say usually they’ll require one or two letters. It can actually be really nice to ask for these letters now because that way when you’re applying to college in the future, you’ll already have a letter written from someone.

And so you can always ask them, Hey, do you mind, you know, updating that letter and then would you consider writing a recommendation letter to apply to college? And so that can be a great way to just have a letter on hand, know that it’s already been written for a previous opportunity. And then you can also keep that connection with the teacher that’s writing you that letter.

I would say for these recommendation letters, you’re probably gonna be asking a STEM teacher from your high school. And then for that you can always ask and see if there’s any kind of information that they need to write the letter. Usually when I’m asking for a recommendation letter from a teacher, I also provide my resume just so they have it as a reference.

And then I also ask them if there are any questions they want me to answer to help them write the letter. This could be sometimes be, you know, any kinds of stories that I have about their class just to jog their memory or anything that I really want them to include in their letter or what. You know, I want them to sort of say about me in a general sense.

In addition, some opportunities will ask you for an essay. For this, the prompt may differ. I remember when I was in high school applying for a summer research program. I think they had asked me, you know, tell me something about science that excites you, or something along those lines. And so I wrote an essay for that.

And so I, I think you should just prepare to maybe have the time to write a letter and then always look at the application requirements closely just to make sure that you have enough time to write any kind of written response. Along with that, if you are sending out cold emails to people looking for opportunities, I think it’s really handy to have an email template.

You can look for these online and then a lot of the times you would have a template and then tweak the information based on who you’re actually sending that email to. And then lastly there might be a few other things that you might need to submit. This could be transcripts, summary, your high school.

Sometimes different places want your standardized testing scores. Sometimes they just want a reference, like an email or a phone number. From someone who can vouch for you. And so I would check these requirements closely and make sure that you have everything Anesha if you wanna advance to the next slide.

All right. So people always ask, you know, how do you rank these different summer opportunities? I would say, again, this is from a case by case basis, but a lot of the times I would maybe go along the lines of prestige pay official organization, and then perhaps something that you’re able to do on your own.

That’s not to say that any of these opportunities are gonna be weighted more than the other. I would say when it comes down to it what’s gonna matter most is what you actually get out of that opportunity, and then also the reflection that you actually get. So maybe if you end up doing, you know, a very prestigious research opportunity, but you maybe had another opportunity that, that would’ve been something that we, where you would get more mentorship or you’d be able to have more exploration in stem.

I guess within each one, as long as you can tell a story. Explaining what you really learned from the process and how that shaped you as a person who wants to pursue stem. I would say both opportunities would be equally helpful. Just going off of the first point so prestigious opportunities can help you stand out.

I would say the ones that really stand out here are if you are able to get a spot at a very prestigious place. So RSI Research Summer Institute, I would say is probably one of the most prestigious summer research opportunities that you can apply and get for. Usually maybe they’ll take one student from each state, maybe two students if it’s a larger state.

And so this is gonna be a really competitive opportunity. There also are a bunch of like science contests that you can also apply for. And so this is more like you do a research opportunity and then you submit your project findings later in the school year. And so these are also gonna be more competitive opportunities, but something that you can prepare for during your summer.

And then they’re also just. General contests STEM contests like any of the olympiad. And so for this, this is also something where you could also spend part of your summer either preparing for those or self-studying. But again, I would say don’t worry too much about the prestige for a lot of these opportunities because prestigious opportunities are gonna be, you know, in nature, more competitive.

I think instead focus on what you wanna gain from the experience and then how you can really work on yourself and devote yourself to stem. Going off of my second bullet point in my eyes, I usually like paid opportunities a little bit more than unpaid opportunities. You can always use, you know, the extra money to save for college.

In terms of the prestige here I would say if possible, if you’re able to either, you know, pay or volunteer, in my eyes, it’s gonna be a little bit better than an opportunity where you have to pay to play basically. That’s just usually because if you have to pay for the opportunity, it’s gonna be maybe more common that it’s gonna be less competitive.

And so having those paid opportunities, they are gonna be more rare, but they will be a little bit more competitive, and I think that can help you stand out a little bit. Along with that, if you know there are any kinds of opportunities where you’re working with an organization or there’s more of a structured summer program built in this sometimes can have more weight than doing some kind of independent activity.

