On July 25th, 2021, AYLUS held its first national conference. Chapel Hill Branch member Michelle Lan participated in all sessions. Please find her report below.
Finance/Business Panel
In the beginning, Anthony Yang introduces all the speakers. Ryan Chou works in an investment team at JetBlue Technology Ventures, Cindy Zhi works as a tax director for Electronic Arts, Jennifer Gan works as an associate in JP Morgan, and Myeisha Boyd works as an analyst for Goldman Sachs. Afterwards, Anthony Yang asks the speakers questions about their careers, how they started working, and the unexpected turns they experienced. The speakers all had different challenges, including the pandemic, a less developed skill, and no set career path. It was also a shared response that your major doesn’t matter.
Med/Healthcare Panel
Dr. Xiu works with cancer biology, and Professor Charney teaches nephrology while also working as a clinician who studies new drugs in hopes of curing different kidney-related diseases. Professor Charney started by wanting to do applied science, so he went to medical school and specialized in nephrology. When Dr. Xiu was born, translational research didn’t exist, and she wanted to be a doctor. While studying to become a clinician, she was grossed out and decided to pursue a job in neurobiology. Both of the speakers gave the same advice; you should keep people who listen and “speak your language.” Dr. Xiu believes that being successful means contributing with your knowledge, and Professor Charney believes it is influencing people around you as well as having people like you. Communication plays a big role when working in the health and medical sciences field.
Law Panel
Mr. Lin has had a goal to pursue in the law industry ever since he was in 8th grade. On the other hand, Ms. Cohen hated studying law because there was never one single correct answer, but rather many different perspectives that were considered correct or possible. A lawyer requires writing and being intellectually challenged. There are many types of lawyers, not just the one you see on tv where people “fight” against each other. There are litigators, corporates, trademarks, and employers. In fact, london solicitors may be included in one of these mentioned. Both Mr. Lin and Ms. Cohen are corporate lawyers. A recommended step before creating a firm is to work for other people so you can acquire knowledge before immediately stepping into something new. The hardest thing that Ms.Cohen said about becoming a lawyer is that people are usually very choosy when hiring a lawyer, as they are often spending tons of money on one, which leads to a discussion of an essential skill to becoming a lawyer: networking.
STEM Panel
Dr. Shi works as a hardware engineer, started at intel, went to apple, and currently works at Lyft. Dr. Shi has always spent time learning, taking opportunities, and making decisions. Alice Yang works at Facebook as a software engineer. Alice didn’t have much coding experience going into college, and only after taking a coding course in college had she found how much she enjoyed coding. On Alice’s current team, she utilizes both her mathematics and computer science skills. While in STEM, there are many common misconceptions. Alice Yang mentioned that a misconception is that you must be a nerd in technology in order to pursue a career as a software engineer. Dr. Shi mentioned a misconception in hardware engineering is that people assume that it’s low-tech. However, hardware engineers must master a deep understanding in many branches of science.
Personal Branding & Networking Workshop
Starting the Personal Brand panel, Stephanie talks about the reasons to have a personal brand, which include: building your reputation, growing your network, giving opportunities, and inspiring trust. Stephanie Su is a superposition leader, a UC Berkeley student, and a Fiveable intern. Stephanie Su prefers Linkedln over other networking platforms because of the variety of benefits, such as its ability to stand out amongst other users. She suggests posting things like thoughts, lessons, and controversial opinions. Stephanie Su emphasizes follow-ups, networking, and creating value.
Scientific Research Panel
The panel started by introducing the speakers. Ellen has been awarded many times, hosted podcasts, and enjoys fencing in her free time. John has done many science fairs. Wenjun has also done science fairs and competitions, and Lucy has also done her fair share of competitions. The next question was what research they had done. Ellen’s sister was misdiagnosed, leading her to develop an image classification algorithm that takes images and then forms a diagnosis. Wenjun had also developed an algorithm to help solve the maximum amount of profit from objects. A shared obstacle was the negative impacts of covid, such as being unable to go to labs.
Community Service Panel
The panel starts with a brief introduction. Jack Mao will attend Stanford in the fall, studying computer science; Michelle Zong will be a sophomore at MIT in the fall, majoring in material science and engineering. Michelle’s volunteer hours consisted of both her AYLUS National President volunteering and her school volunteering, while Jack’s volunteer hours mainly related to helping out at his local government. Both Jack and Michelle agreed that volunteering makes you feel good, but Michelle also likes that it also interacts with people. Michelle Zong gave a great piece of advice to handle volunteering and school, that it is better to have a few main, specific clubs and activities that tie together, rather than having a bunch of random clubs and activities.
College Applications Panel
The college applications panel started with introductions, Sasha planning to study neuroscience at Harvard, Areeb planning to study computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, Sung planning to study a mixture of things including economics, engineering, and english at Princeton, and Kaylee planning to study Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. Areeb gave a great piece of advice that summed up the whole question, that If you want to stand out when applying to colleges, then GPA, SAT scores, and extracurriculars are blurred and not the way to go. If you want to stand out, you should focus on your essays, interviews, and letters of recommendations. They were then asked what regrets they had, or what they would do differently if they could. A common response was better time management, to not procrastinate, and to start writing their college essays earlier.
Total participated hours: 7 hours
Reported by: Michelle Lan