Webinar: You've Got Range: Using Lessons from IWU to Create Success

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Do you like women are awkward, silences are always like?

The most fun.

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Alright, so we're gonna go ahead and get started. I just want to take a minute to welcome you all to Illinois Wesleyan Titan Talk Series for the class of 2020. As many of you know, my name is Kaylee Rehberg and I'm the senior class president. I'm super excited that all of you are joining us today. We're really excited to provide this opportunity highlighting some of our alumni to provide insight and wisdom to class of 2020. Just a few housekeeping items before I hand it over to our speaker. There's going to be a brief Q&A after his.

Talk so please send any questions that you have to the chat tool and I'll try to get to as many of those as possible. If you do have to leave early, the web and R is recorded and will be posted later so that you can view it again or finish it or share it with your friends and family. So now I'd like to introduce our speaker and think doctor Henderson for being here today. He practices full scope, optometry and he's a frequent lecture and facilitator on multiple topics related to contact lenses in their applications.

Doctor Henderson received his doctorate of optometry from Southern College of optometry in Memphis, TN, graduating with multiple honors, and recognizing his leadership.

He's been published in the Journal of global health at Columbia University on the topic of eye care needs for rural Kenyans, and continues to volunteer with the Lamu center of preventative health. So without any further ado. Thank you. Doctor Henderson.

Thanks Kelly, I I appreciate the great introduction, so I'll kind of take the lead here and start talking a little bit about.

This topic that I think is really really fun and hopefully you learn something new that you can take from now and and use it and apply it into every day and kind of use these lessons you've learned and skills you develop a Westland to continue to become a success. So first of all, congratulations to all the graduates that are here. I think you should be or pretty close to being done with all your finals tests, papers, everything so way to go. I know it's not the exact graduation experience you expected, but remind yourself, it's so pretty amazing.

You're able to do that and be really proud of yourself that one of the best decisions you've made, in my opinion, one of the best decision I made was to attend Illinois Wesleyan and it opened up so many different opportunities and experiences and it really changed my whole perspective on life and I try to remind myself that as I go through things and we'll talk about that a little bit today too. So I want to start with just a little bit of self reflection. So think about you.

The day you started at Illinois Wesleyan. Whether it was you know freshmen and transfer anything like that, think about that day when you started there and think about the person that you were. Who were you really? Dive into those? Who or what did you think? Or did you know you want to do? What do you want to become?

What were some of your long and short term goals? Have you had any goals? You know sometimes it was just like hey, I'm happy to be here. I'll figure it out as I go, and that's OK. Well, what goals did you have? And then I want you to think.

About how those things have changed. How you have changed as a person and how your goals have changed. What you wanted to do is change and really evaluate.

If you're the same person that you were a few years ago.

My my assumption and I know this is true for me is that you really aren't the same person. You probably changed a lot over the last few years. So much has changed in our lives recently, but but I want you to not think about that for the moment. Just think about how you personally have changed through your experience at Westland and I want you to really just hold onto that right now and think about it as we go through this topic. So now let's talk about success. What defines successful person?

Uh.

I want to tell you you've already become a success. You chose to attend Illinois Wesleyan. You've worked so hard and you are on your path to doing really, really great thing. So let's start with a question. Now, knowing that you're a success, so does becoming successful at something mean that you have to become an expert on that topic? To say I'm a successful optometrist, I have to be the most like I've been know, everything there is about the eyeball. Is that what makes you a success? and I think a lot of people think that's what it means.

An Malcolm Gladwell talked in his book about the the 10th at one of his books. He's written a lot, but the 10,000 hour rule and about how to become an expert at something you have to do 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to really become an expert, and you need to start as early as possible and work on that so that you can reap the benefits long-term. And an example of that type of person is Tiger Woods and his skillet golf. You know, he started. I think it was. I was reading about in like 10 months old. He started to learn how to.

Develop the skill and really worked on it, but.

I think that using this logic means that it's too late for a lot of us to become exceptional, unsuccessful. If we don't spend 10,000 hours on things, so I think there's a problem with this thought, and it's something that I want to challenge for you and I wanted to say positively. It's not the case if you don't spend 10,000 hours on hours on one thing, you can still become an expert, and let's look at the science. I know a lot of you don't want to be lectured at right now, so I'll try to keep it not to lecture Ian, just more of teaching you something new so the psychologist Robin Hogarth.

Find two different types of environments that we live in that we can develop in and create success, and one of those is called a kind environment. An example of this like Tiger Woods golf. There's a lot of other examples in the world too, and you can probably apply those as we go through it, but a kind environment is one that has clear next steps so you know what to do. You do this, then you do that. You know what's coming next, rules that don't change much, or sometimes don't change it. Also, like I'll use golf is an example still.