But I would say with independent activities or personal projects, these can also hold a ton of weight, especially depending on what you actually gain from the experience. So maybe if you have, you know, an opportunity where you’re volunteering at your local science museum, but another opportunity where you have coded your own video game and you’ve released it to the public I would say the video game in this case is gonna be a really, really unique opportunity that you have just because you’ll be able to tell just like how much work and effort that you’ve put into this personal project.

And so that’s why I say within your independent activities or your personal projects, The waiting of, you know, how good they are, really depends on what you get out of it. And I would say if you’re working on a big personal project, that you’re gonna get a lot out of that experience. And then, yeah, just as a recap out of all these out of all these opportunities, remember to reflect on, you know, why, how it’s impacted, you know, you pursuing stem, why you wanted to do the activity in the first place, and what you really gained from the experience.

And this is something that you can really also bring into the college application process throughout your essays. Anesha, if you wanna advance to the next slide.

All right, so I mentioned college applications a few times. And so this question is more of, you know, how does your summer opportunities, how do they actually fit into your applications? First off, like whatever summer opportunities you do, you should definitely list it within your resume. I would say anything that you do over the summer should be on your resume.

All of your activities should be on your resume. And these will just be something that you can include if you end up getting a recommendation letter from someone who’s mentoring you during these opportunities. That’s another way that basically everything that you do will fit into your college application.

For this, if you end up asking for recommendation letter be sure to ask early. So this can be something where, say if you, you’re doing your summer opportunity, maybe in the last week, you’ll ask your mentor if they would be willing to write your recommendation letter for college. And then that way you can also keep in touch with ’em in the months that follow.

And, you know, keep them updated about how you’re doing in high school. And then when it comes time for them to write the letter, give them another reminder. And another update about how things are going. In addition you might also talk about your summer experiences in your interviews. Sometimes, you know, interview interviewers will ask you things like, you know, tell me about a time that you faced a challenge, or tell me about a time that you faced something new.

These are all things where if you have a story that can come from a summer opportunity this is a good time that you can also showcase that in an interview. And then I would say the most common spot to talk about these summer opportunities are most likely gonna be in your essays. There are a lot of different common essay prompts and CollegeAdvisor has a bunch of webinars as well that go more in depth about the specific prompts that you might be able to see and, and common approaches to answer these.

I would say there’s an activity essay where sometimes the pump will just ask you something along the lines of, tell me about an activity and how it’s impacted you. Sometimes there’s a variation on this where it’ll ask about an activity and how it’s impacted what you wanna major in. And so there, there are different types that this question can be asked, but your summer act opportunity can essentially become a really nice essay and a really nice story that you can share about yourself to the, to the admissions committee.

Sometimes there are schools that will ask you directly, you know, what did you do over the summer? I think in past years, MIT has asked this, and so this will help you, you know, have an answer to that prompt. And then there are also other types of common prompts where they’ll just ask you things about, you know, tell me about a time that you’ve worked in a team, or tell me about, you know, how you’ve collaborated with others.

And so I would say, especially if your summer activities are gonna be group work this is a great way to use those in your essays as well. Anesha, if you wanna advance the next slide. All right. So basically, what should you do to, you know, find an opportunity? I would say start early and start today if possible.

Because there are so many different types of opportunities and, you know, every single one has a different kind of deadline or different kind of opportunity or organization or different kind of person to reach out to. I would apply broadly. I think, you know, start by brainstorming. You can do this, you know, right now at the end of the webinar.

But first maybe brainstorm, you know, what kinds of activities you’re really interested in. And then also who you know that you could ask about an opportunity or, you know, just ask about some ideas if you’re still in the brainstorming phase. I would say if possible, You know, after this webinar, think of someone, someone that you wanna reach out to or something that you want to read more about.

And I think just taking those initial steps will already get you started into looking for summer opportunities. Anesha, if you wanna advance the slides, All right, so we are done with the presentation part of our session. Thank you so much, Lily, for all of that thoughtful information. I hope you all that were listening, found it helpful.

There’s some questions in the, in the chat regarding pre-med and health. We do have a separate webinar that talked about pre-health and pre-medicine. I’ll drop that link in the chat, but we, I will also give Lily an opportunity to respond if you have, if you have the context, let me, let me know.

But before we get started moving into the live Q&A, just so a quick reminder that there are, the slides are available under the handouts tab, and please only submit your questions through the Q&A. If you’re having any trouble submitting your questions through the Q&A, you might have to log out and log back in through the link in your email and not through the webinar landing page.

