Summer Opportunities During COVID-19

CollegeAdvisor.com (formerly Bullseye Admissions) presents its webinar on Summer Opportunities During COVID-19 in a 60-minute webinar and Q&A with a Bullseye advisor. Our presenter will provide information about available opportunities including online contests, virtual volunteering, hobbies from home, and more. Our advisor will share information about opportunities that span various disciplines, from STEM to humanities to service.

Date 06/30/2020
Duration 65:33

Webinar Transcription

2020-06-30 Summer Opportunities During COVID-19 Webinar

[00:00:00] Hi everyone. Good evening for those of you on the east coast. Today I’m here to present about summer opportunities during COVID-19. And this is the second webinar of our new college app series to orient everyone with the webinar timing and different chat tabs. We’ll start off with the presentation, which all outlined in a few slides, and then I’ll answer your questions in the live Q and a, and on the sidebar, you can download our slides in the handouts tab, and you can also start submitting questions in the Q and a tab.

Okay. Did the slide switch for you, Lily? Just want to make sure. Okay. So to introduce myself, I’m shell. Fuck. I’m a bullseye advisor and I’m a rising senior at Princeton. I’m majoring in the school of public and international affairs. And I have minors in south [00:01:00] Asian studies and philosophy.

Okay. And as an outline of the topics I’m going to be covering, I have a lot of resources to share with you all and opportunities to tell you about. And so this is just like a brief agenda of what my presentation will go over. So yeah. Okay. Essentially I wanted to start off with some questions that I feel are important to consider before you start thinking about any summer activities.

And so firstly, what are you curious about? And try to think less of I feel like a lot of high school students, definitely myself, or if at some point you fall into this trap of thinking maybe what would look good on an application or something like that. [00:02:00] But during the summer you should really take that time.

It’s a huge amount of free time that you can use for really amazing personal development and growth. Consider what you’re curious about and what values and causes motivate you. Perhaps when considering something you want to embark on during the summer are there certain skills you’d like to gain certain research skills or technical skills?

And just in terms of bigger picture thinking what is something you can do the summer accomplished this summer that will move you closer to one of your goals in high school in life? It can really be as big picture as you want, but I think it’s important to structure yourself and ground yourself in a few bigger picture questions before choosing any activity.

Oh, so before we get started, I have a question for you. So after, as you think about your goals and interests for the summer what sorta of areas [00:03:00] are you most interested in? And let me see.

Sorry. I’m just trying to get the whole up.

Yeah. Sounds like I can just run the poll stuff. I’ll just stay on the call just in case there are any technical difficulties, but I think we should be okay. Oh, okay. Okay.[00:04:00]

Okay. All okay. We have a good number of people interested in stem. I think yeah, that most of you or not most of you, but a good number. And we also have people interested in government and economics business. I’ll definitely be sure to go over those along with writing and foreign language.

We will definitely be talking about some summer relevant summer programs in terms of that. Okay. All right. We [00:05:00] are going to send this resource list compilation from round peer as a link to you. And one of our amazing advisors found this and wanted to share it with you all. It covers opportunities for the entire year for all kinds of interests. And I’ve looked through some of these opportunities and selected ones that are just for the summer and haven’t expired yet, like for this summer.

But if you want to continue looking for opportunities for the next school year, this document has you covered along with some other lists that we’ll get to

okay. So the first one is, and for those of you interested in business is this venture challenge and it consists of preparing your own business pitch and it’s open to international students and it requires next to nothing just progression throughout the competition as an individual.

Team.[00:06:00] And if you’re a finalist which it is difficult to get to that stage, but if you make it there you get to network with a ton of business leaders and CEOs and get to conduct research at universities, including Stanford and get to develop your own actual business. Yeah, this is one idea and you can see the dates on for most of the summer programs that we’re discussing.

We have the dates listed along with if it has any cost. And yeah. All right, let’s move to the next one. This is the duke online summer program. You if you’ve done a little bit of research, you’ve probably seen a lot of universities have high school programs and they’ve shifted a lot of them online.

But unfortunately a lot of schools have deadlines that have passed already. And so we just wanted to include duke to let you know about one that is still open. And you can still apply to this program. And yeah [00:07:00] this is just one of many. And if you’re someone who, if you’re not like a rising senior in high school definitely look into some similar university programs for the falling summers.

