Hello!
I can't believe that today is my last day working at Techie Youth. It seems a while ago that I was working on completing the introductory units, learning about how to create a resume and how remote work can increase a person's quality of life. But now that I experienced doing assignments, taking quizzes, and reading/watching articles and videos on various topics of becoming career-ready, I can see that there are various ways to achieve the goal of work-life balance and remote work with great depth and breadth from the various units.
It was very fun doing the entrepreneurial track, learning about ways I can sell art, technological crafts, and stocks as ways to create a business or own a sense of agency over my means of making a living. I greatly enjoyed doing the art assignment and the technological crafts assignment, since I enjoy doing art & 3D modeling as hobbies and have great experience/familiarity with those areas compare to stocks. Other topics, such as stocks, were fun and interesting albeit more confusing for me since I was not too familiar on the topic.
I also enjoyed doing the Hybrid Income Sources track, since I was able to create music, a portfolio website, and write a blog! I found that these creative activities were fun yet also informative for me at the same time, while also building more confidence in me as a pre-professional student to go outside of the "comfort zone" of finding a career path that speaks to me.
The remote careers track was also very interesting to me as well! While it did not possess the same creative tasks as the other units did, it did have topics on quality assurance, product management, and business/data analysis- all of which are careers that I am actually seriously considering for my career track. I found it very useful for me in understanding the expectations and roles that these careers and positions have, since I can then tailor my education/internships towards those opportunities.
Overall, my summer at Techie Youth has been an interesting and informative experience for me.
Hello!
Today, I worked on completing the content within the Talent Acquisition Unit, reading articles and watching videos on various ways to attract talent as well as tools to help streamline/speed up the process of finding talent and retaining them. While many of these videos are from the perspective of the employer, I find that these videos and articles would be extremely useful for people that are trying to be hired at a specific company, industry, or position.
For example, the ATS system described in one of the subtopics within the unit is used to select applicants that best match the job description posted by the employer or certain key words that the employers want to see in an applicant's resume. While this makes sense in narrowing down the applicant pool from applicants with relevant vs. irrelevant skills/experiences, it may make it difficult for a person to break into an industry they have no experience before (e.g. being a new graduate, switching industries). Because of this, it would be useful for these applicants to make sure they have a sense of how the ATS system works and how to "game" the system or bypass it so that they aren't immediately rejected from the job. This advice is something that I heard a bit from online communities like Reddit on their career advice groups, where they would discuss how ATS works and how it can be good/sometimes a hindrance to a specific position they want.
Overall, I enjoyed today's content within the Talent Acquisition unit. I found it very useful, especially since I could draw a personal connection to it.
Hello!
Today, I worked on completing the quizzes in the Selling Art Unit. Although I had completed the assignment & looked through the different articles/videos/links, I had forgotten to complete the quizzes. So today, I went back to finish those quizzes & revisited some content. Looking back, I realized that there were many more platforms I could have used to sell my art for the assignment, but I still think that my choice of using Red Bubble was the best for me, since I only wanted to upload my art and not to handle the logistics of shipping, handling, and customer service. Since Red Bubble handles those tasks for the artist and that there is no entry fee to become a seller, I appreciate that Red Bubble made it easy for me to sell my artwork.
I also started the Talent Acquisition Unit, which is all about how to attract talent/employees to work for you but the information can be used vice versa, for how to be top talent that attracts employers and job opportunities. In the video I watched, I saw an overview of job expectations/descriptions, salaries, and exclusivity agreements- all of which reminded me of how to get a job but in greater detail this time. While I knew about how to get a job, from formatting a clear resume to interviewing skills, I found that the topics explored in this unit are less commonly known, which makes them very useful for me and others who haven't covered these topics before.
Overall, this is what I learned today, and I hope to finish the Talent Acquisition Unit tomorrow!
Hello!
Today, I worked on completing the quizzes within the unit for the web development and mobile app units. From version control, wordpress, and databases to iOS and Android app development, I reviewed the content within these units from the videos/links provided, sometimes searching up the answers myself when the links wouldn't provide the answer or even trying out the tools themselves to find the answers.