The rules of golf stay pretty consistent wherever you're playing at whatever you're doing. The rules are similar. The goal of something like golf for some of these sports is to win, you know, is to score enough points is too or engulf the score. Little do his little shots as possible, makes little shots and the nice thing about these kind environments as you get instant feedback. So if you hit a ball or if you do something and you can see where it's going, you know that was bad. That was good. Now I need to make an adjustment.

In reality, what Robin Robin Hogarth describes is the other environment that is what is called a wicked environment. So there's no clear next steps. There's no defined goals necessarily, it's just you know it's out there. The rules are constantly changing, as we know from the COVID-19 pandemic, you can't really plant the rules for everything, just changed. And unfortunately, there's there's little or sometimes delayed feedback, so we don't know what the outcome is going to be.

Based on the things that we do with the choices we make, we don't know what the outcome is. We don't know if I do this. I'm going to get in a if I do this then that's going to happen. It's all out there for us to figure out, and that's what I think the wicked world is more like.

The real world. Unfortunately it's not kind. You know, we don't know what's going to happen next. The rules change all the time. The goals change and we don't get feedback, so.

How do you survive in this world? It's kind of scary, right? Specially to use the word wicked. I think that makes it sound really scary, so I want to give you some some Peace of Mind and know that you've developed something called range by going to Westland. And that's really what you need to be able to create success moving forward. So let's talk a little bit about this and then I'll dive into it a little bit more. But in this book from David Epstein, he goes through numerous examples of how most people develop range and it through a lot of.

Diverse experiences, so having developed and continuing develop range will help you succeed in the modern world. So this new post code that world I think this having these skills will help you succeed. And what range really is? It's diverse skillsets, diverse experiences that first knowledge and knowing and allowing yourself to pivot or change to adapt to unnecessary. And it's beyond that too. It's not just starting doing that in one period of time, but it's encouraging and.

Promoting exploration and things that you're interested in and what you might be interested in going forward and knowing it's OK to do those things. So again, more good news. Unfortunately, the world is wicked, but you went to I wou. You went to Illinois Wesleyan. It's prepared you for these these challenges that you're going to face going into the world, whether it's starting a new career, starting a new job that you're nervous about or not sure about or applying to Graduate School, or or doing anything you are more prepared with so much range or so much diverse experience and knowledge.

That you're going to be successful in IW has been preparing you for this from day one, so a little more about what range looks like and I'll share a quick story that I really like that I think exemplifies somebody who has range. And it's my sister in law and and she's a software engineer. She works for JPMorgan Chase at a big bank in New York, but when she was in undergrad, she didn't just major in computer science. You also did a double major in dance, which is just crazy. I thought about doing that when I was at Wesleyan. The double major in music and.

And uh biology and that is so hard anybody that does a double major did want kudos to you 'cause it's really difficult but what she's found through her career is that having the diverse knowledge and totally different backgrounds of these experiences between computer Sciences and dance is that it's actually given her a leg up in programming and code because it's given her a different way to think in a different way beyond to solve answers that is beyond just looking at computer science so she's not saying alright I have a computer science problem right with coding problem.

One and stuff any CS people on here forgive me for not understanding it as well 'cause it's over my head but she says a lot of her colleagues look for answers to computer science problems within computer science and what has made her different and what makes you all different is you can look outside of your specific realm to get those answers and to think differently and think analogically and say OK let's make an analogy if this works here then how can I apply it here to make things work out for me so.

Pretty amazing and I am really proud that IW instills this an its students in that it develops them for continuing success as they enter the workforce in their next opportunity. So now let's talk a little bit about how you have development range or how you can continue to develop right. So first of all you may not realize it but just by choosing to attend Wesleyan, you compared yourself with a Super Diverse Foundation. So if you think about all the different course work that you had to take starting with your gateway course, I love mine.

Who is transitive? In my college experience and then going through all these different courses like, I mean tons of History, Anthropology, Humanities. Hopefully you challenge yourself to take some of these and really see and it's hard when you're in the moment. But see how it's going to.

Affect you long-term, so some of it may have felt silly. Why do I have to take a Chinese history class to become a optometrist? You know it sounds silly at first, but hopefully you've realized by this time, and hopefully maybe if you haven't, this will help you realize that some of the things you learn and those unique classes are going to help make you more diverse and help you become a better problem solver and really create success going forward in your career. So please, please keep up with that. So second, I want to encourage you to try things out so.

