Most Important Skills For An LA Senior Program Co-Director At Minds Matter SoCal

The commitment to seeing students succeed is essential, and I think every volunteer at Minds Matter has that skill. Otherwise, they wouldn't have applied for and participated in the program.

For me, as a co-director of the program, knowledge of colleges and an understanding of what colleges look for is crucial. This includes what students can do to get accepted and how to excite the people reading their college applications. We tell students that those reading applications spend very little time on each one, especially for public schools like the UCs, approximately eight minutes per application.

Therefore, students need to find a way to stand out so that the reader wants to spend time with their essays and get to know who they are. Knowledge of this entire process has been very important for me. I didn't work in college admissions, but I applied for college, and I had two daughters apply for college and graduate school.

In the last five years working with Minds Matter, I've learned an enormous amount. It's been truly wonderful. Another crucial aspect is understanding where the students are coming from, their lives, families, and the challenges they've faced at a very young age.

These experiences are very different from how I and my daughters grew up. It's essential to be open to recognizing how these challenges have impacted their lives, goals, and abilities. Our students are all really smart and apply to Minds Matter.

They make a big sacrifice, dedicating every Saturday for three years because they truly want to succeed. They want to go to good colleges and have good careers. This comes from wanting to provide for their families as their parents have for them, bringing prosperity.

Many students enter Minds Matter with this goal, but they don't fully understand what it means in reality or how to achieve it. At Minds Matter, they learn what it means to have a career they love, and why pursuing a passion that might earn a little less money can still bring tremendous prosperity to them and their families in the future.

It's important to have that love for what you do. I had that in my career, and it's important to share that with students so they understand that having a career you love is incredible.

Finally, students should know they won't figure everything out in high school, and perhaps not even in college. Students often feel they must know exactly what they want to do, their major, or where they want to go to graduate school, but this is untrue.

We've had many students whose goals changed after applying to college. They made minor or major adjustments. We encourage students to state their intended major if they are comfortable, or to express that they don't know yet. The key is to be flexible and open.

Each year, I show students a video by two deans at Stanford, the Dean of Humanities and Sciences and the Dean of Engineering. This short video is very meaningful to them. It amazed me that both are women in those positions at Stanford. When I attended Stanford, there were very few women professors, and they were mostly assistant professors.

Both deans mention that they initially thought they would pursue something completely different in college. They ended up in graduate programs for very different subjects and have careers they never imagined. It's important for our students to understand the possibilities and not to limit themselves.

They should remain open to change regarding their careers and what they want to accomplish in college. This is something we discuss extensively with our students.