But this is just one that is okay. And so we have another business one this is run by the Wharton school at Penn which for those of you who aren’t aware is one of the best business schools in the country. And it’s also a lot of business development and networking and mentoring throughout. And so for those of you really interested in business and economics, this might be of interest.

Okay. And then for those of you interested in politics or government this is a really great opportunity for young women. The application deadline was technically June 1st, but they are still according to their website. They will take applications either until June 1st or until their enrollment is fulfilled and they do start July 6th.

And since they haven’t closed, the [00:08:00] app is still open on their website. It’s definitely possible to apply. And so this particularly is for women who are interested in potentially wanting for office, but just if you’re also interested in working on a campaign or something like that usually there is a trip to DC and they might try to incorporate one if it’s safe and Okay.

In terms of the pandemic and so you visit Congress and that sort of thing, and it’s also another opportunity to network with some like-minded peers. And so definitely check it out if you’re interested this summer, or even next summer in case this summer they’ve closed. Okay. And then for those of you interested in debate, there are a plethora of summer debate camps and that sort of thing.

And so this one takes place online and you can still apply and receive a little bit more training and keep your skills sharp. So yeah, definitely check that out. Okay. And for anyone interested in law enforcement [00:09:00] the department of Homeland security has this program and it’s unpaid.

But you don’t have to, one of the nice things is you don’t have to pay out fee for it. Unlike some of the after mentioned programs. And so if you’re interested in law enforcement or potentially maybe working on reforming law enforcement, this might be a good way to expose yourself to the.

Okay. So I did want to discuss some summer programs that have deadlines that’s passed. For those of you who are still younger in high school there’s no harm in continuing to search and plan for future summers. And I would really recommend that you even create your own spreadsheet and document and organize yourself and your interests and programs of interest so that you don’t miss the deadline in the future.

And for anyone interested in journalism or writing, there are some really great programs for high school students that I believe are actually fully [00:10:00] funded. J camp is one of them which is just a summer camp, like a bootcamp for journalists. There’s the Princeton summer journalism program which is a highly selective sort of Institute.

You go to Princeton for. At least a month. Maybe a little bit, maybe six weeks or so, and develop your writing and it’s you come to campus? I believe it’s fully funded and you might even get a stipend thrown in there as well. And yeah, so those are just some journalism opportunities. And then for anyone interested in government politics in the field of international affairs I would highly recommend you check out your local governments.

So that includes city councils, district attorney’s offices the mayor’s office. And usually these have sometimes they have like internships, which we’ll talk about in a bit, but also sometimes they have youth development programs or like a youth court or something like that. And it’s a really great way to expose [00:11:00] yourself to the workings of local government.

There’s also a us congressional offices, both in DC, which are, those positions would probably be slightly more competitive or they’re definitely more competitive and less open to high school students unless you’re like a Senate page or something like that. So definitely check out the district offices, which are located in holding states.

So those are less competitive and sometimes even open to high school students. There’s also campaign work. And with the 2020 efforts 2020 elections not just the big national presidential election, but also local races tons of campaigns are looking for volunteers to help get out the vote phone bake, phone banking, canvasing, which is just knocking on doors and getting out the vote.

So that’s really, that’s something really pretty. If you could do this summer and another major program is girls state or boys state it’s run by the American Legion. And essentially it goes by state. You think around a hundred or so [00:12:00] students per state are selected and you meet in the Capitol or somewhere near the Capitol and you undergo mock government.

And so everyone, I think people are assigned roles of different government players. And in the end, I believe two people per state are selected to attend a DC summit and where you meet with a bunch of government leaders and the president. And so that might be really cool if you’re really interested in mock government and American politics And then another opportunity of interest is the Yale young global scholars.

That’s, especially if you’re interested in international affairs, it’s a great way to learn more and engage in a class being around peers who were really interested in that. But the one catch to that is I believe they do offer financial aid. But I think you, it does require a fee, whereas the other opportunities don’t.

So that’s just something to consider. All right. [00:13:00] Okay. So some more programs, so research for those of you interested in stem these might be of interest. And you have the Stanford institutes of medicine, summer research program, the MIT summer research Institute and IHI national institutes of health which could be really stimulating right now.

