Living an Impact-Focused Life

What’s your Why?

I believe I was put on this earth to:

Leave it a little better than I found it. So even if that means only positively affecting one person in my life, it will still have made a difference.

 

My purpose is to:

Serve other people and to make the people around me happy.

 

 

I believe (my core values):

That you should find the good in everyone.

That you should value everyone and put others first but also know when you have to do what is best for you.

 

The one thing I must do before I die is:

See as much of the world as I can, experience as many cultures as I can, and meet as many people as I can.

 

My advocates and supporters all believe I:

 

Am compassionate, strong willed, and try to do the right thing.

 

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is:

Inequality and injustice overall. Everyone should be treated fairly!

 

 

I want to work in order to:

Reduce poverty and inequality. I want work in order to help as many people as I can. I want to work for Red Cross.

 

Walk the Talk – Your How

If you are truly committed to your Why, you show it in your everyday behavior. It is all air until you do it. Working from your Why, How do you prove that you are true to your Why in all you do?

 

I always:

Try to see the good in people and try to treat everyone fairly.

 

I never:

Want to completely give up on something. I never want to fail at something and then walk away.

 

My work style is:

To start early, plan it out, and then put it into action.

 

I try to treat people:

With compassion and fairly.

 

I approach problems by:

 

Victories are time to:

Be humble. To reflect on what may have gone right to get me there, reflect on what I learned, and what I can do better next time.

 

If another attacks my point of view I:

Try to let them explain their point of view, and try to understand their stance, but then also try to explain my point of view in different ways to have them understand.

 

If I fundamentally do not agree with what an organization or person is doing, I will:

See if other people feel the same way. If so, bring it up to whoever is leading and express our opinions. If no one else agrees, I would still try to speak up, probably just more in a private setting. If nothing changes, I would then leave.

 

 

 

Your Credibility – Your Whats

You have just spent some considerable time at Lehigh, and specifically in the Global Social Impact Fellowship, on many whats. Your whats include lab research, formal presentations, writing research papers, engaging with people in other cultural contexts, building prototypes, designing and building systems, raising funds, hiring employees, etc. The whats you have collected along the way are critical to your credibility when you are entering the workforce or applying to the best graduate and professional schools. They signify a credible currency to which organizations can assign value. Create a list of your Whats that are truly reflective of your Why & How.  You did these things because you believe (Why) and you acquired them in the following (How) manner. These are examples you can use in interviews.

What Have I Done	List of Experiences, Accomplishments, and Lessons Learned
Degrees, Minors, Certificates, Fellowships	Pursuing joint major in international relations and economics with a minor in Spanish.
Research Experiences	GSIF
Inventions and Innovations	Save Tuba App
(Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures	GSIF – Save Tuba
Publications (Formal and Informal)	Engineering for Change article. GHTC IEEE Paper
Formal Presentations (at Lehigh and Beyond)	GSIF Semester Presentations Was a part of our GHTC presentation, although did not present myself.
Awards and External Recognition	Dean’s List WW-P PTSA Michael Zapicchi Scholarship Recipient, June 2019 Mercer County Professional Counselors Association Caring for Humanity Scholarship Recipient, June 2019 National Honor Society Member 2018-2019 Diocese of Metuchen Saint Timothy Award, 2017

 

Articulating and learning from GSIF-related Experiences. For each of these prompts, we want you to identify one and only one specific and compelling event/incident/experience/moment and identify exactly how you grew personally and professionally through that moment.

Teamwork Experience (and Lessons Learned)	GSIF. I have been able to work with people across so many disciplines and have been able to work on projects and tasks I never thought I could. I have learned lots of new skills and been able to broaden my research skills and collaboration skills overall.
Conflict Resolution Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Family conflicts. Being in close proximity for an extended period of time can hinder your ability to see things in different ways. It is often important to take a step back and try to see the other side/perspective, then come back and reevaluate.
Leadership Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Flight 45 Talk that I lead. I didn’t know everything about the topic I was facilitating, so I learned that as a leader it is also important to listen and learn from others around you.
Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned)	COVID over this summer. I had no idea what the semester ahead was going to look like, what my season would look like, if I could work, etc. But I had to take it day by day and reevaluate everything again and again.
Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Being a junior Volunteer Firefighter. I really had to push myself out of my comfort zone constantly to be able to do this. It was physically challenging, and I felt like I didn’t belong sometimes but had to keep telling myself why I was doing it. I had to learn how to believe in myself and realized I was stronger than I thought.
Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Going to Guatemala to visit our partners from my church at home. I got to meet our partners there and have meaningful connections and conversations with them even though we didn’t speak the same language. Just through our body language and our partnership with them and us being there we were able to communicate a lot.
An experience that helped you connect your GSIF work to your discipline / major.	Experiences differences in how nations handle certain aspects of life. For example, how Kazakhstan handles environmental sustainability different. As an IR major I want to be able to work with countries on many different problems, and to do so you have to understand how a country currently functions. This has helped me understand how that first step in the process works.
A moment that boosted your sense of agency and self-efficacy – you felt like you can speak for yourself, get stuff done, take on the world and make it better.	When I became a Peer Leader in High School. I realized I could help make the freshmen and other high schoolers feel more comfortable in school and help them transition better. I wanted to be a role model for them and really make an impact on their high school experience. That’s when I saw how making even one person’s experience better could make a difference. I learned how to lead groups and use my voice through this as well.
A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized interdependent world.	When I saw the poverty in Guatemala when I went, but the people I met weren’t sorrowful. They were happy. They were happy for the relationships they had, for their family, for their health, for a lot of little things that we often take for granted. I also saw how impactful our microfinance program and our partnership was for them. I realized though that relationships and solidarity are more important in partnerships than just money or supplies that you are providing to help them.