How Joy’s Unique High School Journey Is Helping Her Thrive at Wellesley College

Do you wonder how to help your student truly stand out in high school and the admissions process? 

Do you ask yourself what’s going to help your student not just get IN to college but THRIVE throughout those four years?

Well, after so many years of doing this work and supporting so many students, I can say with utter confidence that it’s all about the projects that students create.

Which is exactly what I help my students do in my year-long mentoring program, The Dream School Project. 

What can we learn from Joy, a student who worked with me for four years?

I’ll tell you in a moment more about this workshop and where you can register. But first, let’s take a look at how Joy* and I worked together for the four full years of her high school career. She is now enrolled at Wellesley College and is considering a joint degree through Wellesley and MIT, either in green urban planning or sustainable architecture. 

Here is an excerpt from our conversation during a recent panel I held with five of my previous students, now all in college or graduated from college.

In this brief excerpt, listen to Joy talk about the messiness of the creative process as we explored her interests together and how that exploration impacted her decision to go into this field. 

How did Joy’s high school experience impact her choice of major in college?

E: So, Joy, let’s talk about the four years we spent working together and how it’s impacted your experience in college.

Biggest Focus: Personal Growth!

J: Yes, definitely! A huge chunk of our work was focused on personal growth. The whole part of my early high school experience, you kept saying that we would worry about the admissions process later. And that’s really great because now my mom has a completely different approach with my younger sister. She’s looking more at the holistic process rather than just at the results. But looking back, I didn’t have a specific plan to explore any of the specific interests and experiences that I ended up pursuing. It was more that I got to the point of senior year and we started talking about which aspects of the things I’d tried and experienced that we could pull out and discuss in my essays. 

Each Student’s Project Reflects Real Life

E: Yes! And the evolution of how you developed your process and experience was so interesting and so reflective of real life, which is so important since school so often feels disconnected from our real lives. But it all started when you watched a documentary about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan. Tell us what happened from there.

J: Yes, after I saw that documentary, which was really well done, I was angry. And for a long time, that’s what I thought passion was — anger. Because I was feeling emotional about it. 

What Is Passion, Really?

But as time progressed, that emotion started to fade. I just started college, and so this first year I didn’t take any environmental classes. Even this spring, I was still questioning if this is the area I am truly interested in. I don’t feel the emotional drive with it as much as when I first learned about the issue. 

But I realized that I’m looking at it more from different perspectives and that sustainability can be connected with anything. So now I’m looking for the angle that I want to connect sustainability to. But back in high school, I thought maybe I was interested in marine biology. I did some camps at the New England Aquarium. But then we had to dissect a shark, and I realized, no, no, no, this is not for me. 

Looking at the Bigger Picture: Inspiring Social Change

And that led to your suggestion that maybe I should take a step back and look at the larger picture of climate change. So I started doing a lot of research, and I was into sustainability with the fashion industry for a while. Ultimately the core of what I wanted was to inspire behavioral change. So I started working on creating a composting program at my school. I just really cared about the actual change. But I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough because people weren’t changing, weren’t recycling. 

Asking Big Questions

E: I remember that so clearly when you worked on the film you ended up making with your mentor that final summer before senior year. The biggest question you had was how can I inspire true change in others. You had to ask some deep questions about that, didn’t you?

J: Yeah, I had so many debates in my head because I’m someone who is easily convinced by others. So I didn’t have a firm grasp on what was true since I found myself agreeing with both. That was a really cool experience. And it helped me see that we’ll probably go through different cycles of this process throughout our lives.

The Process Can Be Messy!

E: Yes, for sure. And the whole process of your jumping from one lily pad to another, of trying one thing and then another — it wasn’t linear. It felt messy. Even in junior year, you said, “Maybe I’ll make a film,” because you were inspired by a beautiful animated Chinese film you’d seen about the environment. So, because we didn’t think you would likely be able to get the animation skills you needed to create that kind of film, especially with the pressure of junior year, we discussed the idea of creating a documentary instead. And you produced a gorgeous 3-minute film that took the whole summer and deep reflection. But your whole process was about trying something new and exploring your interests, which led to the next thing, which led to the next thing. And now in college, you’re finding that you’re not necessarily connected to the field of marine biology or climate change, but you’re connected to the passion for inspiring change in the realm of sustainability.

How Joy’s Process of Exploration Led to Her Major

J: Yeah. So a little bit about my college experience at Wellesley. I’ve noticed that econ is huge here. And I got pulled into all of the clubs, and they really know how to network and present themselves. I could see that they really knew what they wanted, which is how I wanted to be. So I kept doubting myself: do I want to go into econ? And of course, part of that was for my mom, to make her proud. I went through that whole phase, but recently I’ve landed on sustainable architecture and urban planning. I think for me knowing that work connected to creativity and design works better than following a systematic procedure. And so much of that came from our work together.

Can you see how the long, four-year process of exploration and discovery not only helped Joy understand what she was passionate about but also the kind of environment she most thrives in? One where creativity is prized and celebrated. 

Would you like to see Joy’s final senior project?

If you’d like to see the gorgeous 3.5 minute documentary Joy made the summer before her senior year? It’s called Our Pomegranate Tree, and it tells the story of how her grandmother planted a pomegranate tree when she was born and the impact that tree had on her passion for creating a sustainable environment. Watch this moving short film here. 

*Joy’s name has been changed to preserve her privacy. You can watch the full excerpt of our conversation here.