And another one is the Garcia scholars system, new Brook university. And so essentially the format of a lot of these programs is to you’re assigned a mentor, usually a professor researcher in the lab. And you help with that research. And sometimes you even get to conduct your own research project, which is really cool as a high school student.

And so if you’re working on presenting at a science research competitions, that could be really cool. And yeah, so that’s definitely universities. If you just look into universities like that might be a good way to group it, like local universities, state universities near you, like most universities [00:14:00] have some sort of program for high school students or some sort of research assistantship.

So definitely look into that. And I’ll talk more about reaching out to professors later on in this presentation. And I just wanted to highlight the top right association summer program. It is not stem, but it is a really great one. For those of you who are more humanities and social sciences minded essentially you meet for around six weeks too, I think.

And it’s fully paid for, and you engage at you take a class and engage in really stimulating conversation about the humanities and social sciences. And so if you’re interested in research, but not necessarily like stem, then that could be a good option for you. And just quickly, some other stem ones are girls who code which kind of really has garnered a lot of national attention.

And so if you’re interested in coding, that might be a great way to start to learn how to code and a few mathematics programs like at Stanford university, Ohio state university. Yeah, so just some ones to [00:15:00] keep in mind. All right. And okay, before we can get to this let me go back to this slide. Before we move on we can take a quick break with another poll. So if you’re planning to apply to, for any of the opportunities mentioned so far, let us know in the poll. Let me see if I can get it.

Yeah, like I just opened the poll. Okay. Got it. All right. Yeah, I’m on it.

What else? Real quick.

Okay. Should we close the poll? Okay.[00:16:00] All okay. A good number of you said yes. And maybe that’s really encouraging and yeah, just we can address your questions in the Q and a, but it’s really good to hear. All just wanted to go over jobs and internships. Basically a really great way to headstart on finding these sorts of opportunities is contacting your network.

And so if, if you want to work for girl Scouts or the nonprofit, not be a girl scout, but if you want to work for a nonprofit, like the girl Scouts or any sort of non-profit or just another employer, there’s no harm in reaching out and sending a cold email and basically just introduce yourself, introduce your interest, maybe make it clear how you’ve done a, hopefully a little research on the company and what they’re about and how you want to bring your talents to that group non-profit or company.

And maybe even include a resume even though that’s not definitely not necessary as a high [00:17:00] school student. And that can be a really great way of maybe if they don’t have an opportunity for you, they can connect you with someone in their network or maybe another group that’s actually looking for a high school student to work on thing.

So if you’re really just at your wit’s end and you can’t seem to find any opportunities, maybe even for this summer that might be a good strategy. And another one is to email professors about research projects. And so with this, you want to be careful before, before embarking on that, definitely do your research.

And by that, just look up departments you’re interested in. So say you’re interested in political science and maybe International affairs though, as high school students, you don’t need to really know more, any sub fields of international affairs, but if you are interested in international affairs and maybe you’re interested in east Asia so like China, Chinese affairs, then go on [00:18:00] website, go on like the university website and try to find professors who maybe are working on China or working on international affairs and then introduce yourself like that.

It wouldn’t make as much sense if you reached out to maybe someone who’s working on American politics, not international affairs or something like that. Just see if you can if they need any research assistant it, this can really be successful especially with local professors. So maybe not like the giant research universities that sometimes like more local professors can be amenable to this.

And there’s there’s never any harm in Working just having like a local job a basic job as a barista or as like a cashier or something through the summer that does keep you busy and productive and it’s something to do. But I would recommend if you’re working as like at a coffee shop or something like that, something that’s less substantive, like that’s less intellectually stimulating, then try to pair that with an independent project[00:19:00] which I’ll discuss later on.

But it’s just for your own benefit and never feel any pressure to do a ton of things. I know a lot of high school students can feel some sort of pressure to do something and, always be involved with something during the summer, but it’s really not necessary and whatever makes you happiest and most comfortable and relaxed, that’s really what you should be doing.

Okay. Definitely a great way to find these opportunities. You can look through these links, cov intern, for example, is a website that’s sprung up in the time of COVID. And it has a bunch of companies who are looking for help. And specifically in these fields that are mentioned such as government finance, operations, design that sort of thing, and also the bridge, can they bridge connect listings essentially try to make use of search engine.

