Every couple of years, something surges in emerging technology to such an extent that it completely shifts the conversations happening not just in the news or in classrooms, but among students thinking about their future career path. In the 1990s it was the internet, in the 2010s it was coding mobile applications, and today, in the 2020s, it is Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Without a doubt, the most common interest we are hearing these days from tech-minded students is in joining the AI revolution. That’s awesome, but it’s also risky if you don’t pursue it right. Simply being interested in AI doesn’t make a college application stand out, and the opportunities available to young students are still catching up to the interest.
We work with our juniors to chart stand-out extracurriculars with room for leadership and growth. In this post, we’ll break down what that means for students with a passion for and focus on AI and Machine Learning. We’re showing you behind the curtain of what we do with our own students, but it’s your job to take action. We encourage students to not stop at learning what to do, but to actually act.
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There are a few big categories of activities and extracurriculars that we encourage our students to explore and grow in. These include things that can be pursued within school, and things that require self-directed learning and a deep reservoir of internal motivation. There are activities that require major time outside of the classroom, and others that make use of breaks. All of these are valuable activities, and navigating how to fit them into your schedule requires working hand-in-hand with your teachers, mentors, and parents.
CLUBS
Clubs and teams offered through your school are the low-hanging fruit of the extracurricular activity menu – if relevant programs exist at your school. There is literally no excuse not to join tech-related clubs, even if they aren’t explicitly AI and Machine Learning-centric. That said, as a junior you are in a unique position to make a real impact on your school — and on your future college applications — through creating your own place and space.
We highly recommend that any junior interested in AI and tech at a school without a subject-specific club create one. This typically means recruiting a faculty advisor, convincing administration of need, and getting a bunch of your friends to sign up to confirm interest. Ideally, a new club will have two or three large initiatives in the first year, like a charitable/giving tie-in (AI for good, anyone?) or an anti-cheating awareness campaign in partnership with teachers.
The reason to create a club as a junior, beyond simple interest, is the opportunity to lead as a junior, as well as to build the club to meaningful outcomes by senior fall. As a junior, you have time. When founding a club as a junior, you have the chance to make the most of it.
INTERNSHIPS & EMPLOYMENT
Simply pursuing your interest on your high school campus isn’t enough if you want to stand out as an applicant for a top AI or Machine Learning program in college. Rather, you need to think bigger and act bolder. We work with our juniors, often before they are even back in school for the start of junior year, to identify, pursue, and obtain meaningful internships and immersive job opportunities.
What do we mean by a ‘meaningful internship’? A meaningful internship is at least 2 weeks long, and at least 15 hours per week. This means it often happens during a break, and it requires planning. Sometimes there are opportunities that are longer, but with less time commitment per week. That can work well, but if an internship is entirely remote that is a problem. This isn’t because you don’t learn things through a remote internship — you would. It’s more of a strategic issue. A key value of pursuing an internship, or employment, is having stories to write. If all of your experiences are between you and a screen, that’s not a very compelling story. Working with humans gives you much more to write about.
Getting a part-time or summer job related to tech can provide this same value, but whereas an internship should be directly related to your prospective course of study there is more flexibility for employment. Admissions officials appreciate that there are reasons to have a job other than just future career goals, so a job that is tech-related, even if only AI adjacent, can be deeply impactful on a college application. For example, if a student can get a part-time job at a local business and work amplifying their reach through AI into their responsibilities, that’s awesome.
INDEPENDENT WORK
Parallel to pursuing internships, we coach juniors through independent projects, including but not limited to research. Pursuing independent projects, whether it’s building an app, starting a small business related to AI, researching a subject you are passionate about in AI and Machine Learning and producing work for publication, or a creative art project that uses AI, is extremely valuable. Such work is something only you can do, and so is certain to stand out on college applications — if you play it right.
But what does “play it right” even mean? Good question.
We often meet students who are enthusiastic about doing independent work, but who don’t see it through to a point of it being helpful for them personally or in their educational future. Ultimately, it ends up simply filling time that could have been spent on other things with more concrete outcomes. Strong independent projects build on the groundwork laid through clubs, internships, and employment, and allow a student to stretch themselves intellectually beyond what is available otherwise. And they see it through. This means taking an app to launch, producing and publishing a research paper, showing artwork in a gallery or group show, even if it's the walls of a local café, or another product of hard work.
SUMMER PROGRAMS
Finally, summer programs. There’s a myth out there that summer programs are bad to do because you have to pay for them. Well, you’re planning on paying for college, no?
First, let’s dispel the ‘pay to play’ myth, at least as it concerns most summer programs. It is absolutely true that not every summer program is a good fit for every student. There are summer programs that, for you, would be a waste of time. These may be unrelated to your area of interest, redundant with something else you do rather than building upon it, or below your level of expertise. If you have deep experience in a subject, you shouldn’t be doing an introductory summer program that’s simply going to be a repeat of already-developed expertise for you. Many colleges and summer program providers are now developing, or only recently launched, AI and Machine Learning-specific summer programs. This means that they haven’t had multiple years to develop the curriculum. We see this reason to have caution, especially if a program is brand new.
So, it isn’t about not doing summer programs that cost money. Rather, it’s about being picky.
Next, let’s address another myth. Doing a summer program at your dream school will not get you into the college or university. It may not even improve your chances of admission once you apply. If doing a summer program is going to improve your chances of admission, it is because you were already a strong applicant, you made an outstanding impression on the faculty of the program who are associated with the college or university, and you possibly even garnered a supplemental recommendation. These last two are good goals to have, but they are extremely unpredictable, especially with how new AI and Machine Learning programs are. We do not advise that juniors, or any students, rationalize a summer program by insisting that it’ll improve college acceptances.
As a junior, this is your last few months before applying to college, and your last summer. This is your last chance to add meaningfully to your activities list and resume. We work with our students to invest this time in things that stand out, and that generally does not mean that they are signing up for programs with hundreds of other students. Every now and then there is an exception that makes sense, and if you’re considering a program that you think is an exception, let us know.
Choosing your activities for junior year is a game of chess no matter your area of interest, but it’s especially tricky if you want to pursue a field that is both limited at the collegiate level and blowing up in popularity ridiculously quickly. We work with our students to make the right calls at the right times to ensure that their application is as strong as it can be when senior fall rolls around.
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