Student profile
Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.
As high school began, I strived to push myself outside my comfort zone. My passion for libraries and books led me to speak with a coordinator for a charity called [name], that set up mobile libraries in India. Taking the initiative to offer my help, I arranged book donation boxes in temples after asking permission from the people in charge of the establishments.
Unexpectedly, my makeshift donation project culminated in eight large boxes filled with books. Ecstatic, I relayed the news to the [name] coordinator, who expressed her deep gratitude. Collaborating with the charity's management, I was able to successfully ship those books to India. I felt fulfilled to know that these books would contribute to a new mobile library in a country where local libraries barely exist.
Inspired by this positive impact, I decided to apply for a board position of [name] High School's Free the Children club, which works to provide opportunities and necessities to different poverty-stricken regions of the world. As treasurer, I proposed plans for prices and fundraisers to the rest of the board. I learned to grow into a firm yet approachable leader as I often had to formally approach club members and the school activities director to complete tasks or give updates when they neglected to.
As a junior, I applied to volunteer at [company], aspiring to engage in a more hands-on way of aiding people. Wheeling around patients or visitors, I loved this new experience of helping people directly. Moreover, I always made an effort to guide new volunteers and include them in jovial conversation. When they started opening up to the group, I felt happily accomplished. Working behind the front desk, I was often in charge of training other volunteers. Chatting with patients and calmly speaking to stressed visitors, I boosted my social skills and learned much about people.
Through these experiences, I have amplified my confidence by coordinating fundraisers and supporting those in need. I have learned to freely express my opinions and lead in order to serve my community while still remaining approachable and friendly to others.
Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.
As an avid movie watcher in middle school, I stumbled upon the art of video-editing. After downloading a free editing application and watching countless YouTube tutorials, I taught myself how to edit. Begging my parents to send me to a video editing summer camp, I learned some advanced techniques and shot fun skits with other campers.
After this experience, I took every opportunity to further my skills. For any summer family vacation, I filmed and created a short video exhibiting and dramatizing our adventures. Anytime I didn't know a certain technique, I searched it on Google and stubbornly tried until I learned it.
Excitedly humming around the house on the morning back from our family's road trip to the Grand Canyon, I eagerly anticipated creating a video log of our vacation. Losing track of time, I spent hours matching the music correctly, adjusting the colors and audio, and snapping different clips together. I wanted to capture the euphoric feelings of the trip to be able to relive the experience.
To me, video-editing can transform the mood of a video. Subtle changes can imbue a tranquil scene with a happier tone, for example. I can amplify any message or emotion people experience while watching. When videos provoke the intended reaction, I feel fulfilled and excited to do more. I take charge of editing every school video project. Working on numerous personal and school-related video projects, I find this work an outlet to not only express my creativity but also to relieve stress. Stressful thoughts from daily life seem to dissipate as I burrow myself deeper into a video.
My passion for editing videos unlocked some amazing opportunities. This past summer, for a data privacy company, I had the opportunity to produce and edit a professional video about what teenagers know about data privacy laws, having to spin a serious subject into a more light-hearted video. Growing up in a digital media age, my hobby has proven useful and allowed my imagination to manifest into physical concepts. I hope to continue to express and expand my creativity with interesting and influential videos.
Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.
This summer, I had the opportunity to intern with [company.ai, a company that assists businesses with maintaining data privacy. In our first discussion, the company representative mentioned interviewing important leaders for their opinions on the upcoming California Consumer Privacy Act and the European General Data Protection Regulation, and publishing articles to raise awareness on the current data privacy situation. Immediately, doubt gripped me, as I had never interviewed anyone, let alone for publishing.
Even worse, I hadn't even heard of the CCPA or GDPR. Firstly, I had to figure out the content of and reason for these privacy laws. Excited to face the challenge but feeling quite lost, I quickly realized the emphasis of independent work in a job setting, as I was expected to deeply understand these privacy laws through research. Given only a few informational links-some which seemed too complicated-I thoroughly educated myself over hours of articles and videos of people passionately expressing their views online.
Next came the interviewing part of my internship I sent emails to countless industry experts whose information I found online. Though most emails went unanswered, a handful of people responded, including a global compliance manager who has dealt with many data privacy cases. I felt anxious about a one on one video conference where I held the steering wheel. However, during the interview, I surprised myself by keeping up with her answers and guiding the discussion. She spoke extremely passionately, providing me with more insight and a different perspective on data privacy.
Impressed with my preparation, dedication, and final article, she introduced me to the Chief Privacy Officer at Cisco a few weeks later. I had never imagined interviewing such an influential leader in the tech industry.
However, due to my recent interviewing experiences, I felt in control when asking questions, even at times when the conversation did not go as planned. Researching, interviewing, and gathering opinions from public figures taught me how to take initiative with timed tasks and think under pressure.
What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?
"Who wants to go to the library?", calls my mom through the apartment on a lazy Saturday morning in fourth grade. I come bounding out of the bedroom like an excited puppy, ready to find more books to devour. I will always cherish the library. A community of diverse people visit the same place, but all share in the library's warm, cozy feeling.
My love for the library eventually led to my desire to serve there as a volunteer. Since I began volunteering freshman year, I developed a closer bond with the library. I spent hours alphabetizing books, creating holiday decorations, and arranging inspiring seminars and performances to teach kids the beauty of cultures.
During the library fair, volunteers hurriedly assembled booths in the parking lot on a sweltering day with cotton candy, carnival games, and reptiles to coax people to come celebrate our community. Manning stations, I learned to keep people engaged and excited. By the end, I was sweating from effort but felt elated with the energetic atmosphere we brought to the fair.
In tenth grade, the library held a program where, every shift, I aided elderly people in transferring their photographs to digital form, so if the physical copy was destroyed, their beloved memories could still survive. This was in direct response to the California fires, in which many victims expressed their remorse at their photos burning. However, in digitizing their albums, I found that most didn't know how to access pictures on Google Photos. I learned how unfamiliar technology, which is rooted in my daily life, can be to elders. Taking initiative, I taught them to access, send, and edit those photos to become brighter and clearer. Once again, I felt the importance of community, without which these elders may never have safely stored their precious photographs.
The library exists to forge a stronger community. Ultimately, I became a fraction of a force that enables people to expand their knowledge. I enhanced my creative skills and better empathized with people. Remarkably fulfilling, volunteering makes me proud to let others feel at home in the library.