Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast where we dive into relevant topics and issues
related to the world of business, technology, education, and design.
I'm your host, Mr. Jason.
Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders, and inspirational stories
with an international flavor.
This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International
Community School of Bangkok.
In today's episode, we explore the important topic of college and career preparation.
I'm joined by our co-host, Lion and Ronnie.
We also welcome our special guest, Mrs. Jen, our wonderful college counselor, and proud
you, one of our favorite seniors.
Thank you for joining us.
In keeping with our tradition, let's hear the quote of the day before we begin.
Thank you, Mr. Jason.
Today's quote is from Rachel Walken.
If we were meant to stay in one place, we'd have roots instead of feet.
University is a great way to move and learn about new cultures.
Here are some headlines from our news desk.
Currently, the Thai tourist industry is on a path to recovery.
In August, the amount of people occupying hotels rose to 47.5%, and the percentage is
expected to continue to rise.
Most tourists are from Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe.
In Southeast Asia, on the 18th of September, a strong earthquake hit Taiwan that was around
6.9 in magnitude on the Richter scale.
At first, there was worry of a tsunami, but later these concerns were alleviated.
In World News, according to CNBC, FedEx CEO says he expects the economy to enter a worldwide
recession.
FedEx shares fell by 15%, and FedEx missed estimates on revenue and earnings in its first
quarter.
Thank you for those headlines, Ronnie.
Not sure about all of you, but I'm hoping the impending recession does not reverse the
global economic recovery we have been experiencing since COVID.
Okay, onto a better topic.
Let's jump into part one with Mrs. Jen Ann Proud.
All right.
Okay, everybody.
Thank you very much for being on our show.
We're very glad to have you here.
Since this episode is about college and careers, our first question for Mrs. Jen is, where
do you go to university and what was your major?
Well, thank you so much, Lion.
I have to first say, I am a huge fan of your show, so thanks so much for having me.
In terms of college, so I guess my first bachelor's degree was in business administration at
Taylor University, which is a small private liberal arts school in Indiana.
And then I received a master's in education at the University of Tennessee, which is a
large public research university.
And then more recently, I just received my certificate of counseling online with UC San
Diego out of California.
So kind of three very different college experiences, but I really enjoyed them all.
Thank you for sharing this, Jen.
So what are you planning on majoring in Proud?
So as of now, I think I'm planning on majoring in bioengineering or some form of maybe biomechanical
or biochemistry.
So you chose difficult majors then.
Very good.
I like that.
Yeah, I think they were quite challenging, but I feel like it's just something that I
like doing.
So even though it's still challenging for me, I think I want to try that out.
Well, I'm sure you would change the world of that, Proud.
Well, obviously, selecting universities requires a lot of careful decision making.
That's where Mrs. Jen comes in, right?
And what do you think are the most important factors in choosing a university?
Yeah, great question.
So I think kind of the unique thing about the college search and decision, it's the
first time that high schoolers really have to make a big informed and independent decision.
So in my department, really what we try to do is walk alongside of them and break it
down.
We want them to take ownership of the decision, but we try to help them along the way.
So one way we do that is with the college search, we try to introduce the four P's.
So those four P's are price.
So thinking does this college, is it within my budget?
Is this working with what our family can afford?
The second P would be program.
Does it have the program that I hope to study?
The third would be place.
What country am I interested in studying in and within that country, what city and region?
And then finally, people would be the fourth P and that's who do I know that attends this
school?
Are there any alumni that I can connect with and who will be my community on campus?
How will I get connected?
So I think those hopefully kind of help break down the process and help students make informed
decisions.
That's really informative.
I know that definitely helped me when I was selecting my university.
Another common question that students wonder about is what do universities look at the
most on college applications?
Will we get automatically rejected if we fail our SATs?
Okay, so really the big answer to that question, which is the most common question almost always,
but it depends.
It depends on what kind of school you're applying to.
It depends on what program you're interested in.
It definitely depends on what country.
So I would say that in the US, for instance, and Proud knows a lot about this because she's
walking through that process right now, but we say that colleges look at a holistic review
of applicants.
So they're taking in not just academics, but they're looking at activities and attributes
and they're reading letters of recommendation from teachers and counselors and they're pouring
over their essays and hearing the student voice within the application.
So while it is a holistic process, the academics are still at the core of it.
Can I go back to that question for a moment?
Because I'd love to hear from Proud in her college application process and maybe you
can share where you have applied or where you are going.
Maybe you don't know yet.
That's okay.
I don't want to share.
Yeah, I know.
Maybe you don't want to share.
That's totally...
So talk about the types of situations.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think Mrs. Jennery touched on all of the important piece, but personally for me,
I think that the program and the people are the most important factors when I was thinking
about it.
