hello and good evening my name is mike tim i'm the co president of the belmont high school p t a s so it was a p t o parent teacher of visitation but as of this year is now a parent teacher and student organization tonight we have an educational seminar called face to face with belmont high seniors this event was co sponsored by the belmont chinese american association the belmont high school p s o and the belmont high school english program you hello everyone thank you so much for coming we're going to start off with the introductions so i am sophia and i have been up all my high school for years so i name is aereo smith i've also been here for four years hello everyone i'm bonnie i think i may be the odd one out i was at belmont high school from for my freshman sophomore year and then eleventh grade i did a gap year abroad in germany and then i came back this year oh everybody i'm adjust to life as i'm sure that a lot of you are going into be a just soon if not already and we're going to go over how to transition into high school especially belmont high school friend you want to take the first question the first question was how do you survive as a freshman so thinking back when i first came to belmont high freshman year was kind of overwhelming and a good way and a bad way it was like there was a lot of freedom in what you could do you have this thing called freeze which are basically because class schedules are separated by these things called in each twenty five minutes and so sometimes you have three models in between classes and you have the freedom to choose what you want to do during these free maad so but at the same time you also have to decide when to eat lunch because there isn't a scheduled lunch block so you need to fit it fit into one of your frees so it was overwhelming because you have all these choices you have all these class choices that you can pick and you have all these free and it's fun because you me a lot of new people but at the same time you really need to learn how to manage your time for me for my advice for freshman year is to stay on top of your classes to maintain a good g p a because as many people know the rest of your high school career sophomore junior year senior year curriculum does get more intense so you  sure you start off good and you stay strong so you francesco is completely right with the amount of choices that you have at the h s you are free to do what you want in your free time and also your classes so one thing that a lot of incoming freshmen worry about is like how to choose classes how to know their strengths and their weaknesses and that sort of thing so in terms of choosing classes i'd say the first thing you turn to is how comfortable you feel with a class or let me clarify for so incoming freshman year most of your choices are limited to an honors class or college prep class so an honors class goes a little bit faster it's a little bit ever lies on the student being that a bit more independent versus college preparatory classes they allow the students to have more individualized help so choosing classes again it depends on what you're comfortable with and also your teacher recommendation those recommendations are very valuable the teachers generally know  where their students fall and while they may not always be what you think is right i would say go with what you think is right and if you're on the fence between classes i would  say depending on how much you like a class like for example if you really love physics and you're on the fence between c p physics and honors physics i would say go for honors physics because it is first of all it'll give you a good challenge but also if you decide that it's not right for you dropping down from an honors class to class is easier than going from a c p to an honors class great friend will also talk about like how you know your strengths and your weaknesses so yeah basically for me i didn't really know what my strengths or weaknesses were coming in from eighth grade i think freshman year is a really good time to learn what you like and what you don't like there are a lot of clubs of the high school and every year i think in october the first week of october the school hosts and activities fair which is where all the clubs set up tables and they all have a big poster boards in there like promoting their club and you get to know they have a little flyers and you can grab one so what i did was i signed up for like twenty clubs and i went to i went to like i tried to go to every meeting if it was like monday tuesday wednesday it is just to see what i would like because there is such a variety out there and you shouldn't just you should feel ok it's like explorer because i know like most of the time you want to stay with your friends but sometimes your friends don't like the same things as you or sometimes you have different strengths different weaknesses so i would just say test the waters a little bit it's ok to do so everybody's really welcoming and that's how i found my strengths and my passions at the high school one of the questions is what are the top three skills needed to be successful in high school so i would resources are there so to answer the first question i would say most definitely your guidance counselors are a wonderful resource to go to whenever you have questions about college or high school they've been doing this kind of work for probably many years and so they have a lot of insight into the whole college application process as well as how the inner workings of the high school go for example my client's counselor was mistrusts and she was wonderful in helping guide me through my four years at the high school she was always available if i needed to ask questions about what classes i could think about taking for the next year check in on my progress throughout the current year and see what other things i need to work on what obligations i have to fulfill in order to not only graduate or just pass but do well in high school and just and also  what other extracurricular activities i should think about managing and to consider focusing more time on and another great resource is your parents obviously you don't want to completely shut them out because i know sometimes you know they've they may feel like they're nagging or they're being very annoying or whatever jumping in and asking you questions about how life is going and all that but just know that they're always still there to talk to you if you ever have questions about you know what's life like not only in school but also out of school just how to handle being a teenager and all that and it sounds cheesy but another great resource is yourself so you never want to kill yourself while you're struggling or are you having doubts always believe that you have the ability and you have what it takes to succeed and try your best so yeah ok and another question is how do you deal with stress so obviously when you're in high school there are a lot of factors you have to consider there's like extra curricular of stress i think for a lot of people is your academics so your schoolwork and whatever you feel stressed about that sometimes it can be nice to just take a little break like not too long but take a break from whatever yours focusing on studying right now and to like clear mind and perhaps if you go back to look at it you might go in with a different point of view or you might have some new ideas pop in and that might help you understand the topic better also again your parents are there to help you're friends too so if you're struggling with a subject you can always turn to one of your friends too to learn it better together you can also form my study groups with your other classmates or friends and everyone can work out going through the topic no matter how difficult they may be together so yeah so we all have different ways of managing stress we're going to have several people talking about it myself i'm going to give a very specific example of how i deal with stress so i do outside of school and this isn't just for fitness but it's also a really fun way to manage my stress because it's sort of a form of