All right. The first question that I have for you, Lily, is someone said, is it too late? So is it too late just to do summer programs for this summer? Yeah, I would say it’s, it’s not too late at all. If you’re at the webinar now, you still have time essentially. I would really focus on, you know, looking at what kinds of options you have if there are any kinds of opportunities where the deadline is passed.

Keep in mind that you can also apply next year if you’re still gonna be a high school student. And so even if you’re a little bit late for some of the deadlines for this coming cycle, you can still apply next cycle. And then for this summer you can focus on some other kinds of opportunities where maybe you don’t need to be an official program if any kinds of deadlines have already passed.

One question that just came in that I think is interesting is if you live in a small town or a rural area, what kind of stem opportunities can you do? Yeah, I think in that case I guess maybe see like what people’s occupations are around you. I know for like, especially for the health sector say, you know, if you have an eye doctor that is in your town ask them if you know you can shadow them or if you can work in their clinic or help out.

I know that’s usually a common AC like activity that high school students can do. So working in an eye clinic same thing if you are interested in more of the pre-med route, if your town has, you know, a hospital or a doctor on call, you can always ask if you can shadow them. And then same goes for other types of jobs.

Say if you know someone who is a programmer who lives in your town, you can always ask them if maybe you can have more of an informational interview with them and ask them more about their job or you know, ask them if they, if they’re, whoever they’re working for is able to take students who work on a summer project.

And so I would say like, even if you. Maybe you don’t have some of these resources as closely, maybe you don’t have a college nearby where you can do research at. You can see who else is in your area, who is within, you know, a similar career path that you wanna pursue. And then I would also say even if it’s not this coming summer for next year, apply for different summer opportunities.

And there are some that will actually host you to stay at a college campus to do research there. And so you can also look for some of these other opportunities, but I will say some of those are gonna be a little bit more rare. Yeah, most of them will probably be more in your surrounding area.

Can I participate in a STEM summer program or internship if I haven’t taken any related coursework in high school? Yeah, I would say in this case, maybe you’re, you know, gonna be an incoming freshman. I would say yes, you can still you know, apply and participate in these programs. I would definitely check the program requirements and see if there are anything about course restrictions.

But I think a lot of the time it’s actually more common for them to, you know, want you to be a certain year in high school rather than having, you know, taken certain courses. Also if you feel that you are, you know, missing some kinds of background coursework feel free to also take your, use your summer to take these courses and really fill in some of those foundations.

If you feel like that’s something that you need how do you identify if an opportunity is? How do you identify if you have a good shot of getting into a specific opportunity? Yeah, so this is more of a, a stats or numbers game. I would say this sort of depends on the opportunity itself. If it is something that is run by like a big organization or it’s, you know, well known, you can usually look at the stats online by just, you know, looking at different forums or looking at any kinds of acceptance rates from previous years.

If you have absolutely no information about it, you can also reach out to the people who are running the program. But no, of course you don’t wanna bother them too much with, with questions cuz they’re gonna be busy reviewing applications and getting the program put together. Otherwise. I think the best you can do is just apply broadly if you’re, you know, completely unsure.

Usually if you can apply to a few different things, you’ll be able to land something for the summer.

What sorry, this is an interesting question about time management. So someone said if you’re planning on getting a summer job and or doing classes while applying for internships, how can I balance the work? Yeah, I think this really maybe depends on you. I would say if you can make school your first priority you know, make sure that you are taking classes that challenge you, but you aren’t feeling too overloaded and too overworked.

I think after that, if you feel like you’re able to add something on a lot of the times if you need to support your family I would say a job can be a really great way to do that. If you need to, you know, support them financially or save up money for college. I would say after that, if you are trying to apply for things, this can be as simple as maybe setting aside 15 minutes a day or even half an hour a week just to look for different opportunities.

I think even if you don’t have, you know, a ton of time to commit something because you’re really busy with schoolwork or a job even having, you know, when you have a little bit of downtime, if you’re able to do some searches, send out a few emails and follow up on any kinds of previous emails that you might’ve, you know, sent out earlier that could be really helpful just to get the process started and also to keep up with it.

Can you tee you down that line? One of the questions was, how can I research some summer internships? Should I just be Googling? Are there specific websites that I can turn to? Yeah, I would say, I guess a combination of all of them. I think it really depends on your specific area, but again, maybe before you start Googling, reach out to your network first.

