Living an Impact-Focused Life 

What’s your Why?

I believe I was put on this earth to…

-create meaningful connections with other people and make positive differences

My purpose is to…

-use my talents to pursue changes in the world and enjoy myself

I believe (my core values)…

-empathy, productivity, fun, relaxation, 

The one thing I must do before I die is…

-graduate

My advocates and supporters all believe that I…

-am kind and sincere, smart, important

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is…

-bigotry

I want to work in order to…

-Make a difference

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 ask people how they are doing

I never…  try to shame people for being excited about things that I don’t understand

My work style is…

collaborative, motivated, 

I try to treat people…

With respect and understanding

I approach problems by…

Breaking it down into smaller questions

Victories are time to…

-reflect, celebrate, 

If someone attacks my point of view I…

-get angry, try to understand their point of view

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

–tell the person or ignore it if I don’t know them 

-leave the organization if it is seriously very bad 

Your Credibility – Your Whats 

You have spent some considerable time at Lehigh, and specifically in the Global / Lehigh Valley 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	Senior year Computer Science and Business student at Lehigh CSIF Fellowship
Research Experiences	-TAMID Group at Lehigh Consulting and Project Management -Lehigh University Student Senate; Senator, Vice President -The Brown and White; reporter -Orientation leader, returning orientation leader -PwC Technology Risk Consulting internship
Inventions and Innovations	-Pass/Fail resolution for Lehigh Spring 2021(Student Senate Project) -Bylaws bills (Student Senate) -Energy Dashboard (Capstone/CSIF)
(Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures	-Started NORD Rare Disease Club in high school that is still active today
Publications (Formal and Informal)	-posts on linkedin, instagram, etc.  –https://thebrownandwhite.com/?s=alyssa+milrod
Formal Presentations (at Lehigh and Beyond)	Energy dashboard CSB and CSIF presentations, BUS001, BUS002, BUS003: elevator pitches, PwC Workflow Presentations at Client Meetings
Awards and  External Recognition	-The Brown and White; most clicked article of the semester in Spring 2021  -Seal of Biliteracy in Spanish and English -Upsilon Pi Upsilon Computing Honor Society

Articulating and learning from G/LVSIF-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)	Student Senate — how to work with people with different leadership styles,  Orientation leader — how to facilitate discussions, how to be welcoming and helpful to others Energy Dashboard/Capstone/CSIF — how to be a team player and work in a software engineering team PwC — how to learn from colleagues, work in a professional environment for the first time
Conflict Resolution Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Within Student Senate, we have lots of ethical dilemmas and debates in our meetings. We normally resolve them by having organized discussions where everyone who wishes to speak can, and then we vote on it. This structure is generally successful and taught me that taking the time to hear out everyone’s opinions usually amounts to the best outcome for everyone.
Leadership Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Generally the same as teamwork experience ie. Senate and orientation leaders are inherently both teamwork and leadership positions
Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned)	We experienced chaos, ambiguity, uncertainty, etc. in the Energy Dashboard team. For instance, last semester, we weren’t sure what we could accomplish and which parts of the prior’s team code are relevant, so we were very confused on how to move forward. After gathering feedback from our stakeholders, looking to each other for help with understanding the project, and making a project timeline for ourselves, we were able to achieve our goals for the dashboard during this semester. Overall, I learned that it can take time to understand an ambiguous problem but it is possible, and talking through future plans with your teammates definitely helps create a more defined direction in a project that is chaotic.
Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)	A personally challenging experience was having COVID this Summer while living alone in New York City for the first time. My bones ached a lot, and I had to keep ordering in food, staying inside, etc. It was hard to do that after a month of running around NYC and constantly being busy, as well as having todo my internship remotely for this week. I got through it by allowing myself to rest and reframing the situation as a rare opportunity to reflect and relax. My most important lesson from this I would say is that I can be very self-sufficient and reframing situations can be very beneficial. Once I started reframing the situation I found it to be a very therapeutic time for myself and felt more energized when I came out of quarantine.
Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)	A cross-cultural experience I’ve had was being invited to a Palestinian refugee’s home for a dinner gathering in my first year at Lehigh. I have family in Israel, so I do not always like looking into middle eastern politics, but when this friend showed me the bullet wounds in his leg, I learned that it is very privileged that I can choose to ignore politics while he cannot.
An experience that helped you connect your G/LVSIF work to your discipline / major.	The experience of learning how to code a web app, use API’s, and more throughout this project has helped me connect with my major of Computer Science and Business because those are skills that I am not explicitly taught in classes, but the skills I have learned from my classes have made me capable of quickly learning these new skills. Additionally, it is great experience to prepare me for professional work in technology.
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.	A moment that boosted my sense of agency was when I got the highest grade on my marketing exam last Fall. I did not feel like I studied that hard or stressed myself out too much for the exam, so it was very refreshing to have such a good outcome.
A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized, interdependent world.	I started feeling this interdependent sense of belonging when I came to Lehigh. It has allowed me to realize that I play an important role in many people’s lives.

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.

 

Instructions: In preparation for the final workshop on “Living an Impact-Focused Life,” consider the three main questions below as a reflection on your Impact Fellowship. Regard this reflection as a learning process to explore and express what you learned, as well as an opportunity to learn more about yourself. Focus on the three main questions. You may use the prompts to help you organize your thoughts, but these prompts are not aimed to limit your thinking. You are strongly encouraged to freely express your ideas and feelings.