So definitely I looked into universities with the specific majors that I wanted to go in,
seeing which schools is specifically good at those ones.
And then the next thing is the culture.
I feel like if I'm going to spend the rest of my four years in some place far away from
home, it better be a good place, a place that I really want to live in and just the people,
they should be the people that I basically just vibe with, I'm guessing.
So it's kind of hard to know sometimes from college websites.
So maybe asking other people who may have attended the place or just going onto YouTube
or more informal ways, finding information.
I think those are the things that I kind of tried to look for when picking universities.
Were you able to visit?
And if you aren't able to visit, what are some recommendations regarding doing research?
Personally, due to COVID, I wasn't able to visit because I'm applying only to the US.
So I wasn't actually able to go there in time.
But I think, like I mentioned before, even though it's not directly looking at the website,
which most people would suggest, going to the college's Instagram, they have their Instagram
pages where they show different information and you don't only get to see it, you get
to see the, you don't get to read about it.
You get to view the pictures and the environment.
I think that's kind of the way I would go about doing that.
And also sometimes they have a big university like Instagram, and then they also have like
smaller ones specific to the major you want to go into.
So I think that's also something that you can try and look for.
Yeah, I would agree and probably only tag on that most universities due to the COVID
pandemic have really upped their virtual games.
So you can take virtual tours, you can set up an appointment with virtually with a counselor
to talk about a specific program of interest.
So look at those virtual resources and also social media gives you such a good window
into the campus culture and what's happening there.
When Mrs. Jen mentioned that also, I know it's kind of annoying, but every time you
kind of, I think, do the SAT or the AP exams, they have the student search services thing,
which sometimes the emails are kind of a lot.
They do send a lot of emails, but then sometimes I feel like there's a lot of virtual sessions
where they have many schools together and then they're going to host this like panel
thing where they explain things about their universities.
So you can can definitely also look out for those.
Yeah, and another unique opportunity that ICS students have is that this year, university
reps are traveling back onto campuses.
So we are so excited and hope to host maybe even up to 100 universities on campus this
year.
So that's a wonderful opportunity to engage as well.
That sounds like very, very busy work.
And I know that seniors are definitely busy with college applications right now.
Am I correct, Ronnie?
Oh, definitely.
So do you think there's anything specific that sophomores and even freshmen should do
to prepare for their future college applications?
What I would say, if I'm talking to ninth and tenth graders, is really choose carefully
how you're going to spend your time in high school.
It is going to go so fast.
Right, Proud?
And so I think if you can be intentional about the activities you're choosing, even more
than course selection, because of course you'll take some time with that.
But choose volunteer and community service options that align with your passions and
your gifts.
And really spend that time wisely because your senior year will be here before you know
it.
And then you will have an applicant profile that is quite compelling to share with the
universities you're interested in.
So for freshmen and sophomores, I feel like there are, I guess, two types of people, mainly.
So there's the type of people who are not thinking about college at all, which is totally
fine.
And there's also people who are like over-obsessed with the idea of getting into college, even
though it's like not close to that time yet.
So for the people who are like maybe don't have a plan yet, I feel like you could kind
of familiarize yourself a bit by maybe talking to your parents or finding your passions,
like Mrs. Jen says.
And yeah, basically just get to know it a little bit more so that you kind of know what
direction you're going to go to and what you're going to spend your time doing.
And as for kind of like the other extreme, a lot of times people go to like different
websites to be like, oh, what should I do to get into college?
And I would just advise you to not do that and like not go do things just because you
think that, oh, someone told me to do this and it looks good on my portfolio.
It's really probably not, and it's probably not going to be specific enough.
So you should definitely just go for things that you enjoy doing because you're going
to probably be doing them for a very long time.
So yeah, don't fall into this hole of like doing, oh, I have to do this many hours of
community service.
I have to found this and that, like just try and just do your own thing, I think would
be the best advice.
So much good advice just in part one.
And with that, we will be right back after this quick announcement.
One, two, three, four.
Hey everyone, Eagles Camp is next week.
Don't forget to pack your bags, bring your camera and be ready to have fun.
This will be a weekend of fun, reflection and bonding between the community.
I hope to see you all there.
We are back for part two of our college and career talk.
So our next question for Proud is, how has the college application process been so far?
Have you had to overcome any obstacles or work around any problems?
I think right now my process, it's been a really meaningful and valuable time for me
to go through the college applications.
So right now, obviously there's a lot of stress because I'm applying early to some universities
and that's due in like around a month.
So I'm really working on those supplementals and all of those things.
But the good thing about it is that I feel like some of the college questions, the supplementals
they ask, they really allow you to explore yourself and kind of just find different aspects
of yourself that you might want to talk about that you kind of don't think about before,
which I think is a very unique part of the college application process.
