THE DEFENSE OF THE YEAR
The Journey I Took
RISK TAKER
Mostly self-evident, risktaking is measuring the possible failures of a project or task, but doing everything you can to succeed. Pushing the limits and willingly walking into uncomfortable situations. Stretching your abilities in even the smallest ways. Taking your own path and blatantly taking risks in hopes for a better end product is included in this entrepreneurial mindset. Though risk-taking is most likely one of the hardest skills to set forth, it is also one of the most powerful when it is needed.
M.V.P.
Showcasing our developing startup to a panel of judges in Business Incubator.
The minimum viable product was a showcase of whether or not our business would be successful. Asking questions like "is there a market," or "is there a possibility of success." The MVP pitch would come later down the road as we started to develop our MVP. We decided to create a landing page in order to introduce to people are website, and to ensure that we have a presence on a digital platform. Though it is still in development today, it was a good plan. However, there were a lot of risks involved with the pitch. We decided to go above and beyond, attempting to connect to our audience and explain our key components in methods they would understand. This would lead to a drastically simmered down presentation, but we hoped it would allow for an easier understanding of the material. However with judges, you never know the outcome. Though it wasn't what it hoped for, our choice selection of info impressed the judges, but opened a lot more questions we haven't even thought of. Though some of their words hurt, I now understand it was a risk my team and IÂ had to make, in order to ensure a clear understanding of our service.
FRESNO CITY COLLEGE SURVEYS
Taking a gamble and going out to a college to gain valuable info in Humanities and Business Incubator.
The school is right next to Fresno City College, which allows for an opportunity to interact and experiment with both adults and alumni of considerable variation. With this idea, risks were taken to great amounts. Two times come to my mind, both being with different groups of people. What came first was Humanities, we focused on a project that asked the question "How do we get the youth to vote?" From there, we designed surveys and went out to ask for students to take it. Naturally, this is extremely nerve-racking. At least it was for me. We went out and asked questions on this topic, and got the answers we needed. However, it's obvious the risks involved with such a task. People could easily say no, push you down (hopefully not physically), and just make the task a lot more difficult. The Business incubator portion of this task called for us to ask questions that were in relation to our business so that we may confirm that we had a market, but also to propose ideas that may be implemented.
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you land among the stars."
Les Brown
WRITING TOPICS
Choosing odd topics to write on in A.P. Seminar.
A.P. Seminar was quite a challenge. I've written on numerous different topics that related to innovation, urbanization, and happiness. In my choice of topics, I've taken directions that I feel most wouldn't have, in hopes my voice and my ink would showcase through the field of papers that have already been written. I am sure that most of my papers most likely did not do well, and were not well received. I am however proud of them. The topics I chose mattered to be, and delving deep into he prospects of each topic inspired the next piece of writing. Sometimes, you must choose the topic that you love, not the easy path. I could've easily wrote papers on topics that were simple and lame, but I decided to try and go above and beyond. For that, I am proud of my risk.
EDITORIAL
Writing from a different point of view in Humanities.
The editorial was a part of the toy expo project. The point of this Newspaper editorial was to call inclusion on a certain group of people that have been affected and are not in history books (At least in our school history books.) With the team portion of the project mostly finished, it was time to write about my feelings towards the idea. I feel I went into a direction everyone else didn't. Reading and correcting my peer's editorial, it was made clear that they observed the project in a different limelight. It worried me, but I felt that the writing I had produced was of my heart and of true quality. Despite my peer's normality and a bit of unspoken peer pressure (me trying get a good grade by doing what everyone else did), I decided to stand my ground, and provide an editorial that was of my own making and without influence.