If you’re, you know, if you’re, say you’re a chem teacher, already knows someone who is looking for a high school student or an intern to work in, you know, their lab or their company, that can be a really easy way to just lock down an opportunity instead of going through the whole rabbit hole of going through the internet.

So I think reach out to your network first. After that check out what’s available online. Reddit can be a great way to look for different opportunities. So if there’s one for your local area or just any for just looking for general opportunities. And then usually online, there’s a lot of high schoolers will just compile a bunch of opportunities.

So if you look at some forums you’ll just be able to find a link to those. And then usually they’ll sort of go through a bunch of different opportunities, not just for stem, but also for all different, you know, areas that you might be interested in. And then for these I would just double check that any of the, you know, activities that are listed are legitimate organizations.

And then also that, you know, their deadlines haven’t passed or, you know, they aren’t like expired. They aren’t, they aren’t gonna be projects or opportunities that aren’t, you know, happening again this year. Some folks are asking if you have any specific programs that you would recommend. Yeah, I would say if you’re interested in research, I would highly recommend applying to research Summer Institute.

So RSI that’s the one that I had mentioned earlier. I would say RSI is extremely competitive, so most students who apply will probably not get in, but you’ll probably have the right op like, you know, application materials ready to apply for other research opportunities as well. So, you know, apply for RSI.

It might be a long shot, it’s gonna be competitive for pretty much everyone. After that apply to everything that is in your local area. So any kinds of colleges that are near you. Near you. Yeah. Thank you. So more specific requests. Someone said, what are some of opportunities one could do if they’re interested in biotechnology or a mix of creative aspects like architecture and art?

Oh, okay. So biotech probably, you know, research interning at a company shadowing someone who is working in biotech. Personal project-wise, maybe you can, you know, if there’s more of computational component to your biotech you can download some softwares, follow some tutorials, and try to think of your own project.

I guess for art and architecture, I’m not too suited to answer stuff in this area. But I think if there is like, you know, an art, art museum near you, see if maybe you can intern there. That may be more along, you know, the lines of museum curation, but I think, you know, having some kind of organization that can maybe direct you towards other opportunities can be helpful.

Maybe if you talk here at museum, you can meet someone who is an architect or someone who’s a working artist. And then see if they have anything that you could help them with. Awesome. I’m gonna take just a minute at the 40 minute mark to do a quick PSA for any folks in the room who aren’t already working with us, we know how evolving the process can be.

You all have a ton of questions and we have a team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your family manage and navigate the process through 1:1 advising sessions. You can take the next step in your college admission journey and sign up for a free 45 to 60 minute session with an admission specialist on our team by using the QR code that is on the screen.

During that conversation, we’ll talk about your current extracurriculars, your application strategy, talk about your college list and outline tools that you’ll need to stand out. Me competitive missions world. So we’ll leave that link up there or that QR code for you all up there, but we’ll get back to the questions.

My next question for you, Lily, is what kind of skills and experiences do I need to be competitive for the summer programs? Specifically in engineering? Yeah. I guess for engineering specifically, I feel like even if you aren’t gonna be, you know, a computer science engineer or you know, a computer engineer, I think coding is gonna be a really helpful skill to have.

Just going, you know, across the board for other things within your resume. I think just being involved within your high school and so any kinds of STEM activities that you can be a part of, especially if you can you know, be a part of them for a long time, but then also gain any kinds of leadership positions if they’re available.

I feel like those are things that can really help build your resume and help you become competitive by showing that you, you have this longstanding interest in stem and then you also have the ability to lead others or teach others in that area. I think aside from that, if you are gonna be an upperclassmen, I would say just like opportunities, breed opportunities.

So if you’re able to get an internship or a research opportunity you know, the summer before, it’s gonna definitely help you with getting another opportunity after that. It’s gonna be a little bit hard, you know, getting your very first opportunity but that’s why I’m having a good track record within your high school and just being as involved as possible could definitely help.

Do you have any specific advice for pre-med students that might be different from the stem approach that you’ve mentioned thus far? Yeah, so I would say for pre-med, you know, it’s, it’s a whole other field, but I would say most commonly pre-med students will do some kind of research before they apply to colleges.