I had particular trouble with the Wordpress quiz. While I was familiar with the content and even used the tool itself before taking the quiz on the unit, I found that the questions on how to do a certain task with answer choices of the exact buttons/topics I had to pick was trivial/outdated. Some of the answer choices used the word design in place of appearance, which confused me a bit, but other words within the answer choices also had the same experience. It would be great if the quiz on this section in particular could be changed/updated to reflect the newer versions of Wordpress + other areas of understanding the site.
Meanwhile, I found the content on iOS and Android app development to be approachable, and I enjoy that there are new sites/tools/platforms I can work with to start creating my own mobile app. When creating the mobile app for the unit's assignment, I don't believe I can create an app on Apple's App Store, Google's Play Store, or Microsoft's store without incurring some form of payment on my end, so I researched some free platforms where I can post my app for free. Some sites include Aptoide, Amazon, and Appszoom, but I will use Aptoide due to its ease of use/accessibility for my part.
Overall, I learned a lot today within these two units, and I hope to learn more tomorrow!
Hello!
Today is the last week at Techie Youth, so I'm trying to complete as many units/assignments that I can this week. I focused more on completing the units I'm currently focused on, which is the web development and mobile app units. I find that these two units are very useful for me before I leave for college (which is this Saturday!) since I'll be working on projects or exams that test on these exams + more.
For example, the topics on PHP, Python, and Java were nice to review/learn about, especially the Python unit since that's the language I'll be using in my programming class this semester. While I don't think I'll be using PHP in any college classes soon, I find that it would be useful to learn on my own. I also find that Java will be a language that I will later touch base again in the higher level programming classes.
Regarding the mobile app development unit, I saw that the skills needed for a web developer was quite different than expected for a web developer. Different languages, different optimization for different platforms/devices- this unit made me think about whether I should focus on web development/app development/software development, or if I can do all three and more. While web development was my first introduction to coding/programming, I think learning more about mobile app development seems very interesting/useful due to a mobile app's ease of use and accessibility.
As I complete more of these units/videos/assignments, I hope to take these skills/projects I've learned and be able to transfer them into real life projects/experiences in college and beyond.
That's all for today, and I hope to do more tomorrow!
Hello!
Today, I worked more on the web development unit, examining the fundamentals of web development, version control, and web administration.
While learning more about the career opportunities within web development and the programming/coding languages used by web developers, I saw that many of these topics were areas that I've already learned before. However, it was nice to review these topics again, especially since I forgot some of the topics and needed a refresher for my memory.
I also learned more about version control with GitHub and the Git repository, which I found very useful. While I have used GitHub before, I never formally learned how to use it or its commands until this unit. The knowledge from this unit would be especially helpful for me when I do coding projects with a group, in which case I would need to make sure that the team keep track of its commits and other changes.
Learning about web administration was also helpful for me, since it connects with the niche informational website unit, but explains how web hosting works at a deeper level. Learning more about this topic, I have a more thorough understanding of how websites work at a surface and deep level.
Overall, this wraps up my week at Techie Youth, and I hope to learn more things next week!
Hello!
Today, I worked on the niche informational site unit, coming back from the web development unit. While these two units are quite similar to each other, I found that the roles and responsibilities expected within these two fields/units are quite different.
From the web development unit, I saw that having a stronger sense of how websites work at its fundamental level- from coding, web hosting, and web administration- is more important in this field and unit. In comparison, the niche informational site emphasized more on creating websites (blogs or e-commerce sites) that makes money by affiliate marketing, ads, people purchasing good from your business, or even just selling the website itself if it has profitability. Between these two fields, I would describe the web development to be more "backend" since the work in primarily with developing the website and niche informational site to be more "frontend" since it faces the clients more face-to-face (although these are not proper terms of frontend and backend, it shows the difference between the two in terms of the nature of the work).
Working on this unit when taking a break from the web development unit made me realize how much more "easier" the information is to work in the field (At least for me), but also harder in the sense that a person working in this field has to be constantly creating content and planning new, creative campaigns to attract visitors/buyers.
Overall, as I work on both units Niche Informational and Web Development, I hope to soon complete my website that utilize information found from both of the units.
