This year’s Tennis Fundraiser was a huge success! The AASuccess team would like to thank all the volunteers, players, and attendees for coming out to this event. With your help, we were able to raise nearly $2000!
The 2024 YouthCon Scholarship allows innovative high school students living in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area with ideas to be actively involved with philanthropic work to make a difference in neighborhoods, with the support of AASuccess. We award innovative and driven students with the mindsets of giving back, and those seeking to strengthen their skills such as writing, presentation, and leadership.
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TOP 3 FINALISTS:
1ST PLACE: Laura Zhang, 12th, Thomas Jefferson HS
Inspire young girls to pursue a career in STEM through a free, week-long math summer camp for local middle school girls. Unlike traditional math programs, this camp’s learning experience will center around mathematical animations and simulations. Utilizing Python animation engine Manim, girls will learn to transform abstract math ideas into visualizations, from animated trigonometric function manipulations to geometrical representations of probability. Ultimately, this camp will leverage computer science to make math education more accessible and engaging.
2ND PLACE: Samuel Indyk, 12th, WT Woodson HS
Combine GPS location trackers in drivers’ cars and phones with AI technology to create a system where traffic patterns can be analyzed and monitored in real time and then connected to the traffic light system. With this system, drivers can gain access to traffic light countdowns, have better traffic prediction, and enjoy lower traffic wait times.
3RD PLACE: Myla Leung, 11th, Winston Churchill HS
Integrate AI detection models to create a website for meal recommendations that schools can use to provide nutritious, plant-based meals for their students. This website will provide suggestions for schools on nutritional areas they need to improve. Schools will also have the opportunity to enter their budget or any diet restrictions for these meals, and the AI will consider these factors and generate plant-based meal ideas tailored towards these schools. This project will provide students with healthier, plant-based food options.
Thank you to everyone who applied to YouthCon 2024! We greatly appreciate your time and effort and strongly encourage you to apply again next year!
The pandemic has highlighted the hardships and struggles of healthcare and its toll on healthcare professionals. In addition to the increased pressures for healthcare professionals, students are also faced with their own struggles in their pursuit of a healthcare career. The AASuccess Heathcare Symposium was therefore created with the purpose of providing insight into some of the present day challenges of healthcare and bridging the gap between an idealized career and its realities.
Timeline: June 3, 2023 from 10 AM to 3 PM
Key leads: Angela Le, Grace Tonnu, Vivian Cao-Dao (Read more >>)
Program Description
During the symposium, our program will be focusing on two topics that are prevalent in the current healthcare field:
Expectations vs. Realities
The goal of many students entering the healthcare profession is making a difference in society by helping others. However, the challenges healthcare professionals and trainees face in the field have important implications on their health and wellbeing. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the extreme fatigue and burnout faced by providers. Burnout is characterized by a high degree of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization with a low sense of personal accomplishment at work, leading to a strain in mental health. The symposium aims to address some of the workfield challenges and structural issues that typically contribute to burnout, while highlighting the experiences of a diverse panel of healthcare professionals. By addressing the contributors of burnout, we hope to equip students with strategies to handle common stressors in the healthcare field.
Potential Consequences of Failure
The status quo of successfully entering professional school and financing the costs are daunting. In addition, the pressure placed on students to positively distinguish themselves among a competitive pool of extremely qualified applicants takes a toll on mental health. Self image can easily be based on the ‘need to succeed’, regardless of how unhealthy it may be. These expectations can lead to cognitive distortions (e.g. ‘imposter syndrome’) and constant comparisons to others that can lead to the fear of failure and ‘not having what it takes’ These issues are universal and shared among students, trainees, and providers alike. We aim to break down specific negative cognitive distortions and the complexity surrounding a ‘failed experience’.
What to Expect
The 2023 YouthCon Scholarship allows innovative high school students living in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area with ideas to be actively involved with philanthropic work to make a difference in neighborhoods, with the support of AASuccess. We award innovative and driven students with the mindsets of giving back, and those seeking to strengthen their skills such as writing, presentation, and leadership.
The Go-Green Team announced our new Trash Rehash Event! The event aims to repurpose plastic and other recyclable materials by making eco-bricks and crocheting using plarn. If you don’t know what eco-bricking and plarn are, don’t worry, during the event, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about them and create them while socializing and watching movies.
We need your help to supply the recyclables! We are collecting materials such as plastic bags, water bottles, wrappers, and more! There will be a drop-off box in the AASuccess office to store the materials until enough has been collected to begin the event.
Here is the list of items we’re looking for you to drop off. Note: All materials must be dried and cleaned (no food residue, dirt, and bacterial growth)
We don’t collect:
Material for plarn crocheting:
More information about the event will be sent out over the next few weeks. Feel free to let us know if you have any questions or concern (aashee.balani@aasuccess.org and leo.lue@aasuccess.org)
The Go Green Project aims to raise awareness of the feasibility and the growing need for home gardening. We plan to do this by selling plants to every willing individual, especially those who have no experience in gardening before. Information on the plant, the project, and a community tracking page will be given supplementary to the plant itself. By doing this we hope to spread awareness about the problem of climate change and how the growth of plants can help our community.
The 2022 Summer Mental Health Conference is a one day 4 hour long event meant to bring both understanding and awareness to teen mental health. Organized by a senior high school student, Liem Nguyen, this event highlights the experiences and struggles of young adults with mental health through a student focused program, via which the community can gain a better understanding of mental health. In addition, it promotes mental health resources available for those who would like to be more informed on a sense of self.
Creating programs to engage the future generation into STEM in underserved communities can have successful impacts and help grow these smaller communities into larger and more advanced developments. In this project, Nicole Ortuno intends to create a robotics introduction program that actively involves and excites underrepresented students within homeless shelters.
Via bi-weekly lessons, she hopes to introduce these students to the robotics kits and teach them different aspects of creating robots: programming, electrical, and mechanical. Using robotic kits from education equipment companies, we provide a hands-on approach to let the students try many different creative ideas on their own. On the final day of the program, we will hold a fun competition in which a team of students will create their own robots in order to truly showcase what they have learned.
Since school started, a lot of problems have been arising within the student community. Some are dealing with a rigorous school curriculum while others are stressed about college applications. The Winter Mental Health Retreat was organized with the purpose of creating a chance for participants to bond with each other and refresh their minds from the mental health issues stemming from their past and daily lives.
Student’s Blog: https://blog.aasuccess.org/erica-shin-and-the-winter-mental-health-retreat/