I’d say this isn’t like, you know, it’s necessary to have research, but it is pretty common for them to have some kind of research opportunity. This is also a good way to decide if you wanna do research in college or not, but now, now it’s gonna be a lot more common for undergrad students to do research before applying to med school.

So it’s, it’s, you know, never too late to start while you’re in high school. Along with that, I would say for the summer it’s really good to do any kinds of hospital shadowing and also hospital volunteering. For shadowing, this is gonna be, you know, if you know any kind of doctor near you you can ask to shadow them and basically follow them throughout their day and learn more about the specialty that they’re in.

I would say if you are doing hospital shadowing, you know, if you shadow one doctor, that could be enough already for you to basically, you know make it more concrete that you do want to pursue medicine. And so from that shadowing opportunity, you really wanna see, you know, what is the doctor gonna be doing from day to day.

And is that something that you actually wanna do in the future? If so, you know, stay on the pre-med track. If not, maybe there’s another track within STEM that you’re really interested in. In terms of shadowing, I mean, you could, you know, shadow as many doctors as you are able to, but I would say it’s probably not necessary to shadow a ton unless you really are trying to narrow down what specialties you really like.

But I would say for shadowing, you probably have a lot more time in college to shadow different specialties and then even more time in med school when you’re doing rotations. Along with that hospital volunteering I think is a really great way and also a common activity that high school students might be doing.

For this, it really just depends on your local hospital and the age requirements for when you can actually start volunteering. I would say for hospital volunteering as much as possible, if you can choose an activity that involves more patient like interaction, that will be a lot more helpful than an activity where maybe you’re just stocking the shelves at your hospital.

Both are gonna be really, you know, helpful to helping the hospital out, but I would say if you are able to talk to patients or, you know, meet patients or just see them that’s gonna be a lot more helpful to, you know supplement why you want to be a doctor because you have that experience. And then it will also be a little bit easier to talk about, you know, story-wise, how that experience has fed into why you want to do pre-med.

I’m muted. Sorry. Someone followed up with that said could opportunities that involve coding or other technical skills be applied for pre-med students as well? Is, is, would that be useful at all? Yeah, for sure. I would say it really depends on maybe like what you wanna major in. I know pre-med is a track, so you can choose whatever major you want and then still be pre-med.

I would say if you can, if you wanna, you know, merge everything together and have a common theme throughout your application, it can be nice if maybe whatever you’re coding is gonna have some kind of health application or biomedical application. That being said, if, you know, say you’re early in coding, you just wanna code whatever you can, that’s also totally fine.

But if you can make that link and explain how maybe your coding skills will affect how you’re gonna be a good physician or a good pre-med student in the future it’s always really nice to have your activities linked together that way, especially when they’re all STEM related. Is it all right for us to not have done a college program over the summer?

Yeah, that’s also totally fine. I would say throughout your summer, as long as you’re doing something and you can tell a good story about it, you can explain how it’s improved you as a person. I would say that’s gonna be a great opportunity no matter, you know, if you’re doing a formal program. I would say even for, you know, summer programs, a lot of times these programs will cost money and so especially finances are a concern.

It can be just as worthy to do, you know, an independent project or a passion project. It could even be better if you have a huge involvement in that kind of project. So I would say if you haven’t done, you know, an official program or summer opportunity, that’s totally okay. I think as long as you have something to explain for what you deserve the summer that will be really helpful.

Do you have any quick tips for writing an effective resume when applying for some opportunities in stem? Are there specific skills that I should really work to highlight in that resume? Yeah, I would say for quick tips maybe a few, I guess like look at different templates online. So if you look up, you know, resume template for high school that can already be really helpful.

If you look at just like general resume templates, they might be more for people who, you know, have finished college and are applying for jobs. And so they might have a whole set of experiences that you won’t have yet because you know, you’re still a student. I think, you know, whenever possible for your resume try to organize it so that it’s gonna be as easy to read as possible.

You don’t want, you know, a huge block of text, but you also don’t want to have, you know, a bunch of empty spaces. If you think about, you know, who’s reading your resume, maybe they don’t have a lot of time. They’re going through a lot of different resumes to look for the best candidate. So if you can do whatever you can, you know, if you can bold things, underline things, use italics just to make your resume as easy to read as possible, but I’ll give you a, a leg up.

And then also just making your skill section really, you know, complete and neat. If you’re applying for, you know, a specific program or a job and they already have a list of requirements, try to use those keywords from the requirements in your resume itself. That’ll really help just, you know, pass any kinds of initial checks if they are using some kind of automation to look at your resume.