Hello!
Today, I worked on the web development unit, examining the different careers within web development and its related fields, as well as the fundamentals of web design. Looking through the unit, I saw how extensive the field of web design truly is, combining art, writing, and coding into one cohesive product: the website.
I also saw the value of marketing and using smart ads to target your audience to sell your business in web development/design. I saw how businesses use GoogleAds, Google Analytics, word of mouth, Yelp, and other ways of striking a deal with a cilent both in-person or online. Looking at the various ways people find their market and remain in business makes me realize that I could branch out a business even further than I thought.
I'm currently working on a website right now, focused on art, machine learning, and how to monetize those pieces of art, using Wordpress. I initially thought Wordpress was too complex, but after creating my first website with Wix, I saw that Wordpress isn't as challenging as I thought (mainly due to the limitations of the free plan). I hope to work more on the website and submit it by the end of this week.
Hello!
Today, I worked on completing the analyst unit, examining the difference between a business analyst and a data analyst, as well as their respective roles and required skill sets. When looking through the different articles and videos for each of the jobs, I saw that the business and data analyst function similar to each other in the sense that they take technical language and turn it into something understandable that the business owners/stakeholders can understand. Despite this, their skill sets- with business analyst being more people oriented versus a data analyst being more data focused- make a large difference between these two jobs.
While they are distinct jobs, I did wonder whether there would be business models that do have both business analysts and data analysts. Since they function similarly, albeit in different methods, I would think that having both types of analysts would be redundant.
Regardless, I found the unit to be very informative for me, and makes me reconsider how a business analyst role/a data analyst role differs from each other and other careers (like project management) as well.
I also submitted my assignment for the fundraising unit, and I hope to complete more assignments in the future, in particular the analyst assignment or the AI assignment.
Hello!
Today, I worked on the analyst unit, looking through the roles and responsibilities of a business analyst and the tools they use in the industry (such as R and SQL). Learning more about this particular career is quite useful for me, especially since my major ties a bit into business and the students from my major have went on to become a business analyst for their first post-graduate job.
While I wouldn't personally want to become a business analyst as my first desired career pathway, it's definitely a career opportunity that sounds very interesting to me. The skill sets required to the job makes it very technical, which I enjoy, but also requires research and a passion for problem solving- transferable skills to other careers as well.
As I learn more about the unit, I hope to learn more about what it takes to be a business analyst. I find that the skills within its industry would be helpful for me if I were to go into technology consulting, which is similar in a sense of the skills needed.
I also submitted my assignment for the social community organizing unit today as well! I'm finishing up more posts to add to my Instagram page to complete the fundraising unit, and I hope to see my account grow even more.
I plan on completing more units this week (maybe the Talent Acquisition unit?) and complete the assignments where possible.
Hello!
Today, I finished the Fundraising Unit, learning about how to utilize social media as a campaign tool in informing the audience about a cause that solves a problem, attracting people to a social media account using marketing and metrics, and persuading donors to support the cause you are fundraising for.
Learning more about this unit, I saw how there are quite a number of nuances and lessons when trying to reach out to donors and to the targeted audience in an effective way that does not bother/annoy them. For example, in regards to cold-pitch emailing, I read how it's important to keep the email concise, interesting, yet straight to the point. I also saw how it's important to not email too-often, especially when you are emailing/contacting donors, and makes me think about how some organizations could benefit from learning this seeing how often they email me.
I'm currently working on the fundraising assignment in conjunction to the social community organizing assignment, since I saw that I could use social media like Instagram for both scenarios, I decided that the Instagram page I'll be creating will be a social community as well as a fundraising campaign.
Overall, I'm excited to see how my Instagram page grows and I hope to find more Techie Youth participants to reach out to.
Hello!
Today, I wrapped up the unit for the Social Community Organizing Unit by reviewing the units for each social media platform and their respective quizzes. While I reviewed the content from some units repeatedly, such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook, I saw that my results would constantly be counted wrong. This prompted me to do the quizzes over and over again until I passed the quizzes even though I scoured the resources from the unit links and even research online by myself. With this in mind, I hope that more resources/links can be provided in the units so that the questions to the quizzes are more clearly understood and answerable.