Is that your disposal? So you do have

Google well, but [00:20:00] once

you get through Google. Okay. And so here are some, just some other opportunities that we’ve selected. All right. This one is the Massachusetts state house internship. So the Massachusetts legislature, for those of you interested in government and then we have the Goddard space flight center, high school internship program which is for those of you interested in staff, you can work.

Okay. And I think this is something government, so you can hit, both interests if that’s relevant. Okay. And so next we all discuss summer courses. And so this is even something you can share with this would be considered an independent project that you could [00:21:00] pair with a job or.

Even just do on its own. But essentially you, there are some really great websites that you can find free courses on from a huge range of topics.

And so the two main ones that I would say are ed ex which started by Harvard and MIT and a lot of other universities have jumped onto it and then there’s Coursera. And so basically these can be synchronous or asynchronous, so meaning they can you can take a lot of them independently or with a class and not on your own time, but it’s they are free.

So if you want to learn they’re free and then if you would like a certificate or something like that, there, I believe they charge some very small fee. And so it’s really great if you’d like to. Wherein. And in some instances there is a professor falling a longer, some sort of a teaching assistant who can help you out with questions if you have them.

So yeah, just really enriching. And if you’re interested in stem or [00:22:00] political science or philosophy or something, and want to delve deep, then definitely a good option. And then there’s also the Amazon future engineers which has more computer science options and Treehouse which again is you’re interested in stem really good ideas.

And there are, as we previously mentioned, duke, there are

colleges does that host their own summer high school courses. And when the Harvard summer school. And unfortunately the deadline, but if you’re just keeping future summers in mind that could be a really great program to apply to. And also definitely check your local community college. For summer course offerings, sometimes they are open to high school students to advanced high school students.

And yeah, just another option. Oh, okay. And then there [00:23:00] are some online contests. So particularly for those interested in computer science there are hackathons and basically try to filter your searches by using the term high school. But you can get really involved and partake in these competitions and hackathons, which some can be 24 hours.

It can be. Longer than that usually has a set timeframe. And so definitely do your research and see what the requirements are and how you can participate and what you need to participate. And these could be just really fun things to do during the summer and potentially something to add onto your resume.

If you’re interested in that, that one of them act, and so definitely check out this link for more information on [00:24:00] how to buy short application, but you will need some skills and you, and visit it in or to. So parts and tournament. And so there’s, pre-registered efficient and then participation later in the fall.

So if you’re interested, definitely registered for the deadline and then you can be sure to part partake in the fall. Okay. All oh, just to go over another app or other fields you could look into for the summer is virtual volunteering. And so this is different from like campaign volunteering.

This is more sort of community service. And learn to be as a nonprofit where you can tutor online and create circles is another norm. A profit where you can be in touch with the elderly and be there as a companion, as a [00:25:00] friend. And do this address social

during the

eight. These are some established non-profit if you want to, you’re free to participate in, and that are open to everyone. The first is Susan archivist at the national archives. And so in this case you’d be transcribing records so that they can be looked for online. So if you’re interested in histories, historiography, This could be a really cool opportunity.

And then for national novel writing month,

there is a challenge where you

try to write a novel in a month. So just keep these in mind happen later on in the year. But have some summer components though. All right. And so some other [00:26:00] ideas for independent projects include learning a new lane.

I think your audio is skipping. Do you mind pausing real quick and then just seeing if we can connect clearly again? Yeah.

Sorry guys. I think we had a few connection issues. Shafak should be back soon. And just to answer your question, I just want to QA really quickly. You guys do have access to the site. If you joined late, just go to the handout, to the handouts tab and you’ll be able to download them there.

I check like you back. Okay.[00:27:00]

All right. Take her a minute to reconnect on there. We’ll also extend the webinars a few extra minutes just because we had a few connections.

I guess in the meantime, if you guys want to start submitting your Q and a questions we have a CUNY tab where you can just start adding in on different questions that you guys have now. And we can collect questions a little bit earlier than before. I think chef, Mike’s going to try refreshing if she can get back in the way.[00:28:00]

It shows like I think you okay. Yeah. Can you, yeah. Yeah, just let me know if I start lagging again. Okay. I was discussing learning a new language and still just some good resources. Duolingo is great, a great free resource along with YouTube and Spotify, you can usually find some sort of video series or a lecture series for languages.