mindfulness it allows me to forget all of my stressors like academics or my obligations that sort of thing for a while while doing something that i truly enjoy so one really good way of dealing with stress is finding a hobby and activity extracurricular anything that brings your mind to somewhere that where you're happy and it will really really take some burden off of your shoulders although temporarily develop like good habits and hobbies that relax you and help you work through a harder time so from my experience personally how i deal with stress is i talk to my parents a lot i would say definitely keep an open channel between you and your parents so for me personally i like to talk a lot and i don't like to keep things to myself because i feel like if you keep things buried inside of you it really doesn't create a healthy mental state for you and you can really focus on other things or perform at your best and to be honest your parents know who you are best they've lived with you for however long and they have more personal life experiences and they can guide you through similar situations what they did that's what my mom helped me with and it's very important because in all honesty people change throughout high school because this is the time when people find out who they are what they want to be but no matter what your parents will always be a constant they will always be there for you and they can provide just being able to go home and have somebody to talk to where it's safe to talk about there's no hidden intentions no judgment they really just want the best for you it really helps you maintain a good balance in your life and to feel healthy mentally for me because i remember i was having i was dealing with a lot of stress but schoolwork with friends sports extra cookers you know stuff like that and my parents were there and they were there to listen to me with everything i was going through for specific situations and because your parents are just like you they were teenagers once they went through the same thing so i feel like you should try to keep an open channel between them because they can really be somebody who helps you through this time of your life so another question that is very related to the stress  question how do you manage your time of officially between in academics in extracurricular activities so it's all about developing good habits so for example up until junior year i procrastinated like most other high school students but overheard the summer after sophomore year i got into some some classes that really helped fuel my my passions my ambitions i felt like i wanted to do the class because i thought that it was it was a genuinely good thing to learn and it was it was  really satisfying to like actually write code learn about the brain that sort of thing so it's when you truly connect to your your classes or you find some way to  sort of take something out of every class that you start to have less of a tendency to press me but instead get things done immediately and like once you  start doing doing assignments immediately as soon as you possibly can that having a truly sticks with you once you abandon presentation is for some people at least it's harder to go back so i would say be that kid that finishes their homework at five pm on a friday night it will help you later on  trying to like try to be perfect because like nobody you can be perfect all the time like you can't always get a's on the assignments just like as long as you put in remember you can let yourself fall a little bit  that's ok ok so a similar question kind of off of that is how do you balance sports and studying while still having enough time to sleep so for me i played volleyball for years which was a fall season sport and i think i guess those kind of at a disadvantage because fall you come back to school you're still kind of in summer mode so and everything starting up everything's new so in freshman year i had a hard time adjusting to what i needed to do because i was still in the summer phase i was you know every year it's like this but over time by your sophomore definitely by sophomore definitely by junior year you knew really need to work on your time management so obviously it depends case by case but for me i had packs a sophomore junior year i was on the j v team and you know one practice starts so for us practice started at four pm after school and so you know you have that hour in from one school ends to one practice starts to when you need to get ready for practice and you really need to take  your homework done during this time just a signs that you can know you can finish that you should not push off because you're going to regret it later when you go home because after sports say for me practice was four to six and then i came home and i ate i took a shower and by that time i was already like nine pm and then you start to lose focus around eleven pm so i really pushed my you really have to learn to push yourself to get things done during school if you have freeze or if you you know your schedule you know when you have practice and that you have to figure out when you have to get things done it's just don't progress and going but i actually i did swimming for four years at the high school and we would have practice from around three until five ish and then i would get home at around five thirty so for one thing sleep is really important so don't count that out when  when you're really up kind of late and you're working on something don't just think oh i can stay up for another three hours or whatever that's not going to help you in the long run and you're just going to end up feeling more and more dead inside after a couple weeks of that so don't do that also when you're doing sport so what i would recommend is that when you're doing sports don't worry about any academics like when you're just like playing baseball or swimming or shooting hoops or whatever don't worry about tomorrow's tests or some project do next week because right then you're doing sports you want to do that well and it might even help clear mind a little bit and i found that that was tough in th case for me whenever i was swimming right after school it was not just exercise and bonding experience with your friends and like all that it was also a way to not worry about school for two hours and so during that time i miss swimming swimming swimming and then after i get home i don't worry about the meat coming up or what other what ever tiring exercise or to really might be doing the next day when i'm studying i'm just studying and focusing on whatever topic or subject i'm looking at right now and if you do that if you put in the focus on whatever you're doing and just forget about what other stuff don't worry about it if you do that i think you'll overall be much more efficient so yeah  another very good habit to have in high school is to develop a good relationship with your teacher and this is not just so that you can get a good teacher recommendation on your on your college application but also just because you get more from the class if you get along with the teacher and also it's just a nice thing to do making friends with people so i would say that one very important thing to do to develop a relationship with your teacher well first of all be a good kid do what you're supposed to do with the teacher says and second of all talk to them whenever you can treat them like you would any other human being like they're people too and like you would make small talk with someone on the bus make small talk with your teacher get to know them tell them what you're interested in like have a conversation with them like that's really really important and like share with them what about their class you're interested in and they'll be more than happy to share more of what they know with you and you can also take more out of that class with it like for example with my biology teacher i really got into reading science articles and i would discuss them with her  and upon other things i would tell her how much i loved her pets she had a lot of pets in her room but yeah so just like treating your teachers