Nevertheless, I'm finishing up creating posts for my Instagram page themed on Techie Youth on Canva, so I'll be getting them ready to post and utilize hashtags and other tools to increase following and engagement.
I also realized that I never quite finished the Music Production Unit! So I went back to the Music Monetization section of the unit and reviewed the material so that I could complete the quiz. Because the unit and the quiz was quite lengthy, it took me a while to read/watch through all the material and consider the correct answers to the questions when it's not so obvious.
I also started the fundraising unit, learning about the effective practices to employ in order to fundraise effectively, creating a fundraising appeal, and creating powerful cold-pitch letters. Hopefully, I can get to complete the unit by tomorrow and even try to pair up my Techie Youth-themed Instagram to complete the fundraising assignment.
Hello!
Today, I worked on the social community organizing unit more by learning more about the different social media sites and platforms I can use and how I can maximize my following and growth so that I can monetize my page.
I learned about Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and WeChat are some of the many social media platforms out there. While I found that some social media platforms had functions and tools I was already familiar with, it was interesting to rediscover more niche features within the platform that becomes useful for creators and influencers when they amassed a large following. For instance, I never knew that services offered by companies like Fohr can help creators find brands to work with and monetize their content.
Additionally, I learned more about WeChat today, a very popular social media site/superapp that many Chinese and Chinese diaspora people use. While I have heard of it before, I never realized how many functionalities the app had until I explored and learned more about it during the unit. The popularity/prevalence of WeChat reminds me a bit of KakaoTalk, which is a Korean messaging/social media app that many Koreans use similar to WeChat. However, I did notice how the politics and information policies with WeChat can be a point of tension between the American and the Chinese government and can affect a user's freedom to speech and opinion, so it makes me a bit wary to interact or even join WeChat.
Overall, today I worked on the social media unit more in depth, and I'll be looking into creating an Instagram theme page for my assignment, using tools such as Canva to create my content and hashtags and other features on Instagram to grow a following .
Hello!
Today, I learned more about the AI unit by learning about the different tools, projects, and skills needed in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more niche/smaller fields. From learning about NLP, Keras, and Pytorch, I was able to review topics I've learned or even experienced before as well as explore other topics within AI more deeply.
Examining the assignment for the AI unit, I'm intrigued at the prospect of what I will find but at the same time I feel a bit unsure about the assignment since the project will be a bit different than what I have done before. Regardless, the resources that the unit links to will be extremely helpful for me in this regard.
I also started the social community/organizing unit, learning more about different social media platforms and how I can utilize them to build a following, create content, and endorse a cause or organization.
All in all, I learned both AI and social media and how they connect to businesses and enterprises.
Hello!
Today, I mainly covered the Stocks unit by learning about trading options, REITS, and Forex, many topics in which I've never encountered before due to lack of exposure and familiarity. I also find that some of these topics are quite recent/new to the mainstream, similar to how cryptocurrency was a niche decades past but now has become a part of everyone's consciousness due to its growing popularity and knowledge of the topics.
Though many of these topics were new and engaging for me, I wouldn't imagine myself truly working with trading stocks as a career. However, I appreciate that there are additional topics for me to learn and explore if I ever do want to trade more seriously or even professionally.
I'm working on the stocks assignment at the moment, trying to find stocks that I'm interested in enough that I would like to research them. Some companies that I might include are Nintendo, Sony, Tesla, and Apple and I hope to find more cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum that I can look into.
I've also looked a bit into the Artificial Intelligence Unit, which is an area that I have some experience in from my machine learning project from a prior summer, so I hope that I can review some topics and learn new information from the unit.
Overall, I learned quite a bit about stocks today and the information in the unit gave me quite a bit of insight into the career of a trader.
Hello!
Today, I worked on the Technological Crafts Unit and the Digital Goods Unit, learning more about the areas/concepts that I missed and completing the assignments for those units.
Going back to the Digital Goods Unit, I was able to plan a vision and execute it. My plan for a Techie Youth-related Instagram filter was very new to me, but at the same time engaging and intuitive when I created the filter. I found that my skills in Adobe Illustrator came handy when I had to format the Techie Youth name into a filter texture in a way so that it remains readable (and not squished).