 

What are the top three things you learned during your Impact Fellowship? Please elaborate.

The top three things I learned during this course are: how to appeal to different stakeholders, how to manage ethical dilemmas, and how to work with people across different majors.

I learned how to appeal to different stakeholders throughout the project. We had many stakeholders — our sponsor, the Lehigh Office of Sustainaibility, end users — dorm residents at Lehigh, our capstone advisors, the presentation panels, and more. We held focus groups to accept feedback from our potential end users and took our presentation panels’ feedback seriously so we could better the website and all around user experience. Further, each week, we spoke to our capstone advisors and sponsor to routinely collect feedback from them. We used everyone’s feedbacks to inspire changes in our dashboard, and because of that, received more positive feedback by the end of this semester and gathered over 200 users. Sometimes, we received various suggestions at once from different stakeholders that we could not implement all at once. My team then discussed amongst each other what we should prioritize and what should be taken seriously. Overall, I learned that pleasing stakeholders can be a balancing act, but it is worth the careful thought, feedback collection, etc.

Next, I learned about ethical dilemmas,  both in class and in the project. In class, I learned that every decision involving another person can be considered an ethical dilemma, even if it isn’t always clear how it affects others. I learned how to carefully analyze how a decision can affect all parties, and will apply this to my life as I make decisions involving others. In the project, the ethical dilemma was sometimes, as mentioned before, whose feedback you should prioritize.

Lastly, I learned about working with people in other majors to achieve a common purpose. It is easy to focus on individual tasks, even when working in a group, but I realized when I paid more attention to my teammates’ work outside of coding such as diagrams, data verifications, etc. we made the most progress. I learned to value different academic backgrounds in teams and see how it benefits the entire team.

How did the Impact Fellowship facilitate your professional development? Please provide three examples.

The Impact Fellowship facilitated my professional development through enriching me with knowledge of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, giving me experience in a long-term computer science project, and how to think about the big picture while working on assignments. One way the Impact Fellowship did this was by informing me about how entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas and research to investors to seek financing for their projects. Further, researchers/entrepreneurs can apply to conferences to present their research, projects, etc. which is great to know about. I now know how to seek momentum for projects I may take on in the future. Next, it was so beneficial to work on a long-term computer science project such as the Energy Dashboard. I learned a lot about software engineering and programming frameworks/languages/technologies, as well as Sprints, teamwork, and more. I feel like a much more confident coder and someone who is prepared to take on new, professional software engineering projects. It was also very beneficial to learn about “zooming out” on a project, as Khanjan says. It allowed me to keep the bigger mission of the project in mind, rather than getting caught up in technicalities and hindering progress. For instance, sometimes I would fixate on an issue in code and only spend time on that or feel bad about the project. I realized making progress in other areas in the project and reminding myself of the bigger picture definitely helps with motivation and progress, so I will carry that lesson into the workforce with me.

How did the Impact Fellowship help you grow personally? Please provide three examples.

The Impact Fellowship helped me grow personally by inspiring me to believe in my goals, grow as a team player, and to take interest in other people’s projects. I think that the fellowship helped me become more confident in my goals by showing me how I can achieve them. Being able to see so much progress in the Energy Dashboard and achieving milestones such as implementing the Kill-a-Watt competition, fixing data issues, adding frontend changes, etc. within this project was very satisfying to accomplish as last semester, a lot of elements of this project seemed impossible. I am very proud of the accomplishments of our project this semester and it definitely showed me that I should be more confident in my skills from hereon out.

This fellowship also helped me learn a lot about other people. I loved getting to know the people in class and asking about the interesting projects they are working on and why. This led me to grow because oftentimes, I get so caught up in my own projects that I forget other people are working on really cool things. This experience definitely led to growth within my academic curiosity.

I grew as a team player, as well. I realized that I could learn so much from the people I work with and my team and I leaned into teaching other new technologies and information. I definitely appreciate working in groups more so than I did before, which is definitely personal growth because effective group work can amount to much more than an individual can do, and this applies in many areas of life.

11/06/22

Team: Alyssa Milrod, Wesley Guarneri, Caitlyn Somma, Josie Krepps, Aidan Lynch, Spencer Loh,

Prompt:

1. Context – bring us into the world.
2. Catalyst – what changes? What is changing?
3. Complication – what is the obstacle to change?
4. Change – what is the transformation that occurs?
5. Consequence – what is the resolution and where are we now?

In communal spaces like offices and classrooms, people use energy as they please – they leave devices plugged in, turn lights on, and open windows and doors without much thought. The people that use these resources do not have a financial responsibility for this energy usage, so they do not realize how much energy they are using. Our website provides people with access to the energy profile of these shared spaces, specifically buildings on Lehigh’s campus. While students have access to our website, this alone is not enough incentive to engage with it and change their behavior. By engaging users in the classroom as well as through intra-campus competition, we provide an incentive to use less energy in communal spaces. Based on our methods of engagement, we expect to see a 10% reduction in energy usage from each student, amounting to nearly $100,000 saved each year.