My Top 3 Skills
I would call myself a Jack of all trades. I couldn’t pick my best skills at first because I was looking for things like mastery of drawing 3D figures or being the absolute best with specific software. While those are valuable skills, I needed to look deeper. After some thought, I’ve found things that aren’t just skills, but are unshakable foundations of my personality and the way I do things.
  1. Ability to learn
I love learning. I have always been endlessly curious about how things are made, and how things are done. No matter where I am, or what it is, if I encounter something I don’t understand, I am always right there watching carefully and asking questions. This goes double for things I am working on and not just casually observing.
This mindset was solidified from an early age. I used to love playing games where your character could receive upgrades to their abilities and accessories. In the same spirit, I saw learning as a way of upgrading myself in real life, and took to it with the same fervor. Plus, trying new things has always been a favorite activity of mine, leading to a lot of experiences in many different areas. Due to this passion, I’ve had a lot of practice picking things up and learning them on the spot.
On more than one occasion, I’ve learned new skills to support a team project or goal. For example, I recently worked on a marketing plan for the CEO of a gym. He wanted us to help drive more people into his gyms, because once they were there he was confident they would stay. Through research, we found that people thought his website was intimidating. To suggest changes, we needed to make model websites, and we needed more models for suggested ads and mailings as well. Nobody on our team knew how to use photoshop or any other similar design software. So, I said I would learn how to use it, and create some website models for the next day. I spent that night learning how to use photoshop and researching website structures that baby boomer Moms, our demographic, would be receptive to. After a few hours, I had a few drafts made both for mobile and desktop versions.
In the end, the client did not take all of our recommendations, but he did change the header of his website to look like one of my models. This project has been one of my favorite projects I have worked on, because I’ve come out of it with the beginnings of a cool new skill.
  2. Determination
When I get a goal in mind, I will give everything in my power to complete it. It doesn’t matter the obstacle — If I get in my head that I will move past it, I’ll find a way. I have been this way, some call it determined, some call it stubborn, since I was very little.
In fact, once when I was 9 years old, my parents told me that they were going to redecorate my room. My room had three heavy pieces of wooden furniture, a wardrobe and two beds on large wooden frames. One day when I came home, I found that the furniture had been moved. I was not a fan. My parents thought that there was nothing I could do. Well, they could not have been more wrong. The next evening, they went out to dinner, and left me at home. I spent hours and hours using my whole body weight to move the furniture back to where it was. They came back to see the room put back, and looked at me with shock. From then on, they promised I would be included in any other plans for the redecoration of my room.
As an adult this determination has translated to work ethic, and a resolve to never  very rarely give up. I’ve learned that you have to, sometimes. One example of this determination was in college. I had too many interests in college, due wholly to my obsession with learning anything I can get my hands on. My first major was business, but it was standard to have two. After four different secondary majors, I decided to just do business. During this process, I needed to find space for all the requirements, so I took classes over the summer. When choosing schedules, I attempted to register for two 300 level business courses in the first 5 week session. The registrar emailed me to say that it is an unreasonable amount of work, and very few people have ever handled it well. I told her that I understood, and that I could handle it. As it turned out, classes met 3 hours a day back to back, and expected a baseline of 6 hours of work outside of class each. On top of this, I was working weekends.
Most weeknights over the course of those 5-weeks I got around 2-3 hours of sleep. Also, around finals time, I set a new personal record of working 73 hours straight to finish various projects, essays, and exams. Due to all of this, I accomplished my goal. I finished the session with two A’s. I also remember this 5 week period as one of my favorite parts of college, only because I can truthfully say that I was always giving 100%.
  3. Research
I often think a lot about choices before making them, If time allows for it. One of the best tricks for shortening the time needed to make these decisions is thorough research. I have spent hours and hours before and during every trip I go on with friends or family looking to find the best value travel, housing, and eating options. This is a trait that definitely runs in my family, and one that I have learned a lot from my sister, who is the master of planning. She is a professional event planner who has planned events like the US open and speeches by Condoleezza Rice.
One example of this occurred recently. My friends and I had resolved to go on a road trip, go camping, and go to a concert of some kind over the summer. Upon looking around initially, most concerts and festivals either did not fit our schedules, or were sold out. However, after digging deeper for an hour or two, looking endlessly for somewhere to go, I found a small one in Canada. The only problem was that there were no places available to stay. However, I didn’t take this as a problem, but as an opportunity. We could camp in the surrounding area, crossing off two things on our list. Also, the drive to the campground would be around 10 hours, but by researching some fun stops along the way, it turned into a road trip! I was very happy that it had been worth it to have done so much research.
The habit of making well-informed decisions has manifested in my professional life in a couple of ways. I have successfully conducted scientific research, using my inquisitive nature to assist with furthering our understanding of Spinocerebellar Ataxia type-1. In business, I have turned this personal passion for well-informed decisions into a professional interest in marketing and data analysis.
For example, In the aforementioned 5-week summer session I took a class called consumer behavior. On top of the regular workload, our main project was to assist the New York State Technology Enterprise Commission (NYSTEC), and the Commissioner of Finance for Saratoga Springs with an investment decision. They wanted to work together to bring technological improvements to the public infrastructure of Saratoga Springs, and needed our help to understand which improvements would have the most value to citizens. I worked on a team to create a survey and interview every business owner we could find in Saratoga Springs, as well as anybody that would speak with us outside of public places like the public library or City Hall. We then took the research that we had done, and I analyzed it to show trends and patterns in the data, and how the demographics were represented in these patterns, as well as some reasons why. We presented our findings, the research, and the analysis to a board of people from NYSTEC and the Finance Commissioner, who felt our analysis helped inform their investment decisions.