And then Rosetta stone is a really great resource as well. And usually you have to pay for it, but sometimes your high school might have some sort of subscription to it. So maybe look into that and then you could also learn coding. Code academy, Skillshare really great resources to do that. You can also start a fundraiser and make it oriented towards a cause you really care about.

And so it could be especially with some current events happening right now, you could help support COVID patients and [00:29:00] COVID relief efforts and also racial justice in this country addressing police brutality. You can also start a mutual aid effort locally. And so this is starting your own starting your own sort of community there’s effort.

And so idea ni providing groceries to elderly folks. You can also do some research. There are some some. Students across the country. Who’ve started some people across the country. Who’ve started these grocery delivery services. And so maybe you can be a part of that. Maybe there’s one locally available and then also childcare even for essential workers and just creating a network for that.

And community service is definitely something that is really rewarding, even if you’re not getting paid for it. It can be really rewarding and a really great thing to talk about on your college applications. Okay. And some other ideas you can start your own local business and it could be as advanced of an effort or not advanced as you want.

And other ideas. [00:30:00] Where more creative minded could be starting a blog, like a written blog or a YouTube channel. Just keep in mind and be extremely intentional about what you want to share virtually, because this will be available online, unless you have certain privacy settings it will be available online and you sometimes are looked up online in your college applications.

Always assume that anything you put out there will be viewed by any employers or admissions reviewers. And and not to put anything

out there that, and you wouldn’t want them seeing and being intentional about what YouTube channel or a blog and what the purpose would be. And then other ideas just include creating an independent art project or film music album and this would naturally help Polish your portfolio, but if you want to start putting together your portfolio your arts portfolio, especially and you could [00:31:00] also create a website and that can be also as indicated you could code it yourself, or you could use it at a pre-coded medium in order to do that.

All right. That is the end of the presentation part of the webinar. I hope you found these opportunities helpful, and just remember that you can download the slides in the handouts tab. And so moving onto the live Q and a I’ll read through the questions you submitted in the queue. Tab and I’ll paste them into the public chat, so you all can see and then I’ll read them aloud before I answer.

And just as a heads up, if you’re a QA tab, isn’t letting you submit questions. Just double-check that, that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page. All so let me head to the QA job. There are tabs. Okay.

All right. I’m going [00:32:00] to copy this

public. Okay. All right, Louie, can you see that? Okay. Question in the public. Just want to make sure. Yeah. I’m reading Britain. Okay. On you. Okay. All okay. So this question is, would volunteering or dual enrollment classes better to do this summer. And I like this question because it’s what’s better is what how what would give you more personal growth? And so I think that’s why considering those big picture questions is going to be really helpful for when deciding what summer activity will be most beneficial to you and your life and your own development.

And if taking classes and enrolling in classes will [00:33:00] be really stimulating for you and maybe it’s necessary, maybe you need to take classes for some part of your degree or diploma, then that, that is going to be what’s better for you. It differs for everyone. And if you want to not involve yourself in classes this summer and maybe give back to your community and partake in service. Then in that case, volunteering would be better. And also there’s always the option of doing both and not definitely, not never exhaust yourself, but maybe your classes meet two to three days a week and then you can volunteer for maybe one evening a week or one morning, a week, or whatever works for your schedule.

So there isn’t necessarily this idea of something that would be better to do, but what is best for your personal development? All right. Let me choose another question.

Okay.

So this question is what summer opportunities would you [00:34:00] recommend to strengthen a stem application? With stem applications, it’s really looked upon favorably if you’ve conducted your own sort of independent research. Particularly with science research, if you’re involved with any science research programs and plan to participate in any science fairs and competitions during the school year, then conducting some sort of independent research thing.

This summer can be really great and really bolster your passion. But with that being said coding those contacts, those contests hackathons, really depending where your field of interest is there could be many different opportunities that would help your application. And never rule out just because you’re interested in stem doesn’t mean you always have to do stem all the time.

If volunteering for like a soup kitchen or political advocacy, if that is something that’s going to give you meaning as well [00:35:00] that’s not going to hurt your application. You don’t necessarily need to deem your summer, especially if you’re earlier on in high school, you don’t need to do stem, stem, stem every summer.