And then lastly, this is, you know, probably new for this year, but you can use chat g Bt. That being said, you know, this can be a diff few different ways, but I would recommend maybe. Submitting your resume to chat GPT, asking it to grade it and then asking how you can improve that grade so that way you know, the AI is gonna be helping you improve your own resume.

If you just, you know, send ’em a bunch of information and ask them to make a resume from scratch, it might not be the best resume because, you know, the AI isn’t perfect yet. But definitely use your technology tools to your bandage. I love that workaround for chatGPT of like asking it to do something very specific and not necessarily just regurgitate for you.

Mm-hmm. Okay. There are a couple questions asking for if you have specific ideas about either opportunities for marine biology or personal projects for machine learning. So I don’t know if you can tackle one or both of those, but yeah. All right. So marine biology and machine learning. So I would say for marine bio, this also might just depend on where geographically you are.

You know, if you are very landlocked, it might be kind of hard to find these opportunities. I would say for all of these, look for any kinds of local aquariums you have or kinds of basically like marine life centers. I know near me maybe, you know, an hour away, there’s a marine mammal hospital and I’ve actually visited there before.

I’m sure if you talk to some of the staff there, you can ask them what kinds of opportunities might be available or, you know, give them a call first if it’s gonna be a long track to go over. So I think any kinds of related facilities, so either animal care facilities, ecosystem care facilities, any kinds of field work, research aquariums, try to reach out to those areas and see if you can, you know, get someone to contact.

And then also if they’re willing to take high school students on for the summer. Also, you know, if safe, they’re not able to take students, you can also just ask, you know, what kinds of directions they might be able to point you in to find someone who is gonna be looking for high school students to do work.

So I think for, you know, while in life you might have more opportunities if you’re in an area that is on the coast though let’s see. For machine learning and ai I would say for this, probably most commonly, if you don’t have, you know, a ton of. Machine learning or AI skills, maybe start with a course online.

There’s a bunch of courses I know. Stanford has, I think a Coursera course for deep learning that’s pretty popular. And, you know, Coursera is completely free. If you wanna gain the skills and just practice your AI skills from there, I would say research is probably gonna be a more common route for finding an opportunity and like having a hands on application for ai.

But because, you know, AI is completely, you know, remote you can totally do something on your own as a project. I would say here it’s just gonna be, you know, whatever you’re really interested in. Maybe you’re really interested in, you know, looking for drug targets and you want to code, you know, I guess maybe how, you know, maybe you wanna use code to visualize proteins and then create a screen to look for different drug targets, that this can really be up to you in terms of what topics you’re interested in.

But I think maybe for trying to figure out a topic at first, see if you can find, you know, a paper online that explains, you know, the kind of I guess machine learning architecture that they use and then see if it’s something that you think you can emulate or even improve on. For this, I would sort of call this like finding a seed paper, the first final project.

So that way you aren’t gonna be, you know, completely creating something from scratch. You can basically take inspiration from what’s already being published in the field and also you can help, you know, the field move in a certain direction. So those are my yeah, my recommendations for marine biology and then also for machine learning.

Are there any specific, I guess, publications you would point folks towards specifically around machine learning and ai? I know I feel like in graduate school you have access to like Lexus and I’m not sure what all, so what are some, I guess, journals that you would point folks towards if they’re looking for that kinda research?

Yeah, so actually I would point you guys towards a database. So PubMed P U B M E D, that’s gonna be the database for basically all like biology and biomedical related publications. If you type anything into that database, it’ll give you, you know, the most recent publications. For computer science.

I forget the exact name of the database, but basically there’s an archive. It’s literally spelled R X I V. This is gonna be a, a center where people will essentially submit their papers, but this is like before they’re necessarily published. And this is something that is actually becoming more new in stem, where people are first releasing a draft of their papers as they’re going through the submission process, just to really advance the field and have it speed up.

That way you don’t have to wait for the paper to be published before people actually read it. And so a lot more of the time computer science publications are gonna go through some kind of archive database. And you’ll be able to basically see the papers, you know, say if someone posted a paper yesterday, you’ll be able to see it the next day.

And so that’s gonna be the place where you can see the most recent papers that are happening. Otherwise there is some overlap between PubMed and computer science. But yeah, as someone who’s not, you know, a computer science specialist I don’t know the data based off the top of my head. No. Yeah, that’s fair.