like normal people and like that's the key to developing a good relationship with your teacher it's also good to try and make an effort to talk to them a lot outside of class so you could see them before or after class or during freeze you'll find it's probably you probably naturally try and talk to the teachers the things you're interested in so that's one moving more or to the more specific topic of academics  like i kind of already discussed this but another question was like how do you choose your courses or course levels so before i talked more about like choosing your course level but when you get to a like this this is besides just freshman year when you get to your later years like junior or senior year you have so many options of courses and i would add on to what i said before is that like inquire about the teacher i believe that like a teacher can make or break a class and if you hear of a really good teacher especially in a subject that you enjoy and you're interested in i would say absolutely go for it like when there's a good teacher for a class that truly does make the class that's rich using exactly which courses you want to say i think it's really important to talk to people who've already taken the courses because a lot of the courses about so you should definitely talk to people who are have already taken the class and see what they think of it because you're going to go through exact same thing that it is if you do take that class  and as far as choosing which level of the class you want to take i think the teacher recommendations are a good thing but you should also remember that they don't have the final say you're the one who's in the and is going to choose which class one is a i remember ten three i was recommended  the center for human genetics so there are a lot of like internships especially center in boston like the haven of all things educational so if there are tons and tons of opportunities although they aren't necessarily just lying around waiting for you to take them you do have to search for them a little bit i know that the community service director she will  discuss like all sorts of opportunities she will send emails about them you can talk to your connections you can talk to your neighbors your family you can even research some professors that you like or that you're interested in and then discover that maybe their lab need some help or you can just email the professor and ask them if they need some help and wall while this isn't available to everyone i would say  that the first thing you should do is try to explore your connections who knows maybe your best friend's parent works at a famous firm around here i don't know but the first thing you should do is look around talk to this is the time to write stuff because for me personally i went on a program called seaview i x which is funded by the department of state and i it was a full year program academic year to germany all expenses paid by the u s government the state department so my flight  host family my school materials my transportation it was all paid for and these sorts of opportunities studying abroad it's not limited to just give you x x as a program has existed for the past forty years or so and it's strictly for germany but there's also the yes abroad program which refers to countries abroad which are as people say are kind of critical languages for example russian or arabic chinese for example and they also pay for summer programs and academic year programs to go abroad you can also check out other academics and study abroad programs at the department of state website they have a good amount of paid for by the government programs but there's also other organizations as well around the u s for example the american field service is very well known in the northeast for their academic study abroad programs and for me personally i know that for many of us here setting abroad is something that might seem kind of out of the that might seem like something that's not particularly academic or might not help with the application process but for me personally my your pride is honestly what made me stand out in the process and what really gave me that edge because while i was in germany i was able to find internship opportunities for example with the local german government with companies in germany and i made a lot of good connections with my teachers in germany and for that reason even as far as recommendations go that was  those very unique someone with a create a bride and above all else i think i made a lot of great friendships abroad speak with people that you know i'll be in contact with very very long time and a lot of  representative dave rogers he's our he's our guy our representative for our our district to massachusetts and and i just it and i just like to say there's a there's so many there's so many great opportunities in boston if you just find them right there's there's really there's really no age limit on the impact you can make because there's really it really in any field they are interested in any any kind of  but my advice for you just keep your eyes open and always if you're if you're interested in some organization or seems to suit to represent your needs just just contact them and i'm sure they could figure someone out for if i'm going to shift gears a little bit kind of on the same topic but not really i didn't have an internship but i volunteered a couple of summers at a learning camp i don't know if people know it's the ideal learning centers so i used to go to that as a kid back in malden because i used to live in malden and i moved here in fourth grade so i really love working with kids and i reached out to the boss lady i don't know so and i talked to her and i was like i love teaching kids i was a teaching assistant and so it was really an inner ship wasn't really a job but it was something that i could look forward to in my summers to work with the kids help them learn how to add subtract you know their foundations and stuff like that and currently i am working in the town center so and so are aaron and  so if i see any of you guys they're just like but so yeah i got the job around january of senior year and it's been good so far and i'm working hard making money but the only thing i would say is hold off getting a job until later years in high school because of course every teenager wants to hang out and have money to spend and i hated asking my parents for money because i felt bad but and i'd be like oh just let me get a job when i was like younger but every time i said that they were like no you have to focus on your because studies as working does take a lot of time so i listen to their advice and i'm glad i did because otherwise i wouldn't be where i am now and so i got this job senior year and honestly just they usually have signs in windows that say we're hiring so if you go in and ask them about it most applications are online you can just fill them out and submit them and you'll get a call back but yeah that's my advice don't start too early for working because academics are really important at this time of really yeah and of course the process of finding a job can be very overwhelming at first so i was saying your guidance counselor is a really really really great resource like not just for college application stuff they know also what to do for if you're if your post graduation plan is not to go to college like the have advice to give you in finding a job and doing or doing a gap year or of course going to college so i'm going to switch gears  again the next question is what extracurricular is i did you join and why so we're all going to go through various extracurriculars we go through and we we did and why we like that what they did  so for me for three out of my four years i i joined the working to help the homeless club and i was a really great club we organized a lot of fundraisers if any of you went to the coffee house you might know that that's one of our vans and it's really agree and honestly it was a really really good event like don't be don't be scared off by the fact that it's all high school performers they're good