And keep an open mind, especially with this summer, and it’s not going to hurt your up location if it’s not necessarily stem, which is always a great look just to answer your question. Research is always a great look and showing maybe sometimes showing that you have other interests as well can really help, but it really depends on you as a person.

Okay, next question.

So this question is, are there related interests? I know the person was asking the question is referring to this summer and unfortunately programs like task, of course, deadline has passed, but this is the moment to tap into your network and to maybe do some research and reach out to a local professor [00:36:00] and see about any opportunities up for humanities research and humanities also, it can be really great if you have writing experience, reading experience, and And so that could also, you could create your own research project out of it.

And you knew you can talk about that and maybe find, instead of asking a professor for a research project, you can ask them to be a mentor for your own. So there’s a lot of different opportunities that you can create for yourself. And so don’t feel like you need to apply to something or that you miss deadlines.

And there aren’t any more options just maybe think a little bit more deeply about what interests you and how you can create an opportunity for yourself through that and use mentors and use your network to help. Okay.

Okay.[00:37:00]

Okay. So I noticed some of you have questions regarding your sort of field of interest. It’s so fun just as a disclaimer, I personally was a, a more politics government oriented student while in high school and still am. And these stem and arts opportunities are definitely available and with your own research you can definitely find things that are so open.

And so particularly with the arts what is impressive? Definitely it’s not necessarily about, don’t try not to think of in the mindset of trying to impress necessarily impress someone, but again, what would. Helps you grow, what is meaningful to you? And in particular with the arts sometimes you can submit a portfolio to some schools from what I’m aware and and the summer is a great opportunity to work on your portfolio to add to it to tailor it and to maybe to [00:38:00] collaborate on projects.

And and whether it’s a blog or YouTube channel or art it’s, or like painting or writing, or just those sorts of sort of arts related things, filmmaking the summer is definitely a time where you can work independently on it and fine tune your portfolio. So yeah, and it’s also, some of the summer is a great time to find maybe.

Contests or competitions that you can apply to during the year using what you’ve created during the summer. So it’s just a great time to research in itself. Okay. Okay.

So this question is, would professors and or legislators be willing to take a high school student as a virtual intern? Should we wait until remote work is no longer the norm? I think there’s never any harm in reaching out and emailing. So if there is a legislator of interest, a local politician who really inspires you or who you’d love to work [00:39:00] for, then go ahead and reach out and better sooner than later.

And You’ll never really know unless you ask and see about, are there opportunities or maybe they can connect you because that’s still great. If they can’t take you on themselves, then they can always connect you with someone else. And there’s no need to wait until remote work is no longer the norm.

At this point no one really has any idea when things will go back to normal. And so I’m just trying to be as proactive as you can, and not necessarily waiting for things to go back to normal might as well see if anything’s available, no harm in that. Okay. Okay. So if someone asks, how can I start my own project? So if you were, if you’ll refer back to the slides later on, maybe after this call is over, you’ll see a couple of the ideas that we had. And one is definitely like your own project. What starting a blog and what do you want to make the blog [00:40:00] about?

What are your interests, maybe? What do you want to talk about? Do you want to start your own business and maybe you’re interested in baking or something like that, and you start your own local business and that’s not just going to help you expose you to baking, but it can also expose you to other aspects of running a business.

Another idea is just like a community service project. And so that could include starting a go-fund me for a cause that you really care about. And it could also include like starting your own service for delivering groceries maybe to the elderly or something like that. So those are just ideas of different projects.

You can start you can collaborate with other people maybe who are also very interested in that same field. And yeah, it there’s no one way to start. It depends on your interests. Okay. Like doing it and the group and author and then we’ll also extend this panel an extra five minutes just to make up for the late start that we had.[00:41:00]

All right. Oh, Kay. So we’re partway through the Q and a as a quick break, I want to let you know about bullseye. And so bullseye has two advising plans, the starter plan and the scholar plan. They’re both monthly subscriptions where you get matched with an advisor of your choice. And you get one or two hours of one-on-one advising each month and as advisors they help, I help with college applications, scholarship applications, writing about your extracurriculars, summer opportunity applications, pretty much anything that you need help with no matter where you are in the college process.

