This past week has been filled with firsts, lasts, and exciting memories that I will remember for years to come. On Monday, Junior Frisco Women's League had its highly-anticipated annual Halloween Party. The group of girls in my tribe decided to embrace the "Zootopia" theme and dress as tigers and zookeepers. The Halloween Party was filled with good food, great friendship, and memorable laughs. On Tuesday, I had my first college interview experience. The week before, I had gotten an email from a UT Austin Business Honors Program Alumni about scheduling a phone interview. At 5 pm, I was sitting in front of my laptop, awaiting the call nervously. The interview got pushed back an hour, and at 6 pm, I finally picked up the phone and began speaking to the interviewer. After a brief and friendly conversation with the alumni, I came out of the call feeling confident that I presented myself to the best of my ability. A bittersweet last experience I had this week was my last tennis tournament of fall season in high school. After four years of fall tennis on the Liberty High School tennis team, this last regional match made me reflect on how far I have come since that first day of varsity practice as a freshman. With this week being such a whirlwind, I spent my time in ISM class touching up my website and writing research assessments to learn more about the field of pediatrics. The first semester of senior year is officially halfway over, and time is flying by, I can't wait to see what the rest of my journey through ISM and my last year of high school will bring!
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Senior year is bittersweet for me because there are many memorable traditions that will be left behind once I graduate from high school. A classic high school event that happens every year is homecoming, and for my senior year I wanted to make the most out of my last homecoming experience. With my focus on homecoming this week, I focused on fine-tuning my ISM digital portfolio and my resume to make time for the activities of Spirit Week. In anticipation of homecoming on Saturday, there were themes assigned to each day of the week. I made sure to dress according to the themes each day, and I exchanged mum and garter with my homecoming date on Thursday night before Mum Day on Friday. On Friday, we had our annual homecoming pep rally and my friends and I began our homecoming preparations by getting our nails done. That night, we went to the homecoming football game to cheer on the Redhawks as they defeated Heritage at Memorial Stadium. By the end of the week, I was exhausted from the crazy activities of the past few days, but I was more excited than ever for homecoming on Saturday. The next day, I got ready with five other girls, as we helped each other with hair and makeup. After meeting up with our dates, we drove to a beautiful area in McKinney and took so many pictures that my cheeks hurt from smiling. We had dinner at a nice restaurant in Plano and we spent the rest of the night hanging out and having a good time. I made memories that I will remember for years to come, and I can say with confidence that I'd saved the best homecoming experience for last.
Since the beginning of the year, ISM has taught me many new aspects of professionalism and proper business etiquette. Something new I have learned this week was the importance of properly addressed and hand-written thank you cards. I had never mailed a hand-written thank you card to anyone before until Mr. Wysong began encouraging us to send one to each professional that had agreed to speak with us for ISM interviews. These cards would serve as genuine tokens of appreciation for those who took time out of their busy schedules to help ISM students in their endeavors. After having a research interview on Monday morning at BestNest Pediatrics with Dr. Mee Yung Knapp and another research interview on Tuesday with Dr. Iresh Kumar at Lone Star Physicians, I made sure to write thank you notes for both of them and mail them to their offices as a way to show my gratitude. Later in the week, Mr. Wysong sent out an email with a list of contact information for each of the professionals who had attended Business Symposium last week. After looking through the list, I chose to write letters to the two professionals who had interviewed me during the mock interview period of the symposium. After having written quite a few of these letters, I have now realized that the seemingly small gesture means a lot and I know that taking the time to sit down and make hand-written thank you cards is something I will continue to do for years to come. I am currently typing away on my laptop during the four-day weekend following the most hectic and exciting week of my senior year to date. This past Wednesday morning had brought the highly-anticipated Business Symposium that my ISM class had been preparing for the past few weeks. The event was scheduled to start at 8:00 in the morning at Independence High School. However, I have learned from experience that when it comes to ISM-related activities, being fifteen minutes early is being on time. With this in mind, I was dressed, ready, and walking up the Independence High School stairs at 7:45 am, in a business-professional outfit complete with my blazer and a pair of shiny black high heels (which I would begin to regret wearing about 10 minutes into the morning). The event began with a thirty-minute period of networking with local professionals. This part of the morning was both extremely rewarding and surprisingly tiring. I was able to speak with highly influential individuals in the Dallas Fort-Worth area, including the CFO of the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the Executive Director of J.P. Morgan and Chase, and the president of the Texas Republic Bank. By the end of the networking period, I had been hobbling around in my high heels for about thirty minutes too long. Thankfully, the next activity scheduled would consist of mock interviews, an opportunity to give my aching feet a break as I sat down and answered professionals' questions about myself and my field. Looking back on the Symposium as a whole, I would say that the mock interviews were the most beneficial to me personally. Although I wasn't able to meet with any pediatricians, the professionals I interviewed with were able to share with me amazing advice and feedback on my resume, interview etiquette, and career goals. The busy morning came to a close as we heard from ISM alumni and a public speaker. Overall, Business Symposium was an action-packed three hours that exceeded all my expectations. I left Independence High School on Wednesday with my heels in my hand, feet throbbing, and a huge smile on my face because I knew that my experiences that day had shaped me into a more confident and professional individual.
ISM students of years' past have studied topics ranging anywhere from a focus in corporate law to specialized fields like cardiothoracic surgery, but these students all had one thing in common- they have all faced tough moments of stress and failure through the course of the year as they worked to accomplish the tasks assigned to them by Mr. Wysong. As of this week, I have encountered my first ISM struggle of the year, and I can walk away from this experience with a deeper insight into my weaknesses and a better understanding of how to problem solve in real-life situations. My main task for the week was to begin contacting professionals and to have successfully scheduled two research interviews to gain more knowledge in the field of pediatrics. As my classmates began to make phone calls and send emails to biomedical engineers and constitutional lawyers, I found myself struggling to get a single response from any pediatrician in the area. I spent the first half of the week hopelessly trying to google email addresses of pediatric offices, unwisely leaning on email as my sole source of communication with professionals. In my ISM class on Thursday, I came to the alarming realization that my reliance on using only email to contact pediatricians had left me way behind in progress, especially compared to my classmates. While other ISM students were productively booking their fourth research interview and receiving multiple email responses, I had only found three pediatricians who had emails listed on their websites. After allowing myself the initial moment of panic and worry, I shifted in mental gear to figure out a solution for my ineffective method of communication. Once I realized that the best way to get into contact with pediatricians was by telephone, I sat out during tennis practice later that day and spent the afternoon speaking with the secretaries of over 40 pediatric offices using the phone numbers I had found online. While a large majority of the pediatricians were either too busy or unavailable to meet for an interview, I was able to get into contact with a few local pediatricians and I even had the opportunity to go in for a research interview that evening with a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Pediatric Urgent Care of North Texas. My efforts had ultimately paid off, and I currently have two additional research interviews booked for the next two weeks. This experience as a whole has sharpened my patience and my ability to deal with setbacks, two valuable assets that I will now be able to exercise in various situations in the future. Although ISM will only become more demanding as the year goes on, I am more than willing to take these challenges head on, knowing that I will grow as an individual through my experiences. Next Wednesday will be the district-wide Business Symposium, and I am excited for the amazing opportunity and the great benefits it will bring to me and my fellow ISM classmates. |
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