we're  high school is a talented school yeah and more recently senior year because it's never too late to join clubs i joined the medical exploration called so really cool club where they talk about like all the fields in the in the in the medical field and like why it's a cool feel and i think that they're doing a fundraiser soon global culture night but yeah like those two clubs  first of all they do get they do give you community service but i think that the the better reason to join is because they actually do perform service for the world outside of belmont high school because of course what we're talking about today is more than just within the school within academics and they truly have an impact in the world for me played soccer and around the track team but those are kind of sense diary did those back in middle school like i played soccer in second grade and for clubs i think even if you don't actively go out and join clubs eventually you'll talk to people who are part of different things that you like and through talk to different people you'll end up joining that's called anyways for example we have an activist very chair where all the club like captains and leaders they have like big displays all over the want to round trying to take as much candy as i could and sign my friends up for your club but i did up joining the math team because i was interested in that freshman year and i joined more clubs later on in high school just because like i knew that i knew of different people mostly friends that were part of those so in tenth grade i joined science team that's lost my friends are doing school outside of school i do a lot of music related things i play the chinese hammered dulcimer other young chin i don't know if people know about that i also do chinese traditional dance but if we're to specifically talk about at the high school  i focused most of my four years on being an asian american club and i was elected president this year i was publicly sions officer last year so and that's been one of my passions all these four years i joined as a freshmen i was i was scared but i knew this is something that i wanted to do so i went in there and i made a lot of friends and i'm really glad i joined that club of course i signed up for a lot of clubs freshman year but i decided to focus most of my time and my efforts on that club and they paid off so i don't know if you guys went to last two weeks to go in last week i think so that's our main event like it you can save i'm a huge extracurricular person there's a there's like a huge wealth of opportunities here v h s i'm going to list like my my favorite three so i've been i've been the student body president for two years it and the national honor society vice president for four year and i've also been a part of the h s a student leadership team for all four years and i really love these these positions right here because there's there's so much it there's so much room to really really explore and do cooperate with other people to create something new right this is my favorite part about b h as actually before we go into this i just want to have a quick and her sister good folks but yeah here's here's my advice and here's what i regret not doing freshman year right there is people  teachers are always and faculty and students are always willing to support someone with a really you darn good idea right if you if you want to do something if you want to build something new with a high school it doesn't matter what age you are you can be a freshman you can be a senior you can you can build something new right i like i just i love the student leadership team because that just to reiterate the student leadership team was created by mr muldoon our vice with a great ideas for new projects whether they're fundraisers whether they're just fundraisers you know it's a it's it helps kids caribbean packed right so we're what i what i have for realized in high school that i was not good at math or science and i was also not athletic so for me personally i joined the marching band because i was good at music and so their marching band was one of the best choices of my life because honestly made so many of my best friends  and back then we had free hot cocoa games and cookies you know why not and then in freshman year i also did writing club the debate team and i joined the high point for me personally right now senior year looking realized through these activities and knowing people that not only was like good at those sort of activities but through those activities those are the people that i felt understood what i like to do and those were the things that they like to do as well and so for me  are a lot more than just having something to write for your college application or just having something to do in your free time it's a lot more finding people who are who are like minded who like doing the things they you do as well and can help you  better at it through those activities so spending the things that you really like i don't think it was the fall of my parents but as a child i thought that i was really into math and science but it wasn't really and so i threw myself into a lot of activities that i wasn't really interested in and i didn't really realize that until high school so it's never too late to start something new i agree with that definitely and as i said before you don't think it's a good idea to start out  th quite a few different clubs or activities and you try them out get a feel for them and see if you enjoy them a good place to start would be to continue what you what you're doing in middle school in middle school i was in the band i did a little bit of swimming with dolphins and then after that when i was in high school i thought you know i was i was pretty good at that and i had fun playing music and swimming so i would decided to keep on doing that in high school i was part of the swim team as well and i did that for all four years and i found that extra curricular is can teach you a lot as well stuff that you know maybe a class in school might not be able to so when i was part of the swim team i didn't learn just how to swim or be fast i learned like what it means to be part of a team what it means to support your teammates and  i definitely think when i was in the swim team i learned how to be tougher enough just physically mentally as well like how to have that sense of like just hanging in there and having  and not giving up no matter how hard it gets and i think that's a really important thing you can learn from really any sport and personally for me swimming was what taught me that and so that's what you definitely want to do a lot of different extracurriculars and try out new stuff as well  at first because who knows what you might find next we're going to start talking about like socially because of course there is there are things outside of academics here so the first question is how do you make friends so that's kind of a complicated question because it really depends from person to person but like bonnie was saying like she met people in her clubs that were like minded and when you join lots of clubs or extracurriculars or you pick the classes that you like you'll find a lot of people that you'll get along with and i think ultimately the people that you will call friends and senior year now are the people that you actually feel happy around like when you're with your friends you should ask the question am i happy around this person can i be myself around this person and as long as the answer is yes you've made friends a basic rule that people should follow when making friends is you should really be open to everybody because obviously you come into high school from the middle school you have your group of friends most likely already but you should always try to stay open to the people that you meet because high school you have more classes bigger classes you meet so many more people and really you should try to be more open and not limit yourself to a certain friend group because when you share ideas with people honestly you like build up your thoughts you know you think more creatively because