And it's something that people should enjoy in the midst of all the stress that you have.
As for the obstacles, I feel like for me, the closer, the more work I have to do, the
less I kind of want to do them sometimes.
And it's kind of a problem because obviously I just want it to be really good before I
actually start, for example, writing.
If it doesn't come out the way I want it to, sometimes it's hard for me to even start it
at all, which is a big problem.
But I'm slowly working towards it and just reminding myself that the first draft doesn't
have to be good.
You just have to get your ideas out there and then that's where the other creative things
can go on.
Yeah, and I would step in and just commend Proud as such a great example for a student
taking ownership of this process.
I do think, like I mentioned before, it's one of those first times that high school
students are making these big adult decisions.
And there is such a correlation to sitting in the driver's seat, taking ownership of
this process and then having success while you're in college too.
So she's doing a great job.
Thank you, both of you.
Now, Mrs. Jen, I have a question for you.
How has the college application process changed over the years?
How different was it before the pandemic?
Oh, wow.
Well, if you really go back in the years, Mr. Jason can join me back in the 90s.
I mean, it was a totally different landscape, right?
I think if I think about it, I believe I submitted one application.
I probably I know I took the ACT once.
I had one draft of my essay.
So it has just become way more complex.
I think we have over 4000 universities in the U.S. alone.
So the choices have expanded.
The factors of admission have expanded.
And it's really just become a bit more complex.
We also have students applying to colleges in 10 different countries, right?
So the options and the student mobility has increased to making the whole landscape just
a bit more competitive.
And then I guess before the pandemic and after the pandemic, things have changed as well,
specifically with the SAT.
That's one specific area.
Most schools are now test optional, meaning you do not have to submit your SAT scores.
I do feel like our students typically do pretty well on the SAT.
So I typically encourage them to submit it.
We just had a rep from Notre Dame on campus last week who mentioned and I thought this
was some good perspective for our high schoolers that the SAT represents four hours of a student's
work, whereas a GPA represents four years.
So keep it in perspective.
It's still a piece, but it's not the only piece to the application.
When I applied to college, I think I wrote my essay on by hand.
I don't think I typed it.
Maybe word processor.
Possibly.
But yeah, times have changed big time.
So next question.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but Proud, we've heard that you conducted some research on
the effects of soybeans and how it affects dementia.
That sounds super interesting.
Can you tell us more about it?
Yeah, sure.
So as I shared about during the salt trip this year, I was basically in this process
of kind of like relooking back at some of my memories.
And one of the things that was a really big part of my family was my grandfather who had
dementia after he had a stroke and then he passed away not long after.
So I always heard stories about my mom talking about my grandfather and like basically his
impact in our family and then how different he was after he got this disease.
And I felt like after hearing that, I kind of like teared up a lot.
I like I cried.
Like it was really sad for me.
And that's why I decided that maybe I should maybe try to do something about it.
And I had some, I guess, extra time at that point.
So I started doing some research, going to Google Scholar into seeing like ways that
dementia is being cured.
And I came across this Thai professor who was doing research with like mulberry extracts.
And then he realized that this was like a potential way that to help alleviate like
dementia for a lot of elderly patients.
So basically what I did was I just contacted him.
I found his email and just kind of emailed him like, yeah, so I'm really impressed with
the work that you've done.
Could you maybe accept a student to maybe come work at your lab?
Because I'm really interested in working with you and I'm really passionate about dementia.
So I'd really like to learn more about it.
And that's what kind of led me to go to Burapai University.
And then that's where I kind of did this research about soybeans.
So you take soybeans from Chiang Mai and then we go through this process of hydrolysis and
all of these things.
And then we kind of try to test them to see like object recognition tests and all that
kind of thing to see.
And then we basically found out that neuron density in the hippocampus increased by a
significant percentage.
So basically like these soybean hydrolysis are actually able to help people with dementia.
But we haven't really gone through like the clinical phases yet.
So we can't really like make a real product out of that.
But right now I think it's a pretty good start.
And I was really excited that the results actually work the way that they did.
Wow, that's a very cool story, Proud.
Thank you, Lion.
It also relates to me a bit because my grandpa also he also had dementia.
He would ask me like a few times a day, like what my name is, who's son am I?
He couldn't remember who my dad is.
Couldn't remember like any of his kids.
And he wouldn't remember to take his own medication either unless we wrote on a whiteboard for
him so he would read it.
And I really respect how you really took matters to your own hands.
You won't let life tell you what to do.
You tell life to go away and you fixed a problem yourself because if no one's going to do
it, you're going to do it.
And I think that's inspiring.
We should all try and do that.
So life gives you lemons, go research about soybeans.
So is there anything else that you're passionate about that you have explored more through
clubs or campaigns?
