Living an Impact-Focused Life

What’s your Why?

I believe I was put on this earth to…

find happiness, enjoy the one life I was given, and connect with those around me

 

My purpose is to…

make the lives around me better and continue to leave it better than I found it

 

I believe (my core values)…

We should stay curious and not settle for the first thing/idea presented to us

learn as much as we can

 

The one thing I must do before I die is…

enjoy life

 

My advocates and supporters all believe that I…

can do anything I set my mind to when working hard

 

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is…

thoughtlessness and harm to our world (environmentally)

 

I want to work in order to…

Feel fulfilled and help others. Open up new opportunities and experiences, to try new things

 

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…

want to be present and thoughtful

 

I never…

want to be so busy as to put my goals before the people in my life

 

My work style is…

to be consistent, hardworking, and committed

 

I try to treat people…

with kindness and understanding

 

I approach problems by…

learning as much as I can and then working hard until I can solve it

 

Victories are time to…

Stick true to my values and help bring others up with me

 

If someone attacks my point of view I…

evaluate and try to come from a place of understanding

 

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

make my opinion heard without making anyone worse off

 

Your Credibility – Your Whats 

You have spent some considerable time at Lehigh, and specifically in the Impact Fellowships, 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	Working towards BS in Bioengineering Global Social Impact Fellow
Research Experiences	Tucker Lab – CU Anschutz Seshadri Lab – Lehigh AgriWrap – GSIF
Inventions and Innovations	Working towards bioplastic
(Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures	Agriwrap
Publications (Formal and Informal)	Working towards two papers for Agriwrap
Formal Presentations (at Lehigh and Beyond)	AgriWrap
Awards and  External Recognition	Dean’s List all semesters Tau Beta Pi Member

 

Articulating and learning from IF-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)	Focus on each other’s strengths. During fieldwork, some individuals were very good at catching all the details and taking notes while talking to people, and others were very good at communicating and asking questions. Both jobs were necessary to accomplish our goals.
Conflict Resolution Experience (and Lessons Learned)	No major conflicts occurred. Sometimes we had difficulties seeing eye to eye, and this was solved by talking to each other and really working to understand what the other person was saying. How we communicate is all very different, and it is important to make sure we take the time to truly understand what other people are saying
Leadership Experience (and Lessons Learned)	We all were leaders during different moments when we were doing something that played into each other’s strengths. Leadership was not something one singular person had, but instead something that morphed to best fit the moment.
Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned)	While traveling after fieldwork, we got stuck on the side of the road without service when our rental car’s battery died. In this moment, it was important that we didn’t place blame on anyone, worked to stay calm, and took advantage of the resources that we still had available to us. Also, paying attention to our instincts was a very important part of this experience
Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)	peanuts → had to pay close attention to my surroundings and make sure I clearly communicated my needs in order to stay safe
Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Visiting the urban farm in Quezon City. Working directly with government officials and community members, I learned just how different the structure of communities can be. Even if our goals are similar, different cultures approach problems differently and have to find solutions that have different constraints
An experience that helped you connect your IF work to your discipline / major.	Apply concepts that I’ve learned in class to our lab work and the creation of our product. I have learned a lot about the process of prototyping, coming up with ideas from scratch, and testing iterations of our product to evaluate it.
A moment that boosted your sense of agency and self-efficacy – you felt like you could speak for yourself, get stuff done, take on the world and make it better.	Forming professional relationships at the conference we attended → making things happen is up to you and how you respond to the opportunities given to you is crucial for how successful you can be. Also, the opportunities don’t always fall into your hands but putting yourself in a location where they are possible and then standing up for yourself is critical
A moment where you felt like you were making the future – like you were creating something that had never before existed and would (or could) influence your future and that of others.	Showing our prototypes to people and getting taken seriously → it was no longer in the lab, but it was in the world and getting feedback from people that might actually use it
A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized, interdependent world.	making connections with people and going places I didn’t think possible (getting transportation organized for us for visiting Oikos and for going to the urban farm, not just because we were on a project but because people believed in our goal) → giving validation to both yourself and others (while not necessary) can make someone feel more seen which can help them work harder. Connections are crucial

 

Draw Your Life

What’s Your True North?

 

Create the story of your life. How do you want to contribute to the world through your talents, passions, and unique strengths? Think about your values, the roles you play, what gives you a sense of purpose, and ultimately, what you have to offer by being your best, authentic self. Draw a picture of your life as you envision it. Be remarkable. Be yourself.