And you can always connect with an advisor to receive more in-depth guidance on the summer program applications and creating your own project and brainstorming and finding inspiration. And so I’m sending everyone at this panel and offer where you’ll be able to work with me or another bulls-eye advisor in a 15 minute free trial.[00:42:00]

Okay. Yeah, I can send the offer link if you want to just tell them more about what it is like I can plan. Sure. All so the offer links to a page where you can schedule a call with Brian Mitchell, who is in charge of bullseye, and he’ll get you set up to choose an advisor and get started. Our students at bullseye have had a ton of success working with an advisor this past admission season.

We had bullseye clients get into every single Ivy league and top 25 school in the country. Our clients rate us 9.8 out of 10, and that’s because our advisors

really put a ton of care into working with you through every step of your application process. So this is a great opportunity overall, and just a really great way to redirect your questions and get some more in depth guidance. All so I will continue with the Q and a

[00:43:00] Okay.

Q and a. Okay. So this question is I’m in my junior year, so should I consider for some summer programs next year in my senior year? And my answer is definitely yes. If you are, if you’re a rising junior, so you’re heading into your junior year, then this is a great summer to unwind and think deeply about maybe what you want to get out of your summers to get out of your high school experience.

And in that case, definitely start your own lists of opportunities that interest you and maybe the deadline has passed, but you can be sure to apply when the deadline comes around again, because do you have another year in high school? So that is a really great sort of way to plan for next year.

So definitely the summer is great for planning if if you’re not, especially if you’re not a rising senior, so yes. So [00:44:00] definitely think about opportunities maybe you want for next summer. Okay.

This is the next question. How do you recommend to start a research project for high school students in stem with limited resources? And I can definitely relate to this having attended a public school that didn’t have as many resources as some private schools I would just say look around for mentors and once you have a mentor that can really help out.

And so if you have a designated research advisor at your school ask them, or if you’re interested in at one point in high school, I was really interested in studying prosthetics. And so I actually Googled some Local prosthetics labs and facilities. And I emailed and got in touch with some of the people who ran those labs.

And this was a sort of a shorter phase in high school of mine, but it’s just an example of like how you can get in touch and maybe work with [00:45:00] people who have their own labs, other universities cold email professors again. And that might be a really great way to get started if you don’t have that many resources at your disposal right now.

Okay.

Okay. So the next question is, could you suggest any econ or business related internships or research? If you refer back to the earlier slides in this presentation we mentioned a few research opportunities in terms of Developing your own business, which can definitely be considered research.

And then also undertaking research with mentors and professors. And so if you refer to [00:46:00] the Wharton school program and then the believe it was Gatz gets the business challenge or business pitch. Those are definitely some ideas. And in terms of econ, you can always look to sometimes local government has opportunities.

With that econ also just working at like one of those regular sort of Retail jobs can expose you to some basic fundamentals of economics and research, if you want research itself, you can try taking a course, look through Coursera, look through ed IDEXX. They definitely have a ton of econ courses and business-related courses entrepreneurship.

And those are really great ways. And some of them even will prompt you to write your own papers and do your own research projects. So that’s one way you can get started with that. But in terms of internships, you can also just use some of the lists that we are sending you and sharing with you, and also do your own [00:47:00] research on various websites for econ related opportunities.

Okay.

Okay. So it says for high school students, how could we reach out to professors about research projects or is that more targeted to college students? So as a high school student, you can definitely reach out to professors about research projects a lot of outstanding applicants and just outstanding students with in terms of science research or social science research have actually worked with professors and professors are definitely open to it.

It depends like professors, a lot of those summer programs on campuses themselves, they’re taught by university professors and who are teaching high school students. And so I would say that you can definitely always reach out and try to have a really professional email, try to have a really in-depth email, make it clear that you’ve read up on them and that you’ve read up on their research.

And. Try to impress them and hopefully you’ll get a response it’s very possible. They, [00:48:00] that they read your email and they move on. And in that case, you look towards other places that you can conduct research, maybe your local library or other research centers or nonprofits or that sort of thing. But there’s no harm in reaching out.

And also if professors seem too daunting and too advanced, too technical for you, then there, then don’t feel forced to reach out like this it’s, whatever you’re comfortable with is what you should be doing. So yeah, you can always really reach out to anyone as long as you justify it in your email.