You knew more than I did, so I just dropped both of those links into the chat. So hopefully folks feel free to take advantage of them. One other question that I had was, how can I, what should, yeah, sorry. What should I expect from a summer program or internship and what are the potential benefits or challenges to anticipate?

Yeah, so I think this also depends on the program itself, but I would say if you’re thinking of, say for example, like some kind of research program or a program for high school students, a lot of the time there’s gonna be, you know, most of the days you’re gonna be focused on an activity. So that’s gonna be probably you doing your research with a mentor.

A lot of times your research mentor will have a project that they’ve thought of before, and then you’ll probably spend the first few weeks just, you know, training, doing protocols, learning your skills. Then the rest of the weeks will be you working on that project. And then usually the final week will be, you know, you wrapping things up.

And then also maybe doing some kind of presentation. So maybe making a poster or making a talk that you can talk to, talk about with your, like, cohort in the program. And then, you know, I said, or maybe around half of your time is doing those independent things. Sometimes your programs will also, for the other portion of the time, have some kinds of seminars or career advancement built in.

So maybe they’ll have speakers come in and tell you more about their research or speakers just tell you more about their career paths. Or maybe you’ll have, you know, more high school relevant topics like, you know, a workshop on how to apply to colleges or, you know, workshop on making a school list or workshops about resumes.

And so I would say for high school programs, it’s gonna be more common that you have that extra programming built in where they’re also just gonna, you know, teach you things about career and life advancement aside from, you know, just the activity itself. But I would say for most programs expect to work on some kind of project and then maybe do a presentation at the end.

Can you say what are some tips for building a professional network after you’ve concluded those programs? Yeah, I would say for, I guess building a professional network after the programs, definitely reach out to, you know, everyone who was in that program. And then also anyone who was running the program.

I didn’t even realize when I was a high school student that, you know, the people that I did my summer program with when I was like, what, like a high school junior? They’re all doing really cool things right now. A lot of them are, you know, either in grad school or med school, they’re working like, by this time, I mean, this is gonna be, you know, you guys in literally like, you know, seven or eight years from now, everyone that you’ve met in the past is gonna be part of your professional network.

And so, you know, if you’re able to, you know, I don’t know, connect with your, your cohort on Instagram and then also for anyone who’s running the program, connect with them on LinkedIn because maybe people in your year don’t have LinkedIn yet. And so I think starting your LinkedIn early can always be nice because you’re able to.

Really keep track of who you’ve interacted with, but also just keeping those connections alive on other, you know, forms of social network can also be really helpful in the future. Some folks have been asking about specific research opportunities or ask you for example, so I am gonna drop some more links in the chat.

One other program that I know that is not connected to an institution, but that does allow for independent research is called Collegian Poly, P O L Y G E N C E. So some folks are asking for specific examples. Oh yeah, I actually I know people who are mentors at Polygence cuz they’re, they’re based, like, they were founded by people who went to Stanford.

It’s actually a really great organization basically where you get paired with a mentor and then you get to choose a personal project to work on. I would say for that program it’s really common for students to work on a research paper where basically they get to work with someone who’s usually, you know, someone who’s in grad school who’s able to walk you through, like brainstorming a topic and then writing like a, a research review article about that topic.

And then using that as something that maybe they wanna submit to a high school journal or use it as more of a personal project kind of thing. There are also other projects where students are, you know, doing their own machine learning coding and they’re having a computer science mentor help them. Or some students are also doing things like, you know, writing a novel or writing an opera.

Just depending on what skillset the mentors might also have. Yeah, I, my student, I, I think it’s an interesting, the self-driven, and especially when it’s a paper review for sciences that you’re not going to get access to when, you know, as a volunteer. So I have a lot of students who are interested in neuroscience and so they’re reading papers to kind of create these responsive papers because it is going to be very difficult undergrad or even, especially as a high school student, to get access to that type of shadowing opportunity.

So I dropped Collegian in the website. I’m gonna drop another one. I’m sorry, I dropped the Allan website into the chat. I’m gonna drop another one in a few seconds. Let, let me keep going. Mm-hmm. Is collegian just for Col, California students? No, I think it’s nationwide. But I think a lot of the mentors come from Stanford just because that’s where it’s based, but I’m pretty sure it’s open to the whole nation.

