Next Steps- From Young Learner to Young Professional

Landed in Austin, Texas this week for the annual South by South West (SXSW) EDU conference. I always make sure to blog everyday after a conference, but I realized, it would be a bit strange for me to post about the conference without first giving some other life updates since I haven’t posted since September 2021 apparently…

First up, Trailblazers Issue 9 was published!!! This student-driven magazine about transformative education has been such a big part of my career life over the past 6 years, so it’s crazy to believe that we are now working on our 10th issue, officially reaching double digits! It’s also crazy to think I am finally at the point in my life where it is time to start handing Trailblazers over to the next generation of young learners… We have officially named our new Executive Director who I have been mentoring through the Issue 10 publication process so she can then officially take over for issue 11 as I move into more of a senior advisor role. I will continue to provide advice and feedback as needed, but I will no longer be a driving force in creating each magazine issue.

Part of the reason for this transition is because I will be graduating college in May with a degree in Business Administration concentrating in Leadership and Organizational Management and a certificate in Social Psychology from Georgia Tech.

After graduation, I’m excited to officially announce that I will be working full time with Education Reimagined starting in June! I’ve been a member of the Education Reimagined community since high school and this community is what initially inspired Trailblazers and a big part of what has kept me involved in the k12 conversation throughout college. Timing worked out nicely where they were looking to expand their team right as I was looking to find a full time opportunity, and it just seemed like a perfect fit for my next steps.

If you know me well or follow my blog somewhat consistently, you might recall I was originally looking to go to graduate school in the fall. Specifically, I was planning to go to Finland for a two year masters program and had been working all last summer on applying for a Fulbright Fellowship to make this happen. Obviously I have pivoted from this plan, so here is the short story there:

Timing wasn’t right. Over the past few months since I last blogged, I have had several family members end up in the hospital (they are okay), COVID was yet again increasing rates, international situations became more questionable, I was not selected as a Fulbright finalist, and some of my ptsd from being abroad during the start of pandemic and feeling particularly isolated continued to increase along with anxiety around never having been to Finland before and committing to two years there. All these factors together made me decide it was best to wait on Finland right now. University of Helsinki will still be there if I later get a chance to visit and then decide it really is something I want to do. Furthermore, even if not Finland, I do still plan to go to graduate school at some point in time. Not because I think I need a higher degree, but because I really do enjoy learning and elements of schooling and, assuming I find the right program, I would like the opportunity to further research, discuss, and design education with others similarly passionate about transforming our current paradigm. I also decided, that going into a full time job first would make my eventual graduate school experience better, because right now, I’m still not fully sure what my role is going to be in these conversations on education and I think some time working may help me narrow my interests and talents to make my graduate school experience more focused and productive.

This transition from young learner into young professional has been a very odd transition since so much of my experience in education thus far has been from the perspective of, ”hey I’m providing student voice in this conversation!” My young learner status was always one of my primary self-selling points, and now it’s shifting into something else that I’m still discovering…

With this in mind, I’m excited to see some of this evolution with participating in SXSW this year as I start to age out of my ”young learner” status. So stay tuned for my insights from the conference!

The “Uber Pitch”

Most people know of the term “elevator pitch.” It’s the 30-second story of who you are, what you do, and where you dream to be.

What I’ve realized though, is that a kind of modern-day version of the elevator pitch is an “uber pitch.” I take uber/lyft fairly regularly since being in college and not having a car on campus (and because Atlanta public transportation is stupid and you can only take Marta so many times before going crazy). It seems every time I get into an uber I get asked questions that end up leading to me saying the same stuff about working at a gymnastics gym, going to Georgia Tech, studying business, passionate about transformative education…

Honestly, it’s great practice for interviews with a low stakes environment to practice how I share my story in a way that’s understandable no matter what background knowledge you have about me or my interests.

Never would’ve thought about an Uber ride being so productive until I realized today that I felt like I was having dejavu.

Finals are Here and I’m not an Engineer

Earlier today I received my first official email from the Scheller College of Business. That’s right, I’ve finally declared a major, and it isn’t what most people expected. 

Since I started really thinking about where I wanted to go to college (so basically since junior year of high school), I have kind of avoided the question of what I wanted to major in. People would tell me,  “oh you’re good at STEM and like problem-solving, you should be an engineer!” I figured, why not. I didn’t have much of a better idea of what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to continue doing design thinking, and I knew education was at the very least a passion of mine. I firmly believe that design thinking is a mode of thought pertaining to every discipline and major, but I’ve observed that higher education doesn’t seem to apply this notion to degree curriculum plans where it seems that only a few majors really dive deep into principles of design thinking.

I realize now that at the end of my high school career I spent far more time looking at colleges then I really spent learning about different majors offered. It’s said that it doesn’t matter what major you choose, and that’s fair, all majors are “good majors” and each is “hard” in their own way- that’s not how you should choose a major. It’s said, “a lot of the first few semesters is the same for everyone”, and I’ve found this to be true too, there are a lot of core requirements that all first years take. It’s also said that it’s fine to come into college as an undecided major- this is the one I have some problems with.

