Selecting the Right Path for Career

I met Jin at s seminar sponsored by the Chinese Engineers & Scientists Association of Southern California.  Jin is a graduate student at UCLA studying abroad from China.  Similar to any students preparing to enter the work market, she asked me questions related to finding a direction for her career path and her abilities to be competitive in the market place.  What I saw was a bright, articulate, and beautiful young lady with lots of potential but didn't realize it.  We had an extensive conversation.  Following is a letter she sent me updating her progress since our conversation.  With her permission I'm sharing this letter hoping that it can help more young emerging professionals as well.

"Dear Ms. Lan:

I am very happy that you would like to know what I learned from our conversation and are willing to listen to my recent updates. I actually see you as my mentor after our conversation. I learned a lot from you and really appreciate the way you handle career and life. I would like to keep you updated on what I have been doing and achieving, and get feedbacks from you.

 Summary of meeting with Ms. Lan:

There are three most important things I learned from you:

1. Always looking for opportunities to grow instead of looking for opportunities to gain more money.

I really appreciated that you said this and it is really eye opening for me. I have been taking some classes in business school at UCLA. I feel everyone here is talking about how to make more money. It kind of put myself into that way of thinking as well when I began to spend more time with people from business school. You tend to look for ways to make money. But what you said is very correct. We are not here to make money. We are here to grow. This is more important in our life. Whenever I feel I got lost, I always remember this sentence you said.

2.  Persistence.

This is another important lesson I learned from you. I remembered that I asked you how come you always concur the hardest project? What is your secret? You told me it is persistence. As long as you keep doing it and do not give up, you will achieve it one day. I think this is a great lesson. We all face difficulties in our life. There will be one point that we just feel we can not do it anymore. But if we are just being a bit more persistent, maybe we will see the light of hope very soon. Whenever I think about quit, I always remember this and try to do a bit more.

3.  Being proactive and aggressive.

We discussed about how Chinese culture is very different from American culture. We tend to teach people to be humble and not being proactive. I also told you that sometimes I feel intimidated and not confident enough. I tend to think a lot and doing nothing in the end. I am intimidated by my own imagination. You told how you understand me, since we are from the same background. I can only believe myself and be more proactive. So whenever, I want to do something now, I tried to not think too much and intimidated by the potential negative results. Instead, I will just do it.

Here are the progress I have made in the past few months.

1. I wanted to apply for the president of Biological Science Council during on meeting. However, I got intimidated and was worried people won’t vote for me and I will look bad. So I did not end up raising my hands to join the competition. After talking with you and determined to become more proactive, I chose to apply for the president of Advanced Degree Consulting Club (ADCC) and got the position.
2. Right now, I am spending a lot of time on this club. I tried to host more events for members in our club. This is a lot of workload and time commitment. Sometimes, I got tired and wanted to have a rest. I tend to think that maybe I should not have this one event. In that case, I do not have to work as much. However, whenever I think this way, I just remember being proactive. Just to push myself to do it first and once it started; I can not stop until I finish it. I also see all those as the opportunities for me to grow. So I try to grasp as much opportunities as I can. I also try not to fall in my negative thoughts loop. I do them and not think about the potential negative results. Because even though I fail, what could happen. In school, this is my best chance to do whatever I want and fail. Because no one would say anything. However, if I find a job and kept failing on my job, no one would forgive me. So I see school as the best opportunity for myself to be brave and try different thing, learn and grow without the worry of failure.
3. Also, I am trying to take on more responsibilities and finding more opportunities to grow.

Here is my plan for the future:

  1.  Throw more events for ADCC and get more people involved with club.  I am talking with a consulting company who want to host info session on campus.

I am talking to two past members who are potentially interested in helping club members

Trying to get an advisor for our club. I have one potential target. He is a professor at business school. But he is hard to reach. I plan to show up at his class on this Saturday and ask him in person.

Trying to get more people in the industry to talk about their experience as consultant. I am working on the list of people now

Trying to set up mini MBA class to teach graduate student about business.

2. I am one of the organizers of Socal Healthcare Young professionals. I am preparing a list of panel speaker for the next event

3. I am applying to become the graduate student rep for the healthy campus steering committee. In that way, I can meet with the school chancellor and discuss about school issues.

4. I am applying to become the rep for Biological Science Council for Graduate Student Association.

5. Since, I am interested in consulting. I made a plan for myself to study two hours consulting cases everyday, and finish the ten day MBA book in one month.

6. I am taking a venture team competition class. Because I feel I have some business background now. I should stop taking so many classes and begin to use what I learned in real life case.

7. I am planning to attend the KNAPP competition from business school. It is another way for me to get real life experience. I have one friend who is working on promoting olive oil from Tunisia, and another friend who is working on a fashion app. I am in talking with them to attend the competition.

8. My friend suggested me to join the toastmaster group. I am considering it.

9. Going to more social events and make more connections

10. I am taking a statistics class to prepare for lending a job in pharmaceutical companies. As much as I want to do consulting, I can not guarantee that I will join for sure. So it is better to prepare myself in both ways. That is why I am taking statistics.

I also got some good tips from a friend about how to organize my time.

1.  I should spend 9-6 solely on my research. Or I could not finish my project and get graduated if I do not do so. However, I found myself spending a lot of time on other things, such as consulting club. Do you think I should cut down my time on extracurricular activities?

2.  Make a schedule for everyday work and put it somewhere obvious. So your professor can keep track about what you are doing and know that you are making progress.

3.  Do all the extracurricular activities after 6pm.

4.  Schedule all the meeting in the afternoon and try to do as much in the morning

5.  Go to school early 

6.  Do not spend more than 10 hours on consulting club per month. If you do so, you are not being efficient enough

7.  Learn how to communicate efficiently. Sometimes, I spend too much time email back and forth. He suggested me to give bullet points in one email to get all the answers once.

8.  Join toastmaster, it shows that you can communicate

9. Take notes during interview and summarize your notes in the end. Bosses like it

10. He also think I am doing too much now. I should just choose three most important ones, which are consulting club, toastmaster and one competition

What do you think? Should I cut down what I am doing now? I know I am doing a bit too much now. But I feel I only have one year left. If I do not use those opportunities, I am not going to get them anymore. I want to build up my resume and get more experience in business. I feel other competitors have a lot on their plates. I need more. What do you think? Should I just choose the most important three things to do? And what would be your advise to me?

Thank you and sorry for the super long email. I just have a lot to talk to you. Hope to hear from you

Jin"            -- by Jin Zhang