Albeit, my plan for the the assignment for this unit did not go the way I intended originally. I wanted to make a website template or mobile app, but I realized that the amount of work put into creating those products would be immense. The marketplace that I would use was another factor that made my original plan go awry. Selling on the app store, Google Play store, or even Etsy were not viable options for me since they require so much information that I wasn't comfortable sharing. Instead, I used Patreon, which had a paid membership access to the products I would create.
The assignment for the Technological Crafts Unit was also a bit of a struggle that I had to research quite a bit to overcome. Because I wanted to model my product with CAD, I had to research a software or other tool that would have CAD capabilities as well as pricing and fabricating features. That's how I settled upon the software CraftWorks Pro, in which I was able to create my product, determine it's price for printing, and what materials it would consist of.
Overall, working on these units and completing these assignments today took some time, research, and critical thinking to execute my plan and find solutions to any issues.
Hello!
Today I worked on starting the Technological Crafts Unit & the Stocks Unit, both which are within the Business and Entrepreneurship tracks.
Despite being completely different fields, I enjoyed how each of the units showed interesting ways of making money that I had never experienced before.
I found that the Technological Crafts Unit would be very fun for me to do a project, and it would be a way of making money in which I would be deeply invested in the business, product development, and marketing. It was fascinating to see how technology and the arts can combine to create cool products, ranging from wearable tech and fashion to 3D printed solutions for computer hardware or medical tech. Since I'll be going into the fields of computer science, information systems, and project/product management, I would expect to work and/or see jobs and companies that deal with this method of entrepreneurship.
The Stocks Unit was also very engaging for me, since I was able to have a structured way of learning about stocks, their purpose and use in society, and the related terminology. I liked how I was able to connect the learning material with my own personal experiences of buying, trading, and investing in stocks in a simulated stock market game. The information from this unit is especially valuable for me later in life when I can start using the surplus money I earn after my taxes & living costs to invest in stocks and earn money more passively.
Overall, I worked on two units within the Entrepreneurship track and saw two different methods of creating or being involved in a business.
Hello!
Today I worked on completing the rest of the Digital Goods Unit & the assignment. I also started working on the Quality Assurance Unit today, looking at the software testing life cycle (STLC) and its different phases. I also examined different types of testing, such as white box testing and black box testing and their intended uses.
Within quality assurance, there are many types of tests that the testing team or developers have to use to ensure that the function, performance, or security of their product works. For example, regression testing is used to ensure that new changes did not create a backslide on old functions. Regression testing can be even further divided into sanity and smoke testing, each with a different range of the functions that they test for.
For websites specifically, accessibility, security, link checking, and W2C validation tests are used to explore any bugs or data leaks in a website. It's important to do these tests on a regular basis, especially if any updates are made on the website, to ensure that the updates are working (or if old functions still work) just like in a regression test. In fact, I had to do a link check test on my past assignments to see if the links I submitted sent the user to the correct webpage (it didn't :( so I had to resubmit some assignments).
Examining how many users the website can handle at once is also an important aspect of website testing so that website crashes don't occur on the regular. Stress test and load tests are useful in this regard, with load tests utilizing a more typical number of users vs stress tests using a more extreme number of users.
Overall, these are some aspects of quality assurance that I studied today, and I hope to find some interesting websites to complete the assignment for the unit!
Hello!
Today I worked on more of the Digital Goods Unit and finished the first part of the unit, going on the the next parts (which are much shorter). After finishing the quizzes, I worked on my assignment for the unit, which will be an Instagram filter most likely. I wanted to do a Wordpress or HTML website template or create a mobile app as my assignment, but I found that the developing time would take a bit too long to complete, so I switched my assignment to something shorter. Regardless, the skills and lessons from learning how to do these tasks will come to be useful for me when completing the other assignments and even for college and beyond.
I also had to fix a link for one of my past assignments in the Services Unit, which I fixed upon realizing that the original link led to the editing page and not the viewing page. Hopefully the assignment & other assignments have working links by now.