Yeah. We are not doing a allegiance commercial, but just fyi that that is one of the resources someone asked, are there funded research programs over the summer? And I guess I’ll add to that. Mm-hmm. The question about like, are, are there going to be financial aid or scholarships available for folks who wanna pursue those types of opportunities as well?

Right. I would say for a lot of research programs, it really depends on the program. Like I said earlier, it’s sort of like, it’s either you get paid for the program, so sometimes you’ll do research and you’ll get paid an hourly stipend or just a stipend overall for the program itself. Sometimes it’ll doll program and it’s just completely free, but maybe they’ll cover your housing and your food.

If it’s something that is something where you, you know, you have to relocate for it. I know RSI is one of those programs where you end essentially, like all fees are gonna be covered, so they’re not paying you, but they are gonna be covering your housings, which is sort of like, you know, them paying you and then you paying housing.

After that they’re gonna be programs where you have to pay. So my very first summer opportunity, it was, you know basically something where I was able to connect through my high school to a local university that was doing research, but for all of that I had to pay, you know, a certain amount of money.

And then actually at the end, my mentor said, I’m gonna keep you on for four more weeks and you can get paid a stipend. And so it’s just one of those things where if your lab decides to keep you on and pay you, that’s something that can also be an option. But I would say more commonly for high school, for a lot of these programs, you do have to pay at the beginning because they’re gonna be spending a lot of resources and time training you to do something.

And then afterwards, once you have the skills, sometimes your lab will allow you to work for, you know, a salary, which will be more like working a job. And then I also will say for different summer opportunities, if you are able to either continue work during the school year, that is an option for something that you can do.

And so some students, if they’re doing, you know, Like work at the bench. So like wet lab science where it’s more hands on, sometimes they’ll be able to continue working after school. But this is gonna be, you know, kind of hard with your school schedule. Cause I know you guys all have extracurriculars and, you know, clubs and on different sports you have to do after school.

Otherwise another option is if you end up doing a more dry lab project. So a computational project. These projects are a little bit easier to continue during the school year because, you know, you’ll be learning the coding skills throughout the summer and then throughout the school year, maybe you’re gonna be doing some coding for your project to continue it during the school year.

But it’s gonna be a little bit less intensive without the commute.

All right. A lot more of the questions are about very specific. Well, I guess I’ll just end on what do you feel like is the impact of, someone asked this and now I’ll cut it down. Or just like, what is the impact of doing personal projects and how do they weigh in the admissions process? Yeah, I would say they can have a huge impact, but it really depends on the project itself.

I would say if, if you can really use that project to show your passion, like, you know, the Passion project is doing its job and it’s gonna be really, you know, positively impactful to your application. I would say like, you know, if you have a really good personal project, you can show that you’ve put a lot of time and effort into it.

You’ve really reflected on it. It’s helped you grow as a person, and you can write an essay about that that’s gonna be, you know, gold for your application. I would say if your, if your project is, is as impactful enough to you as, as what I mentioned, that could be as important as something that’s really prestigious in comparison.

And so I, I would say if you’re able to think of a passion project, you’re just, they’re just something that you’re really passionate about. I would go for it. And it can also be a really great, you know, backup option, even though it might hold more weight in the end compared to an official program.

And so I would say you can always do a personal project, especially if you maybe don’t have the financial resources or you don’t have those, you know, opportunities around you in your nearby area. And you can also do, you know, passion projects or personal projects in addition to summer opportunities as well.

And I wanna just end with you with what you just shared about like, any of the projects you do can be really impactful in your application, especially if you choose to write about them or if you write essays about them. So, going through any of these experiences, summer, internship, shadowing, what have you, just encouraging folks to take notes or journal or do something so that you have a point of reference to go back to when you wanna sit down for those supplemental essays or even the personal statement.

That’s a really good repository of experiences to reference back to on the college application, but we will leave it there. Thank you so much, Lily, so knowledgeable, so thoughtful so comprehensive in your answers off the fly. So really impressed with this webinar today. I hope some folks gain tips and strategies for creating an extracurricular profile as a candidate, applying as a step major.

We do hope that you’ll join us for our webinars next month. But until next time, take care and have a wonderful evening. And thanks again, Lily, so much. Yeah, thank you Anesha. Thanks for, you know, adding all of the useful links to the chat. And yeah, have a nice night everyone.