Another thing that I'm obviously passionate about is engineering, which is something that
I'm going into, but specifically about women in engineering because in the STEM field,
women are always clearly very underrepresented.
Basically like during my 11th grade year, I was taking like things like AP Calc, AP
Comm Sci and we're like one or two girls in each of these classes.
And I feel like ICS, which is like a very open community, we don't discriminate between
gender of course, but there are still a lot of times where women are not really trying
to go into STEM fields because it seems like a male dominated field is like a guy's job.
So I find this super infuriating.
Like I really hate that kind of thing.
Like, oh yeah, leave it for the guys.
Like, oh, are you really good at math?
You're a girl, that kind of thing.
Like it's still a problem today.
So this led me to kind of found the ICS SWENEX, which is Society of Women Engineers.
And we mostly work with middle schoolers so far just to try and let them kind of explore
engineering and just know that your gender does not determine what field you go into.
It's just whatever you're interested in, you should always go for it.
And this is obviously not just directed to girls only, like guys as well.
Like guys can pick any field that they would like to go to.
Also another thing that I'm really passionate about is about the problem of colorism.
This is basically a form of discrimination due to skin color in Thailand.
So I didn't initially realize that this was an issue in Thailand until I kind of started
growing up and I started like watching more Thai movies and K-dramas.
And I feel like a lot of people always say like, wow, your skin is so pale.
Like this is so cool.
Like, wow, how do you get this skin color or something like that?
And I feel like that is super damaging.
And obviously when you go around town and you see like advertisements of these like
really like light skinned models and you don't really see a lot of representation here in
Thailand.
And it's really infuriating for someone who, you know, obviously for me, I don't have
like the lightest skin color just to like see like these snide remarks or having people
like compare arms to see who's like lighter skinned.
It's like an issue that's so big that it's a non-issue here in Thailand because people
just kind of overlook it and they just kind of accept when their grandmama's like, hey,
you look darker or you look fatter or something like that.
But that's why I found it, Loving All Tones.
So what we do is we partner with different brands and organizations, for example, Jiffereen,
which is a like skincare product place.
And we basically talk to them about this issue and then kind of have Loving All Tones stickers
placed in front of their store.
So right now there's 105 branches around Thailand with our stickers in front of their stores
as well as Subway.
So we're just kind of raising awareness for that.
And we also recently went to a skincare, like skincare brand and hosted a workshop at Bria
Skincare to have people write their feelings about their own skin color and place them
on post-its and also kind of spread awareness about this issue and remind them that no matter
what skin color you are, you are valued and your dignity does not depend on that.
Thanks for sharing, Proud.
So before we end this episode, our final question for both of you is, do you have any final
words of advice for underclassmen about college or careers?
Oh yeah, I guess I would say that your four years will just go by so quickly.
So spend your time wisely, as I mentioned before.
I would also encourage students to build their college team.
We talk about this team that will help them through the college application process.
Of course, your parents and guardians are on that team, but then connect with teachers
who you really respect and connect with, coaches, mentors, counselors for sure.
I want to be on your team.
And actually my favorite, very favorite part of the day is when I get a chance to sit with
students and talk through these college search questions and college application questions.
So stop by and see me and we can talk more about it as well.
Even though for underclassmen, I feel like you definitely shouldn't worry or stress out
too much about college applications.
I would say that there's really no such thing as too early when it comes to just familiarizing
yourself as I mentioned.
I think it's super important for you guys to kind of just have like a basic understanding
or maybe try to explore things so that you guys actually know what you want to do in
the future.
I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with.
So just try to find your passion, but in a fun way and just don't, you know, stress out
too much about it.
And like Mrs. Jen said, there's always people who are willing to help you.
So always feel for you to reach out.
Like you're not the only person in this big grand journey.
So always like if you ever have any problems, just try to reach out to people that you think
might be helpful to you.
Mrs. Jen is one example.
Okay.
Thank you both so very much for joining us taking that next step in life, whether it's
going to college, starting a new job, moving to another city or country.
It can all be a bit overwhelming at times.
However, like the quote of the day mentioned, unlike a tree, we were created with feet,
not roots.
Mrs. Jen's door is always open.
So make sure you connect with her and thank you proud for your continued hard work with
your studies and your commitment to making a world a better place through some of the
very interesting projects that you've undertaken.
Before ending, we'd like to thank all of our listeners for joining us.
Please stay tuned for more episodes about exciting and engaging topics.
Our next episode will feature a conversation about a topic we all love, coffee.
We have a special guest joining us from a popular, hip and fun Bangkok coffee shop.
So stay tuned.
And as always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our international
student production team.
All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives
sharing copyright free images, videos and music.
And we are signing off until next time.
We are Students Incorporated, because your voice matters.