just staying in a certain friend group it's the same ideas over and over and it's good to get new influx of ideas from other people and it's really interesting because the high school has a ton of different people and you can get a lot of different perspectives on things so make sure to stay open that's my advice to stay open minded to other people so on a side on the side no the next question is how do you handle bullying so bullying has been a big issue that's come up a lot recently and there are many different forms of bullying obviously there's physical bullying cyber bullying emotional mental and it is a problem in high schools across the country and fortunately for us the high school we have a great administration that is willing to support us i don't know if you guys heard of the student march that happened last thursday i think where the school rallied together against bullying so that's a very very good sign and shows that the school is behind you so never be afraid you can always tell your parents your friends your teachers there are people out there who will help you because this is something that shouldn't happen to any child so yeah so th question is are there a lot of drug users and how do you handle peer pressure basically let's say maybe twenty to twenty five percent of the kids a person and do drugs for the most part i would say it's a big deal you probably won't find yourself in a parking lot smoking weed if you are find yourself addicted to drugs probably six of the i think you guys will be five for the most part so to say that nicer and a nicer way yes there is there are things that happened at the high school as happened with every other high school and i would just say for me personally if i feel like if you are strong enough you have a strong enough support system of family friends teachers people that you can trust there really shouldn't be a reason why you should be turning to these things because you really don't need them in your life in my point of view so i feel like you should really make sure you have a stable support system that's there to support you because as you learn in wellness classes or pasta classes a lot of people turn to illegal substances as a form of coping or a defense mechanism or something like that so i feel like if you make sure you have a stable support system a family and friends there really isn't a real reason why you should be turning to things like this without it i personally think it's you know it's kind of loaded like deteriorates relationships more that it more than helps but you know if as long as it as long as you're personally driven and you have it's it's your set of values that determines where where the pressure comes from right if you if you are really focused on school and success who are considering the college application process already we thought that it might be a good idea to go over a college application essays because those are things worth looking ahead to so we're going to discuss like how we came up with our essay topics maybe we'll go through our examples like what we sent to our caller our respective colleges all of us are college bound so we've all gone through this process o i like looking back on it i don't really like that topic but but i think what's more important than the topic is just like well a just writing only being open about like yourself i think you should be spending most of the time doing like introspection play trying to figure out who you are trying to figure out how the lay put downs of paper  then actually trant think of a good like topic because really you can write about anything like like anything at all  as something you may know there are like certain questions that you're supposed to answer but there are so many questions to choose from that you can basically write about what you want which is why aaron was saying so for me  my essay process was really drawn l i took a college essay writing class over the summer before senior year because i knew i wanted to get it done i had false sports i had other things is going to be busy with applications and i wanted to have it done before the school year and for me it didn't really work out as i planned it to i didn't have my final essay by the end of this class but it definitely having somebody there to walk me through the beginning steps because as some of you may know writing is really hard when you just you're just sitting there in front of a blank screen and you don't really know what's right so  there are some small tips to start with like writing down a list of hobbies or like weird things that you do that nobody else does or like weird things that have mean something or signifies something to you so for me i wrote three full essays before i figured out which one i wanted to use so i had like three different drafts of like you would what i was going to write about so my first one was pretty generic which is why i ended up not using it was about overcoming failure in sports and i talked a lot about how i was on a club team and i felt like i wasn't on the same level as some of my teammates and how i wanted to improve and i worked hard to stay after practice and talk to my coach and stuff like that and i thought it was a great essay i put all my heart into it because this is something i was passionate about and i gave it to my writing tutor like teacher and she was like this is pretty generic because a lot of people talk about sports and things like that and you really want to stand out so of course i was like ok and i was like sad about it but i started writing on my second essay which was on my dulcimer how i play dulcimer at the unction i play that for about ten years so i played that and then i wrote about that and it was interesting but i didn't feel like it was something that described me i felt like i was talking more about like my extracurricular isn't like what i was feeling so from my last essay i chose to go really personal which was kind of a big risk but i talked about how when i was younger i was i was a victim of bullying so i talked about my experience about that for when i was younger and how i went through it and i talked about the teachers and the parents my specifically who helped me through that and it was something really personal but i felt like it really showed a side of me that the application process would not have shown otherwise and it's a big part of shaping me in who i am so i decided to go really personal which was a big risk but whichever essay you are most satisfied with you feel the most confident about you feel really shows who you are i would say like fran i went through a lot of drafts when i was doing my college essay i also started over the summer but i did not have my final draft by the end of it like i wanted so i finished my draft probably the day that college applications are due but and i went through maybe ten drafts not exaggerating that is like my best estimate but it takes a while to find the right as a topic i picked topics such as my extra curricular is my family like smaller experiences how i make friends like there are so many different topics you can discuss whether there be  as trivial as playing a piano or as big as like going to a foreign country but my final college application essay that i was happy with was one about my experience being a teaching assistant for biology and i feel like the essay was was my final essay because i felt like it showed who i was and i also used it to convey my greater  goals to help like teach others and the the most important thing in a college application essay is to make sure that shows you and that it shows your goals so  my biggest advice for the the common app essay process is tell a story right there's like if you think about it there who are whoever whichever admissions officer at the college your choice they are submitting into is sitting in a cooped up in an office like scrolling through like hundreds of applications and they're looking for the one that that stands out in my opinion the  the most important part of the call the college process because you know it like a lot of people could have really good grades but it's