I entered college in undecided engineering, so I say all this from the perspective of someone is living out the life of an undecided major. Now don’t get me wrong, I think it makes sense that an 18-year-old doesn’t have their life completely together yet, which is what they tell you when you think you’re going to apply as undecided. However, once you get to college you have way less time to try and contemplate what major you want to go into. And sure people say you have time to decide on a major, but really what they mean is, “We want you to decide by the spring, that way at least you’re in something. Then we can deal with you changing your major later if that’s what you need to do.” (This isn’t me implying, I’ve been told multiple times that even though most classes are practically the same for the first few semesters, they still want you to pick a major by the end of spring.)

The other hard thing is that I like to talk to people to learn about the different majors. However advisors are figured out by major, and undecided engineering majors are just clumped with mechanical engineers because it’s the “most general engineering.” So my experience was that all of the advisings was really just focused on mechanical which wasn’t very helpful when looking to just learn more about different majors before making a decision. Thus I also tried talking to other advisors, but some advisors only speak to their specific major (including business…).

The big thing that I realized throughout this process, and in general since being in college, is that working in the realm of innovative education is more than just a passion of mine. I think I’d really like to continue working on forwarding the Education Transformation Movement as at least an initial career. 

It’s when I made this realization that I finally started to question if engineering was right for me. I started thinking instead about what’s kind of become a motto of mine, “could not should.”

When I applied to MVPS at the end of 5th grade, I was given a creativity question during my interview. The question asked, “List all the things you could do with a pencil.” So I did: write, use as a bookmarker, keep a locker open, hair piece, stab someone,… When I was telling my mom this story afterward this is the point she stopped me and said, “ANYA PLEASE TELL ME YOU DIDN’T SAY YOU COULD STAB SOMEONE WITH A PENCIL!!!” My response was, “It asked what you could do not what you would or should do.”

I got into the school, so as my mom and I like to think, we guess they accepted that I was taking the question very literal for the sake of creativity. But despite what my interviewer thought, my friends and family have never let me forget this story, and I’m kind of grateful because it’s become a good motto.

I’m not one to lack confidence, and I truly believe that if I wanted to, I have the brain power and persistence to where I could become an engineer. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that I should just because I could. As I started to think about this possibility I realized that I’ve never been one to particularly love activities closely associated with being an engineer, like creating CAD models, or using power tools, or running data analysis on experiments. I’ve never hated these activities when given the chance to work on them, but in a team setting, for example, someone else is always the “engineer” role.

So I’ve switched to business because I want to be a social entrepreneur and oppose to spending my time learning about thermal dynamics, I’d rather focus more on leadership studies, risk management, startup and entrepreneurial culture, change theory, etc. And I’m excited about how the business school is really focused on real-world applications and has extra advising specifically for looking at career paths and getting all students to have an internship/co-op/study abroad experience before graduation. In particular, I’m currently looking to do a concentration in Leading and Managing Human Capital and get a certificate in Social/Personality Psychology, and I hope to also do an exchange in New Zealand to take some education courses and/or maybe do research there. I’m excited to plan more of what’s ahead as I start to meet with my new advior soon.

This was a hard choice, especially since there is a big stigma around business majors at GT. Students consider it the “easy major” and try to claim the students in business aren’t as smart as other majors. But I know some amazingly smart people in business, and we all got into GT just the same, and I’m not transferring because I thought engineering was going to be “too hard.” It’s all just relative. So I’m proud of myself for finally submitting my form and making the choice to go all in. If I end up changing again, so be it, but now that first semester classes are over, I’m feeling pretty good going into finals tomorrow having a bit more of a direction with my college path.

 

And with that, as tradition goes:

A merry finals to all,

And to all crammers,

Good luck and good night!

Never the Same

Recently, there has been a lot of talk in my life about people leaving for other things. My middle for acro left to join just a tumbling class. 3 ID members gave formal resignation internals today. Plus one of my favorite teachers, Ms. Tumbleson who taught AP World, accepted an amazing job opportunity as the head of education at the Georgia Aquarium, and she will be leaving next Thursday from MVPS.

For all these people, it is sad to see them go, but everyone is different and has their own path they need to follow. People will come and go in your life and it hard to ever fully adjust, but we keep moving forward. Their is a special bond you form when working in a team with people that can’t just be replaced. Sure you can make new bonds and maybe accomplish similar tasks with new people, but it will never be exactly the same.

In acro today I had my new middle come for the first time and things were rather successful. We got almost all of the skills we need for level 7, which is what my top and I had been working on with our old middle, and I started teaching the new girl choreography already. This “new girl” isn’t that new though because she is a team girl that I’ve known since she was 5, and she has done a little acro with me in the past unofficially for the big group routine I did last year; however, now she is officially in the class and working with me specifically.

It’s a little weird thought because my old middle switched to a tumbling class that goes on at almost the same time as acro so she is still in the gym and therefore sees us working with a new person that is “filling” her old spot in the group essentially. Plus we are doing almost the exact same choreography and even upgraded some skills. However, I think she still supports her decision because she wanted to tumble more and thus her new class was the right one for her.

I think this is just the way life is. When people leave you have to keep moving forward by getting someone to take over their responsibility. While this person will not be the same as the old one, and it may be a little weird to see both people together, you like the new person (if you don’t then it isn’t the right person to be working with) and keep trying to advance with whatever you are working on.

Everyone just keeps moving on their path and you have to be happy when yours just happens to collide with those great people that push you forward.

So, as said by the amazing Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”