Love Profile-Building in the Time of Cholera Corona
You’ve been working hard on your college applications for months now — carrying out service in the community, playing prestigious sports tournaments, preparing for the ACT, and looking forward to attending that super selective international summer programme. Enter global pandemic Covid-19: restricting movement, dampening moods, and impeding profile developments.
With most universities across the globe shutting campuses, standardised tests getting rescheduled, and academic and community engagements getting cancelled, the coming months seem bleak, especially when compared to your exciting plans to develop a robust and creative profile that demonstrates your interests, talents, and skills.
Unsure of how to occupy your time during this unexpected break from school while still constructively contributing to your profile? As always, essai’s got your back through this tough time:
1. Learn a new skill or subject on Coursera
Always wanted to know what it’s like to learn from highly qualified academicians and professionals from universities like Stanford and UPenn, and companies like IBM and Google? Now’s your chance! Enrol in a course of your choice, in any subject ranging from data science and machine learning, to philosophy, art, math, history, business, law, or economics. The list is endless! Reading material is usually supplemented with video lectures, and weekly homework assignments will track your consistency and progress.
2. Use Duolingo to learn a new language
Duolingo, by its own admission, is one of the best, most convenient ways to learn a language, be it French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Hindi, or any other of this service’s numerous offerings. Begin your personalised journey with fun, interactive exercises that use text, image, and sound to acquaint you with a new language and culture in a holistic manner. And they have a great iPhone app too.
3. Enter a contest
Are you a poet? A coder? A graphic designer? A budding entrepreneur? Now that you have a lot more time at home, put it to good use by developing an entry that you can submit to an online competition. Not only will you have the opportunity to start curating pieces for a potential portfolio, you might also add some accolades to your CV! Needless to say, this could also contribute to your activity list.
4. Read more
Students who score well in exams and standardised tests are usually avid readers, with an ever expanding knowledge of the world and a distinct clarity with which they consume and construct knowledge. Read. Read as much as you can, starting with topics that you care about the most! If you’re unsure of where to begin, here’s a great resource — an essai favourite — to get you started!
5. Engage in digital advocacy
Your social project hit the ground running; now keep up the momentum! Engage with the causes that you care about online: through fundraising on web platforms, awareness campaigns on social media, and informational content through articles on your personal blog. Change.org can help you start and circulate a pertinent petition, Impact Guru and Milaap can help you generate revenue for a partner NGO, or Medium or Wordpress can be your platform of choice to elucidate your ideas about sustainability, universal healthcare, or economic disparities. The virtual world is the perfect sounding board to test out your ideas to improve the real world!
Keep these tips in mind, while you hide behind your mask and wash your hands for 20 seconds; it’s the best you can do to enhance your profile. Get cracking!