you need you need like a i sense of like understanding yourself to really have  a super essay so kind of kind of how the common app has about six different prompts different questions to choose from and the one that i and i wrote about how my experience being a big brother to her kind of translated net into how i kind of i was like a big brother to other people around me  right and it's and i think i think i look i succeeded at the end here because i i i kind of went personal i went i i so i know a lot of us here just talked about what we wrote about r s a i'm going to try and talk about something a bit different which is how i derived what i was going to write about my essay so what a lot of you guys are should start doing is kind of creating a resume and this doesn't mean like a formal resume like what you would send to a for a job but rather just a plain list of things that you feel accomplished about things that you know something that even if it's minute miniscule like a collection that you have or something anything that you're proud of start writing it down because you're not going to remember it forever and when the time comes for you to find these things again it's just so much easier when you're to have a list done next haven't already talked about it but what these guys are looking for is a good story because if you don't have a good  story even if you have like the best g p a or the best test scores this is going to be the thing that makes makes or breaks a like for me personally i honestly feel that my essay was the thing that made my application because it was the thing that i was most proud about in my application the thing i spent the most time on and also when you once you have it written when you have the first shop it's not going to be perfect send it to everybody i sent my as they see us late last minute and it's like the best sort of feedback you can have because your whatever you think your opinion on that essay is it's not going to matter if someone else tells you that you know from reading your essay this is what i felt about it that's going to be the most valuable piece of advice that you need  sure if you just read it but so i highly recommend that you go to the library and get even soyuz college essays book i know it's kind of like a plug but it's honestly something that really influence how i wrote my essays in it made it major that you're interested in find professors that you respect from this university find extracurricular activities at this university that are related to or major and not related to your major also find internship opportunities that's had a campus and just fun things to do around town these things might seem kind of random at first just random things about university but when you're writing a way why essay what you need are specifics and by finding a class with your major finding professors that you respect in finding extracurriculars an internship opportunities you're showing interest in a school you're showing that you did your research that you really like the school and so what you want to do after you have this list is think about things that you've you've already done things that you've already done or the val that you have that are related to these classes or professors or internship opportunities this is a further show that not only are you interested in the university but this university is going to propel you forward your end goal is in this university your end goal is the job or the life that you want to have after university so these classes in these professors are just a stepping stone for you to go ahead and find the career that you want or be more of an intellectual or whatever career path you want so keep those things in mind and again as far as i'm sure curricular activities go this is also a common supplemental i say something colleges often like to ask is to describe an extracurricular activity that you have the kind of talk about what you learned from you don't want to give a very plain in a plain answer that you can kind of guess for example i talked about music and what i learned practicing music and something that you can easily guess from practicing music is discipline or learning to perform in the stage you want something that's random in seemingly unrelated something that's so personal and specific to you so for example with me music again i learned about politics because the music that i played wasn't something that for example was commonly accepted in things like this and i talked about how i learned about the history of my instrument in things like this and that was very specific and very personal to me and so that's something that not a lot of other kids are going to write about because it's something so specific and that's what you want to do so this kind of applies to both the general general essay for application as well as some of the more school specific ones some schools have as essay questions that aren't just why this will but also  you know the the weird ones for those as well as the general as say you want to as devon in body of said tell a story and at the same time you don't want to choose a topic that's like you don't want to be quirky for the sake of being quirky don't choose something completely random or strange just for the sake of that you still want to tie it to your own experiences and be able to reveal yourself and who you are through that topic so say it like you might be considering oh i'm going to write an essay about tying shoes because that's random that's funny well at the same time you want to think about how this actually relates to you because if you can't if you don't have it a personal experience related to tying shoes or you can't reveal something about yourself such as the way you think or maybe your process of doing things then you might want to reconsider choosing you don't want to be considered using a different topic because if you can't show yourself through that topic of tying shoes then there's not a really good chance that like the school is going to learn about you and  that might hurt end up hurting your application so for me personally when i was picking a topic to write about for both the school specific essays and the general essay i thought about things general big ideas that interested  and how my experiences related to them so for my general essay i actually wrote about water and obviously it's sounds start sounds like it's going to be one of those strange ones but when i thought about it i remembered that water actually has a lot to do with my life like when i when i go swimming and i also added in a story about how i learned about the world's water issues through dishwashing and because i was able to tie it to a personal experience and reveal how i changed how i learned something that's what schools want to see and so that's that's the general starting point you want to have when reading your essay and of course for the why why this college essay as many of said you want to do your research and you want to have a specific example of the school of why you want to go to that school because if you can't show that you know about the school then the schools not that i really believe you if you say you really want to go do it so you want to show some kind of  example of something specific at the school that also ties to you so if you like science or something like that you could write about how the science work the research of this one certain professor at the university of whatever has really interested in me and it ties to my interests if you write about that that's going to really help solidify your why this college essay because it shows that not only are you knowledgeable about the school to have the q and a longer but the last question is like as a high school students how have your parents helped you so i i agree with someone who said it before your parents are huge resource to you they are there the ones who support you through and through and i think that the best thing parents can do i see that there are a lot of parents in the room is to encourage your kids to have confidence in themselves and explore things that they wouldn't do