I'm aiming to try to complete the stocks or quality assurance units next, since I think that they have useful yet interesting topics & assignments.
Overall, I'm pacing myself to complete the units and assignments in a manner that works best with me right now.
Hello!
Today I started the Digital Goods Unit and learned different ways that a digital good can be sold, looking at what types of goods are digital goods and what platforms I can use. Starting this unit, I learned how things such as website templates, video games, and even online learning courses can be goods. While I've yet to reach the other parts of the unit outside of creating digital goods, I was able to learn that there are a variety of ways to sell a digital item from this part of the unit. In fact, there even some items that the unit didn't mention, but I hope to explore, such as selling digital art brush sets or social media filters.
Nevertheless, the unit today gave me some good ideas of what type of digital good I hope to sell for the unit's assignment. I'm definitely interested in selling the website template or a mobile app, since I find that the time and skill in developing these goods will also help me complete the assignments for other units within the Learn to E-Earn program.
I'm planning on finishing up the rest of the unit as much as I can possible and submit my assignments tomorrow.
Hello!
Today, I worked on learning about how I can sell my art and evaluate its value. While I did already know that art can be sold, as prints, plushies, commissions, I didn't know how many resources there were available for selling art. Some sites such as Saatchi were tools that I first learned about from Techie Youth, and I'm glad that there are many opportunities for me to sell my art.
I also saw how many different ways people advertise their art as well! From Instagram, Youtube, to even Facebook, there are a large variety of social media platforms that can boost an artist's visibility to different target audiences.
While I'm not too artistic- I prefer photography and photo editing on occasion- I find that this unit would be really useful for my sister since she's in an art specialized high school and intending to pursue a visual art career. So when she wants to sell her art or just increase her visibility as an artist, I can help her out by applying what I learned from the videos and articles.
I also completed my assignment for today's unit by posting a link to my Red Bubble page! It's minimal, but I uploaded my photos that I think that people might want to buy as a sticker or print.
That's all for today and the end of my 2nd week at Techie Youth! I hope to learn more about stocks or quality assurance next week!
Hello!
Today I worked on learning all about being a project/product manager, from what they are, what they do, and why they are important in ensuring a smooth task flow so that the project and/or product is completed on time and sees success in the market.
I found this course to be very relevant for me actually, since I intend on majoring in information systems/science, which combines computer science, business, design, and other fields into an interdisciplinary program- much like how a project/product manager has to be interdisciplinary in their knowledge since they work with many different departments.
I found that the different articles and videos on topics such as customer satisfaction and feedback, project flow and quality assurance, and sprints and backlogging very practical and useful for me if I end up going to work in that career. Although some of the topics seemed to be a little advanced for me since I don't exactly have the same background familiarity of the many terms they use or truly understand how the field of project/product management works on a more macro level, I appreciate that the articles were able to define the terms whenever possible, which made understanding the industry jargon much easier for me.
I'll be working on the assignment for the unit tonight, which I find quite interesting yet approachable since it deals with Ed Tech, an area I'm familiar with.
That's all for today, and I'm aiming to work on the selling art unit tomorrow!
Hello!
Yesterday, I finished the introduction and QOL units by submitting my assignments for both units. It was definitely a first for me to write a cover letter, so I hope that the skills I learned from the unit can help me start off with a strong understanding of how to prepare for jobs and other professions.
I also worked on the writing and virtual assistant units, now that I can explore the topics that interest me freely after getting the prerequisites done. It was interesting to explore the jobs that writing can lead to, and it definitely made me realize how English is not such a "useless" field that many of my peers seem to believe. Albeit, these writing jobs wouldn't make the same salary as a career within STEM until many years of experience in the field, so I saw that there is some nuance to writing as a career. Nevertheless, as someone who has very little job experience I think it's a good job to explore as a freelancer or side hustle in order to understand how it's like to work in a professional setting.
The virtual assistant unit was also interesting because it also seemed like a job that I can try out as well. The description of the virtual assistant job seems to match what I do for myself- that is planning out my day and month, making phone calls, filling out forms- but just for someone else. The assignment for the unit also took a bit of time for me though, since I wanted to make my website very informative about my background, experience, and services I offer.