Okay. Okay. So this question is do you have any suggestions for gap year students? So summer programs and that sort of thing. So I’m assuming you’re referring to a gap year before [00:49:00] college lily, that would make the most sense. Oh yeah. Just for gap year, we are having a webinar about the gap year.

I think in like maybe next week or so. But that is just also a webinar that’s just for both our members. So if you do have a buzzing advising package you’ll be able to like, join like a small group where, you can actually interact with the presenter and unmute your Macon on video and actually talk to them.

So that’s just a heads up. If you want to check out that way. Thank you, Louie. And I think, in terms of like gap year students just there, if you also are having trouble if your programs are canceled due to the pandemic, Involve yourself in an independent project and start something yourself and maybe do your own research or learn the language or whatever it is that interests you.

As long as it’s giving you meaning and personal growth, then that’s what matters. If you there are some students who take gap years in order [00:50:00] to work and create savings before college. And so if working at a job is going to be really meaningful for you, then that’s also something you can consider.

And so yeah if there aren’t established programs, that’s okay. And I think something that I haven’t mentioned is that colleges know, like they are aware that this is a special summer because of COVID-19. And so you will get a bit of leeway and a bit of wiggle room on your application in terms of what you do this summer.

And and that’s both a good thing because you have that wiggle room in a bad thing, because you didn’t have access to some opportunities that were canceled. But just to know that colleges understand, and so don’t feel pressured to praise that, you were disappointed that you couldn’t do something because of COVID-19 because college is definitely under.

Okay.

[00:51:00] Okay. And then we have a pre-med question that I think Lily can take Yeah. Yeah. I’m not pre-med, but I have a lot of pre-med friends. Basically if we didn’t have COVID-19, I would definitely recommend like shadowing doctors and you’re doing anything where you can actually interact with patients or volunteering at clinics, volunteering in hospice all of those kinds of things.

But like with the pandemic situation, it is really hard for pre-med students and not only high school students, but also students in college to actually find like any opportunities in the hospital. So I would actually recommend just any general volunteering that you can do. Just because if you’re showing that, you really want to help others and you’re still really like able to commit to volunteer, even during this situation that’ll show that overall, like you do want to help people, which is like one of the capstones of becoming a doctor.

So I would just really look for any volunteering opportunities. I think schools definitely unders like stand that you can’t, shout out or like you used to, you can’t volunteer in the clinic like you used to. But I would just try to look for those other ones.

Thank you, Lily. And I guess maybe we have time for one more [00:52:00] question. Okay.

So this question is it important to take the certificate with ethics or Coursera courses to show colleges? I think the certificates that are offered are less for high school students and more for those who are taking the courses for professional development or wanting to apply to.

Somewhere else with that certificate under their belt. And so definitely don’t feel pressured. Like you have to have the certificate because it does cost extra fees and normally the classes are free. So having the certificate could be a strength in terms of you can list the certificate, but I don’t think it would be an issue.

If you listed having, if you listed on your application that you took the course, even though you didn’t get the certificate. And also just in terms of it’s not don’t even necessarily think about the course in terms of like I’m taking this course to listed on my resume, because you could [00:53:00] actually learn a lot from the course and that could stimulate your brain and give you something to talk about for an essay or something.

So it could help out your application, but not necessarily in terms of like your resume, but in terms of You learning something new and wanting to talk about that in an essay or a supplement. Yeah, so it’s, I would say don’t feel pressured to get the certificate, like it’s not necessary.

Just as long as you’re taking the course, like if you took the course, then you took it. And we don’t necessarily need the certificate with that. Okay. So that is, is the end of the panel. I had a really great time telling you all about different summer opportunities and answering your questions.

And if you want to discuss one-on-one about your summer plans or your college ops, I’m going to, or Lily will be send the offer link to you where you can talk to me or another advisor for 15 minutes as a free trial. And I [00:54:00] hope that. This webinar was helpful to you and that you have some ideas about how to approach the summer.

And if I didn’t get to your question, I’ll also send out a feedback form later this evening, where you can add additional questions. And so our next webinar will be in two days on this Thursday it’ll be a continuation of our college panel series, and we’re doing a combined panel for both U Chicago and Northwestern.

So be sure to attend that if you’re interested in those schools thank you so much for coming out to tonight’s panel and I hope you all stay safe and have a really great summer.