so on their own i know that my parents they they really they encouraged me to do this program which i would never have done on my own because i was scared that i would fail but they encouraged me to do it they held high expectations for me but they made sure the i knew that they wouldn't be disappointed if i failed because they they appreciated that i at least tried so parents encourage your kids this is not entirely related but on the parents topic one thing i feel like is really is really overprotective because they won't be used to it kind of going off what michael is saying so i feel like parents should really try to provide for your child as best as you can and just remember that so like when my mom was telling me she was like you really want your child to be able to be successful wherever they wherever they go wherever they are you want to be able you want your child as a parent you want your child to be versatile and to anything so that was what i would say to parents yeah as michael said i think sometimes parents  you know we love you but like sometimes you have to know when to back off a little because yeah you know we're teenagers right like we're on our way to adulthood so it's a big world out there and you know one day our parents aren't like you know we'll be like off in a different city or maybe to a different country like pursuing our own careers or just or being on journeys like self reflection or whatever and at a certain point like  you know we as growing people growing into adults we have to learn on our own sometimes and part of that that what comes with it is making mistakes so  know that parents want us to be great want to be successful want to be able to do anything and take on the world all that but some of that knowledge has to be gained on our own and so if parents  try really hard to always you know tell you what to do what extracurricular curricular to do like what subject to focus on you might not learn for yourself how to how to recover so if you say you didn't do something on time or you forgot this homework assignment or you didn't really feel like pursuing this this club and you suffer a little from that you know you're a grain might drop a little you might not you might not enjoy your time in a club or activity that you chose for yourself but from that although you might have lost a little bit of you might have lost a little bit of time or something you also gain the knowledge that comes with that so you know next time not to do this and not to make this mistake  and i found that for me my parents actually helped me by backing off a little and give me some room to grow on my own so i was able to make some mistakes and from that i learned how to deal with that i learned better how to handle losses how to handle on a test or something how to work through that on my own and at the same time you know you're there not to back off completely your parents will still be there to help you when you do need it and  besides that yeah so you want to be able to learn on your own at times and don't be afraid to make mistakes because it's better to make it earlier than later because now is the time for you to learn and grow and when you do make mistakes you'll be prepared for that kind of situation in the future so i guess i'm closing kind of but basically on my take of how parents can definitely help their children is not is kind of what people have already said but i kind of like it liken it to a car in the sense that the parents are really like the engine the motor they're the people who are going to be driving their children for a good duration of their lives like from childhood up until now and now that you know the cars now by itself running on the road you know it's kind of up to the child themselves to kind of figure things out what their interests are and things like this so in the end it doesn't really matter what you know your parents necessarily think that you should be or she should do i guess it's important that you have that opinion in the back of your mind but honestly if you're going to be presenting the best form of yourself kind of down the road in life it's going to be up to what you want to do because you want to do something that you really enjoy and you want to be good at as if it were another class because it does take about that much work and if you use good time management like we talked about i would say a lot maybe one to two hours maybe three hours every week and then split that up through the days or maybe get it all done in a week and it really does take up the time commitment of one class and remember that your final would be december thirty first for most colleges are generally first  so i would say it does definitely take a lot of time and it definitely depends on what colleges you go to some colleges will not have that many supplemental which are basically extra essays you have to write  some colleges will require less work and those are easier and also if you choose to apply to more colleges it might take longer and also it depends on how you want the quality of your essay like if you want a really really good essay it will take you a while but i would say start thinking about college application the summer beforehand and then start visiting colleges long before you want to know what colleges you like beforehand before you handle the stress of actually applying the actually i don't know about your guys experiences but i didn't finalize my list until maybe a few days before the deadline but i had my i had my mean list may be a few months before the deadline i mean i applied early action to one school so i have a little more time to decide what other ones i want to apply to and some of the colleges will honestly surprise you like when i'm going to cornell university in the fall and when i was making my list i did not initially consider cornell use university as one of my top choices but now i realize it should have been and it takes a while to actually make those decisions just a quick note a good rule of thumb is to have like a good draft of your comment by the end of the summer no you should start well like ready to take them when you're a junior i would i really recommend not taking it your senior year because you're going to be busy with college applications is a lot of stress with going behind well my s a t s scores be out by the time i apply or something like that so and then up until like other people set up until the summer before senior year i would not worry so much about your college essay because standardized testing is also very important and a big part of  the other questions really interested in biology like my major next year is going to be a biomedical engineer so i am just really into biology and she really helped encourage us to explore the world outside she had us go to  lectures in boston so we could see more of the biology in the actual science world and not just from the textbook so i think that that was a really great class although there is a new teacher now so there are there have been some changes called global leadership i took it this year it was all it was created by dr shah who was one of the social studies teachers he was he was actually a teacher for the year in massachusetts and he created it it's like his own design class and it's it's very it's it's incredibly interesting essentially essentially what it covers is like a there are these problems the world right and this is what people are doing to fix them right and it's it's really like that that's that's really what it i'd be interested in but i think anyone who's interest in any kind of field would be you know to have that this cost have value because you know we're we're the generation that's going to be taking on the next problems right you know there's always whatever whatever kind of job we do we're going to be we're going to be we're going to have some kind of stakeholder role in the future of the world class because he's a pretty harsh grader but personally because i really like literature i really like the humanities so in our class we were able to because it was an a p class we didn't have a strict framework or curriculum