Living an Impact-Focused Life

What’s your Why?

I believe I was put on this earth to:

Provide happiness to those in my life. I get a great sense of satisfaction from making others happy and it is something I strive to make happen daily with my friends and family. I live for the times that I can make someone else’s life better.

 

 

My purpose is to:

Create as much positive impact and change in the world as I can with the time that I have here to make a better future for the next generation, as well as bring up my children with the same life philosophy.

 

 

I believe (my core values):

Creating happiness, working hard, being impactful, respect, trustworthiness, fun.

 

 

The one thing I must do before I die is:

Create a happy family that has a better world to live in than I did.

 

 

My advocates and supporters all believe I:

Am a hard worker, am a good person, am going to make a difference in the world.

 

 

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is:

Social injustice and inequality. I want everyone to be able to create a good life for themselves no matter who they are and where they are born.

 

 

I want to work in order to:

Leave this world better than how it was when I was living in it.

 

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:

Treat people with respect and positivity. I volunteer on projects that I believe help me achieve my goals of positive impact (GSIF). I work hard everyday to be the most ready I can be to go into the workforce and make the greatest impact I can wherever I end up working.

 

I never:

Discriminate or put anyone down. Burn bridges.

 

My work style is:

Hardworking and motivated to accomplish the task at hand. I don’t like to quit things I know I can accomplish.

 

I try to treat people:

With positivity and respect. I do not want to be the reason someone is upset or discouraged from something, but instead help them to keep going and improve.

 

I approach problems by:

Breaking them down into pieces and then getting straight into it. I like doing more than planning on most problems. I also try to make sure everyone is comfortable with their job and I can pick up whatever is not desired by other people.

 

Victories are time to:

Celebrate but also learn. You should always acknowledge success but not let it hinder you from moving forward.

 

If another attacks my point of view I:

Try not to argue but talk instead. If they are aggressive with their opinions I usually back down as they are not worth my time and are most likely not willing to change.

 

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

Find a way to address it if it is something harmful but if not I try not to start a disagreement. I don’t like negativity and making waves so if it is not a great problem I will usually not address it.

 

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	High school graduate, GSIF, Dean’s list, published paper, Mountaintop fellow
Research Experiences	GSIF/Mountaintop research, Mathworks Modeling Challenge
Inventions and Innovations	Robotics club, SGGS mushrooms
(Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures	GRO Mushrooms
Publications (Formal and Informal)	SGGS Paper
Formal Presentations (at Lehigh and Beyond)	Midterm and Final GSIF presentations, IEEE Paper presentation, guest speaker for mountaintop and GSIF panels
Awards and External Recognition	Scholar athlete award

 

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)	Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA) – A week long summer leadership camp that revealed to me the person I truly was and liked being. I learned to be a compassionate leader that enjoys meeting people, working together to accomplish goals, and forging relationships. I went on to lead my own teams through subsequent summer camps to have them experience and learn the same things I did and to empower new community leaders.
Conflict Resolution Experience (and Lessons Learned)	In my high school friend group one of my friends sent an unexpected text message to our group basically calling out another of our friends for things he did not appreciate. This caused a lot of drama and the original friend became somewhat ostracized from our group. This was one of my best friends, so I reached out to him privately and tried to understand where he was coming from. Once I understood his full side of the story, I persuaded my other friend to talk it out personally with him and explained the rest to our friend group. They worked their problem out personally and everything went somewhat back to normal afterwards. I learned that sometimes more is going on in a person’s mind than they let be known and they need someone to approach them to let those thoughts out.
Leadership Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Robotics team software officer – I was an officer on my school’s robotics team. We worked hard to keep new team members engaged and included in our activities while still working hard to create a functioning robot. I learned how to teach and work with people starting from all different backgrounds of knowledge while still balancing deadlines and work.
Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned)	I do not have a specific situation for this topic, but I know anytime I am uncertain of a potentially harmful choice I just try to stay calm and let the things around me happen as they need to. I try not to fight anything going on and just take everything as it comes.
Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)	I would say that beginning college was a challenging experience. I came in not knowing a single person and for a while I did not feel like I had a real community. I signed up for a lot of clubs and activities but by the end of the first semester I wasn’t really comfortable yet. I kept trying to be involved and meet new people, and through sports, my classes, and the GSIF, I have created a wonderful community of people I really appreciate and enjoy being with. I learned that in challenging situations you know you can benefit from, sometimes you have to stick it out and keep working and trying harder to have things come together and work out for you.
Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Every year at my temple we would invite the nearby African american church to come pray with us. Our rabbi would do half a service and their pastor would do the same. I noticed that our service was very structured and quiet, while theirs was very interactive and loud with lots of song and shouting. It was really great to see how different cultures develop their own way of praying to (supposedly) the same god, and it was really enjoyable to share that with them. Also, I don’t particularly enjoy my religion but it showed me that just because I don’t believe in Judaism, it does not mean I should give up on religion as a whole as there are so many different ways to pray and be connected with your community.
An experience that helped you connect your GSIF work to your discipline / major.	In the GSIF we work heavily in teams and mine is small with big tasks at hand. I have learned a lot about time management, communication, and teamwork that makes leading teams in my discipline classes extremely easy in comparison. The only difference is the low level of motivation my classmates have compared to my teammates. Also, the public speaking opportunities the GSIF provides makes my class presentations a breeze.
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.	Again, RYLA helped me find the person I enjoyed being. I gained so much self confidence from that experience that I realized I can definitely go out in the world, have my voice be heard, and have my ideas and motivation make a difference wherever I work
A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized interdependent world.	When I had my first mushroom harvest it was so enlightening, and even moreso when it became repeatable. I felt like I belonged on this project and finally knew enough to move forward with more pressing matters like scaling that could really propel the project forward. It was the light at the end of the tunnel where I felt like I could finally start making a difference on this global project.