On July 25th, 2021, AYLUS held its first national conference. Chapel Hill Branch member Stella Kim participated in all sessions. Please find her report below.
| Sessions | Summary |
| Opening Ceremony | An introductory ceremony for AYLUS. |
| Finance/Business Panel | The speakers talk about the challenges, their choices, skill sets, and success for their career paths. There is a lot of emphasis on intellectual curiosity and effective communication being essential skill sets in this field. |
| Med/Healthcare Panel | The path to becoming successful in the medical field is a very roundabout one since there are numerous science branches. However, for a majority of healthcare jobs, communication is key since it is a team effort to make medical advances. Also, the speakers give us advice about you not only being science; those “silly” hobbies and your charismatic personality might just make you into a better doctor. |
| Law Panel | There is a wide variety of law-related career choices, so during college, you should major in what you’re good at and enjoy doing. After all, you can change your mind and swerve in another direction. If you do decide to go down the road of becoming a lawyer, though, build your networking skills and practice expressing your thoughts clearly. |
| STEM Panel | Increase your breadth of knowledge during college by taking miscellaneous courses. These courses can contribute to growing critical skills used during STEM-related work tasks such as learning how to face different sets of problems, developing a growth mindset, or even asking for help(gracefully) when you sincerely need it. |
| Personal Branding & Networking Workshop | Personal branding is exactly like business branding except –well, it’s more personalized. Personal branding builds your reputation, and that strengthened reputation increases peoples’ trust while opening up more opportunities for you. On the other hand, we have networking. Networking can help with personal branding by reaching out to others for aid in the growth of your platform. Remember, be polite and create value for the audience. |
| Scientific Research Panel | To get a professor willing to go along with your ideas, don’t be afraid to shoot your shots. Once you’ve done that, while getting your project prepared, there are obstacles like not having access to certain special equipment or getting unexpected results from your experiment. Nevertheless, once you finish the final product, don’t treat science fairs like a competition. There’s no winning, it’s mainly a marketing game, and how you sell yourself greatly impacts the results. Be enthusiastic, have statistics, and be passionate. |
| Community Service Panel | Community service is important, but so is self-care. Make sure you don’t push yourself too hard by cramming a bunch of activities you can’t handle. Learn how to balance your school life so you can prevent burnout. Even without those surplus efforts, you can make an impact over time. |
| College Applications Panel | College applications are nerve-racking, definitely. The speakers during this panel give counseling on how to prepare for when it is your time to submit applications. First of all, have a set of priorities that you require from each school. Second of all, do not procrastinate on your essays, start them as soon as possible. Third of all, have the essay be genuine. Don’t go for what you think the school wants, go for what you want and what you get spirited about. |
| Closing Ceremony | A closing ceremony for AYLUS. |
Total participated hours: 7 hours
Reported by: Stella Kim