Living an Impact-Focused Life
What’s your Why?
- I believe I was put on this earth to: Leave a mark of my existence with a complete story
- My purpose is to: -be an educator, a researcher, and defender to those I care about
- I believe (my core values): balance, integrity, and determination
- The one thing I must do before I die is: google myself
- My advocates and supporters all believe I: am kind, trustworthy, and organized
- The evil I want to eradicate in this world is: inequality and inequity
- I want to work in order to: meet new people, learn new skills, and find a balance in my life
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: plan ahead
- I never: leave things to the last minute
- My work style is: flexible and organized
- I try to treat people: kind, fair, and respect
- I approach problems by: dissecting the problems into smaller chunks to solve one at a time
- Victories are time to: not be overconfident
- If another attacks my point of view I: listen
- If I fundamentally do not agree with what an organization or person is doing, I will: listen and if the compatibility is not great I will let the relationship go. There’s no point crying over spilt milk.
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 | Degree: Materials Science and Engineering
|
| Research Experiences
|
Deep learning
Characterization Laboratory equipment design |
| Inventions and Innovations | N/A |
| (Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures | Copra processing and stream lining |
| Publications
(Formal and Informal) |
2 manuscripts in preparation |
| Formal Presentations
(at Lehigh and Beyond) |
2 contributed talks and 2 formal presentations at conferences |
| Awards and
External Recognition
|
Dean’s Lists |
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)
|
Experience: Having an additional team of 3 persons joining the group mid-way, who were originally from a different project, is challenging. While the transition was not ideal, the team managed to merge and work together as one big team in the end.
Lessons Learned: Things don’t always happen in the way that you want. It is important to be adaptive as things evolve. |
| Fieldwork Experience
(and Lessons Learned) |
There was no fieldwork due to COVID. |
| Conflict Resolution Experience
(and Lessons Learned) |
Experience: Our instructor said that we should aim for the publication in the spring semester. Our advisor said that the team were not ready and should leave that option behind. The team decided not to go for the publication.
Lessons Learned: Sometimes you need to make a choice, even though that choice will not make both sides happy. As long as you feel you personally feel it’s the right thing to do, then do it. Don’t commit to something that you are not fully prepared. |
| Leadership Experience
(and Lessons Learned)
|
Experience: Finding a time to meet up as a whole group increases the morality and productivity of the group. This matters even more when we all work remotely now due to COVID.
Lessons Learned: As a group leader for the first 3 weeks (we have rotated leadership in our group), I feel it is important to make initiative to schedule meetings in advance and find the time that works for mostly everyone. Don’t work alone. Meet up with someone to work, even it’s virtually. We are humans, and we need human-to-human interaction for our own emotional wellbeing. |
| Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned) | Experience: The direction of project copra shifted dramatically as we transitioned from the in-person classroom to the online platform. There was an uncertainty that we did know when we would ever get back to campus to resume our testing or travel to the fieldwork. The team did what we could do in our home environment, either reading research articles or reaching out to coconut stakeholders.
Lessons Learned: be adaptive and flexible as things happened. Don’t stop trying even things are not in your way. But it’s important to be realistic and satisfied with what we could do based on our conditions. |
| Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)
|
Experience: I was originally looking forward to the field trip in the Philippines. I had also secured a research internship in Japan. But things changed with COVID. I do not like changes, but I had learned to how to go with the flow. For Summer 2020, I stayed at Lehigh and participated in the 8-week Data for Impact Summer Institute at Lehigh. Sometimes I asked if it weren’t for COVID, I could have done X, Y, and Z. But I realized that would never become a reality. Rather soaking myself in “what if” questions, I focused more on the reality and what I could do to keep going. I met and met new friends in my research group. At the end of summer, I was selected to present my research as an oral presentation at a large conference. I even won an award.
Lessons Learned: Reality is reality. Don’t submerge too much in “what if…” |
| Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)
|
Experience: Concept of time in different countries and cultures are inherently different. In the USA, time is gold; be punctual is a must. In the Philippines, time is elastic, and people are happy to stay past the designated time to get the work done.
Lessons Learned: Cultural values vary from place to place. It’s important to recognize and respect these values so that business can be done. |
| An experience that helped you connect your GSIF work to your discipline / major.
|
Experience: In Fall 2020, the team had one week to identify one and only one problem among many others to focus on for the remainder of the semester. The team decided to go with the impact of air flow direction on the drying quality, without being sure whether it is a correct pathway or not. But, it is still a pathway.
Lessons Learned: When in doubt, give it a try. 99% of the attempts usually fail before a miracle solution emerges. But if you don’t try, it’s 100% guaranteed failure. |
| 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.
|
Experience: Ending class early sometimes really motivated me because a break is all what I need to refuel my energy
Lessons Learned: Every functional machine needs a break and maintenance. |
| A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized interdependent world.
|
Experience: The opportunity to work across the disciplines and discuss with my fellow is what makes me feel like I belong to a globalized interdependent word.
Lessons Learned: talking to peers and people from diverse cultures and backgrounds expanded my purview and a better sense of our globalized world. |