so we were able to for example reach short stories watch movies discuss the literary devices the historical context and a lot of the moral concepts behind a lot of literature in these humanities sort of really it's a check so again it's kind of different for everyone and i just i mean we all know nowadays that technology is a really big part of our lives we all have smartphones computers all these devices are everywhere they're all interconnected and we have this giant confusing thing called the internet that's growing every day and i think you know a lot of like tech leaders and whatnot like bill gates and steve jobs and whatever they've all said things like now's the now is the age when computer programming is quickly becoming another skill that's rather necessary to be successful and even if you're not going to pursue a career in programming or anything like that i think it certainly helps to have a basic understanding of how you know all these devices how they think so it's a it's a nice course that will introduce you to some of the basic core concepts of some programming languages and i think once you take it you'll have a you'll appreciate the understanding you have of how to communicate with devices such as computers and phones and whatnot so yeah i think that we have club working to help the homeless it was a really great club and it benefited me and so many more ways than one like first of all you get community service from a lot of clubs second of all you get to me all sorts of new people like i i experience and you learn so much more about this community and that they are truly another community just like ours so i was part of the school's asian american club for four years and  eventually came to the president this year so for me it really helped expand my connections a lot because in my first two years it was more about meeting people in the school and in the community who are  and it was it it's really good to get different perspectives on other people but at the same time it was also really nice to relate to other people to relate with their situations and their lifestyles and so for the connections part in my junior year i was elected the public relations officer so my job was to communicate with the elementary schools the middle schools other asian organizations around the greater boston area so already kind of a i had connections with other organizations so it really built on my skills reaching out to people through e mail through phone through texting people and it's really good to expand because and to get your name out there because and it also related it like helped me kind of decide what i want to do later on in life so i'm going to be majoring in international business specifically more in east asia so it was really good to get a head start on that in building connections into be more outgoing and interpersonal with other people so i think i think the  actually when i was when i was a sophomore i really i didn't really know what i want to do with my life right you know it's i was i was fift if you're going to be a chess join it it's awesome not not only not only was it it was it was kind of garnering my love for hall of mean in a in a productive way in the funds from this went to a town haiti that was ra by hurricane and helped rebuild some homes that were destroyed we ended up raising almost two thousand dollars in in the the two hours it was running and it was the  real the real value and it was it was kind of it was all is all student loan right it like it's this was like a huge a big a big building project and it was it was completely built by students so somewhere here right now but what what what i what i took away from this is you if you if you kid in if you can bring people together under  one great idea to create and to innovate you can do it that's that's what that's the beauty of the school i think i think you can do you can't do that any other high school besides  future which is on international relations or international studies something that nature because they're modeling you and i'm not sure how many people are familiar with the subject but you basically act as an ambassador for a country need to pay issues with kids from other schools in from around the globe essentially about certain topics and certain issues affecting us whether currently or even historically for example i was on a committee regarding the cuban missile crisis and i represented president kennedy and that was very exciting because i was able to work with so many kids from around mass chooses and also the northeast about simulating what would have happened in debating these issues and for me to be has always been something very interesting will and do research on these historical topics really fueled my passion for both history and kind of absolutely i think that getting more community service is always a great thing like not just for getting a presidential word because after you get one hundred hours you can get a presidential award but also just for the fun of a you know there are lots of fun activities around here that you can do and and also you're you're meeting new people while you're doing this like and miss moloch off the community service director gives you more than enough opportunities for community service it's really rewarding because you meet new people you know that you're helping out the local community you can tutor someone in the middle school you can go work and now that doesn't count but that's a homeless shelter and cradles crayons is an organization that gives toys and supplies to low income or homeless kids and it's honestly like they're really fun experiences and into addition you can get extra community service hours by joining clubs a lot of the super fun clubs are like we're all talking about they give you community service hours for being a member and just doing a lot of community services just very rewarding in itself and i think it's a great idea to do more than the forty any other questions so the question was basically we're going to get a new high school soon and the question was like what do we want a new building what do we like about the old building the first thing that i want in this new high school is better bathrooms like this is a huge issue for me because like literally all the girls bathrooms like there is like the locks no work the doors don't work and you kind of have to like bring a hairstyle with you so you can like you don't like that you have to like secure the  like the building itself we we were approved for federal funds for a building i think i think we passed by that stage so now now there's going to be there's going to be three but there's good there's going to be six different phases in which the building is created i believe i believe we're still in the first phase since funding was just secured we're actually having a so in scope out the land in figure out what would be best for new building a reservation an ad school like the education here is awesome the trust system here is so great like we have so much freedom it's just a physical building that i think everyone here can complain for hours about any other questions oh yeah just what i said in the end like you know if there's a new building that's really nice offer like probably a lot of new you know ways to get around in new ways to learn and resources and all that but i think what's you know just chat and stuff and just know that you live in a great town and you're going to you can have great experiences in a school so i think that we are going to conclude this session i am so sorry it ran long but thank you all so much for coming in staying we really appreciate this and we're we were seriously so glad to have been here most of us for years yeah i mean and to those  who are coming into b h as are already in b h s we wish you the best of luck and i mean you can probably find us on like facebook or something to contact us whenever you have questions you can ask other juniors you can ask your friends who are seniors we're always here to help you that's the great thing about ph us we're always here to help one another thank you so much for coming th