Overall, Tuesday was a very productive day for me, since I was able to complete 2 unit assignments that day.
For today, I worked on learning more about music production and the possible careers in the field. By learning about how I don't have to be amazing at playing a violin, I realized how truly accessible working the the music industry can be. I learned how there are jobs in recording engineering, music production, film sound effects, and even marketing the music itself. There are a wide number of ways that a person can work in the field without being a vocalist or playing an instrument.
At the same time, I learned how working in the music industry can be grueling. I saw how music that a producer will make can often go unnoticed, so it's up to the producer to market themselves and their work and network with people and labels. I also saw how creating the music can be a struggle too, since producers want to make sure that their music is not a copy or too similar to another song due to copyright issues. In fact, for the assignment one of my songs I tried to upload got a copyright strike from a random user (when really it shouldn't since the copyright of the music belongs to Apple, who allowed everyone to make music with their loops for commercial purposes). Regardless, I made another track and was able to upload to Soundcloud albeit privately so that there wouldn't be another copyright strike.
That's all for today and I'm excited to see what next topic awaits for me tomorrow.
Hello! Today is Monday, day 6 of working at Techie Youth and also the start of my 2nd week working! I covered the introductory units that weren't able to be check marked and took notes on them, while also finishing up the social media unit!
There were a plethora of social media platforms that I've never used before, such as Twitter, Facebook & Tik Tok because I don't really find a need to use more than 1 social media platform, so I had to make new accounts so that I could complete the assignment in the unit.
Although I don't use social media much, I can see and appreciate the use of social media as a tool to advertise and highlight information & products. Particularly, if I was to start my own business, using social media to market my product/service would be an effective way to connect to customers, especially if my target audience are teenagers/young adults.
I'm glad that Techie Youth is able to cover these topics + more such as cryptocurrency since my college is also starting to talk to me about professional and research opportunities & resources. In fact, some of the topics discussed at Techie Youth (like writing a cover letter & job search websites) were also the same as what my college mentioned, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to refresh that content in mind.
I can't wait to see what I'll be doing tomorrow at Techie Youth!
Hello!
Today is Friday! Last day of the weekday and I'm finishing up the last few parts of the prerequisite units. Though the issue about my assignments/videos/articles not showing up as complete still remains (look at Wednesday's post), I still made some progress regardless and mostly finished the introduction! I still have some sections left regarding my assignments that are a bit more long-term, so I'll be doing them over the weekend.
Finishing up the introduction, I've learned the fundamentals about having a good work-life balance by planning carefully and wisely in regards to my ability and goals in life. I've also learned about the necessary skills I need in order to succeed in getting a job and performing well on a job from the first part of the unit. From learning how to write a cover letter to how to manage my stress in productive ways, I've learned how to be a better both professionally and in my own personal life.
Now that I'm starting the Entrepreneurship unit, I hope to learn more about being my own boss and/or possibly being a leader in a growing company. Especially since I will be working in the tech industry once I graduate college, it's important for me to understand how startups and businesses begin and grow. Looking at tech industry giants such as Apple and Microsoft, learning how to be industrious in terms of pioneering a company is a valuable skill to have.
I'm excited to complete my goal of finishing up a majority of the introductory unit this week, and I hope to learn more about entrepreneurship and other career fields from Techie Youth next week.
Hello!
Today I completed part 1 of the introductory units and moved on to part 2 today! In part 2, I learned how to increase the quality of my life, whether it's learning how to manage my time wisely and effectively or learning how to set goals and expectations realistically.
Learning to time manage is also tough and so I was glad to review the topic over again. Now that I graduated high school, I need to learn how to time manage more effectively so that I have the habits to succeed in college.
In this unit, I learned how multitasking, while it's time effective, can actually hinder progress, especially in the case of learning. So doing activities such as eating and studying may not be the best method of studying for your exam.
At the same time, while you don't want to multitask, you also want to make sure that you take breaks every once in a while. Working continuously for hours on end can wear down on an individual and decrease their work quality and productivity, so it's important that breaks are taken into consideration when planning one's schedule.
An example of breaks when working or studying is the pomodoro method, which is when you study for intense periods of time with short breaks in between. After every so number of work-break intervals, a longer break is taken.
Using the pomodoro method is something that I've never done before, but I'll try to use it for when I study for my exams or other areas of knowledge that I want to know.
I can't wait to see what else I can learn at Techie Youth tomorrow!
Hello!
I'm at the New York Public Library here today, in Nolita near Little Italy. After learning about how remote workers can work pretty much anywhere as long as they have a stable internet connection, I took that option to effect and took my laptop to work in another location besides my home.
Working in a new location was definitely interesting. I got to meet up with friends, eat lunch together, and browse through the many bookstores in the neighborhood. At the same time I felt a little anxious about working at another location that I didn't know too well. Issues such as wifi connection was a main concern for me that can hinder my work today. But I'm glad to see that everything worked out in the end today.
Besides my excursion, I also completed the first of the two introduction unit (I think)! I went back to check over if I completed all of the assigned readings and videos (which I knew I did), but it would show that they were incomplete (interesting). I made sure to go back and do them over again, but this phenomenon seems so rampant that I decided to more on to the next unit.
Completing the unit, I was able to understand the various ways that scams and phishing methods work on people and how to use that knowledge to protect myself. I also learned more about networking in both formal and informal situations and how I can approach people to help them and help me. I think networking is definitely something I need to work on, especially by gaining new friends and mentors from my workplace and new school.
Work-Life balance was that start of the next unit, but I have not gone into the lesson deeply enough to give my reflections, but I hope that by learning more about striking a balance, I can maintain a healthy mental space and work space.
That's it for today!
For my second day at Techie Youth, I reviewed the prerequisite sections on how to land a job by succeeding at the job interview, how to show good performance in a remote job, and how to avoid scams.
The sections on how to do well in a job interview was particularly informative, full of many videos and articles to watch and read on how I should behave in the interview. It was interesting to hear that when being interviewed, I must sell myself as a product that has the solution for a company's problem. Those words were reminiscent of what I heard from my parents and my mentors when preparing for internship and college interviews, so I feel at ease that job interviews would be within the realm of experience that I know.
At the same time, the advice I heard about how to act during a job interview varied quite a lot! Some gave advice about being upfront about asking for the job, others told their readers to have their interviewer be the ones talking. All of the advice seemed quite shocking to me, since I thought it was unprofessional to do these type of things, but I understand the reason why I should act this way after hearing their anecdotes.
In regards to showing good job performance in a remote job, some of the information seemed to be the same as the advice I would hear about Zoom etiquette when attending school. I'm glad to hear that once I get a job, if it's remote, my behavior in regards to showing attention and enthusiasm can draw from my experience with online learning.
I haven't quite finished the scam unit yet, but I found it fascinating how they work in order to protect myself and others. I'm currently majoring in Information Systems, so I would definitely look into the cybersecurity track that my school offers to learn more about it. I look forward to learning more about scams and more information on job readiness and career fields tomorrow at Techie Youth!
Hi! My name is Eunice, and today is my first day at Techie Youth. While watching the various videos and reading the articles provided to me, I took notes on what I found to be the most interesting topic for me- that is PSPs!
PSP stand for payment service provider, which are 3rd party payment companies that help businesses (particularly small businesses like coffeeshops) to process a wide range of online payments.
The most common PSPs include companies such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square- who all offer ease of access when setting up a payment system quickly. Each company has it's pros and cons for its cost of use, so it's very important to examine which company best suits the needs of one's own business.
For example, if I had a small retail business that I want to sell internationally, using PayPal would be my best choice since it can accept about two dozen currencies. I would not want to use Square since it's card payment supports are not very international, which would hinder my goal of going international with my business.
But PSPs can be pricy! While PayPal supports a wide range of international currency, it can be more expensive than Stripe or Square for each transaction. Going back to my small retail business that wants to sell internationally, if PayPal is too expensive for me, I may look into alternative PSPs or business models to fulfill or modify my goal.
That's a snippet of what I've learned so far! There's so much more that I've learned from Techie Youth, from the people skills in entrepreneurship to initiating businesses or startups, and I'm excited to explore so much more!