In his book he talks a little bit about a sampling period and what the Wesleyan curriculum has created for you is this diverse sampling period of trying out all different kinds of things to see what's going to be the best fit for you.

And just because you're finished with I, I wear your finishing with I would doesn't mean that you're sampling periods over it, really just has developed the foundation for you of learning and seeking out knowledge, and whether that means investing in a new hobby or taking extra classes online just refined like through Corsair. A meeting with new friends with different interests. Things like that, having discussions. It's all going to continue or contribute to your success. Unfortunately, naturally were programmed to think OK if I participate in things that aren't directly related to Mycareer.

It's going to take away from my success you know when I was in optometry school I might have thought if I don't read this book about eyeballs my read something that's interesting to me it's going to put me back it's going to make me less successful because I'm not focusing all on optometry but but that's not the case you know it's actually going to expand your knowledge and help you apply those concepts in a better and more constructive way to what you do want to know so like right now I started with my neighbor we have a little book club and we purposely read books.

One month that is different from our career something that can challenge us and make us think differently so you can continue to develop this range and do things like that even after Wesleyan I think something that's really funny or not funny but interesting is they found that scientists or experts that have a hobby like artistic hobby or something else that they really care about outside of their round with specialty are 22 times more likely to become a Nobel laureate people that invest in themselves in different ways beyond just.

Focusing on one topic actually more likely to reach success, and that's something that you don't really. People don't talk about, you only talk about the people that have focused and become experts on things. We glorify people like Tiger Woods and he's exceptional, but you have to remind yourself that.

Not necessarily that you don't necessarily have to focus all on one thing to create success. So third on that don't be afraid to change your path. Don't be afraid to make a change because a lot of people that have found great happiness and success have actually made changes in their life. And there was a study done at Harvard where they looked at at people in a diverse range of careers all over the board. And they found that a lot of people thought they were the dark horse, quote Unquote because they took an unconventional path to success. You know, they might be.

The CEO of a business, but you know they started out working at McDonald's. Or they started out in a totally different career. That doesn't necessarily directly apply to what they're doing and their assumption was, well, I'm the exception to the rule. A lot of people you know they start out. They finished college. They get this job and they work their way up and that's how it works. But in fact, most people don't do that, so I want to tell you it's actually OK to have a diverse experience. It's OK to have multiple interests, and it's OK to allow those things to create the developed within. You see, you can create success.

And I'd encourage you to talk to people you know.

Talk to the people like your parents, your professors talk about their journey and I think you'll find that a lot of them think they're dark horses or or have this unconventional path to where they are and encourage them to think about those things directly because it will help them continue to develop right. Even more so.

Don't feel bad taking a different path.

In reality can help you set better goals in my opinion so same thoughts on goal setting now that we bring that up so a lot of people say you have to set your goals for 51020 years out you need to work for those goals everyday that needs to be your focus goal setting but but I want to challenge that a little bit just to take a take a second here so I want you to ask or tell yourself and do some introspection when your goal setting and ask yourself or tell yourself.

Here's who I am at this moment.

Here are my motivations right now.

Here's what I found I like to do so coming out of Wesley you know you've got this great basis you know you've probably changed a little bit of what you like and that's OK but here's what you found you like to do here's what else I want to learn what else do I want to know about you know maybe I got a biology degree but I really like business I think it's interesting here's what I would like to learn more about and then look at the opportunities available to you then the question is once you've analyzed all of this is which opportunity is going to be the best match for you right now not the best match.

For the person you think you're gonna be.

In five years or 10 years, but the best match for you right now. and I think that that will help. I know that that will help bring you more success by finding better match quality for who you are right now. Instead of trying to predict match quality for someone that you you aren't. So don't make career goals that are too far out. You can have goals. I'm not saying You shouldn't have goals you know have a general idea of where you'd like to be, but know that you need to make your day-to-day decisions based on who you are.

And consider how much you've changed like over the last few years of Wesley, and especially you've changed so much. Consider that when you're deciding what to do next, you've got a lot of time to think about that right now, so I encourage you to use that. So I want to talk about my own experience for a moment. So when I was in Wesley and when I was in optometry school I thought I want to own my own optometry practice. This is exactly what I want to do I know it, and I know in 10 years I want to own this practice. I'm going to be the boss I want to do.

All of these things, an in optometry school when I was finishing my last year, I had a great opportunity to practice in Pittsburgh. We were going to buy into the practice. It was going to be great. It was everything I ever wanted. So I took this job and I started working and it was great at first, but unfortunately about six months in I knew something just didn't feel right and I tried to tell myself maybe it's just me. It's just me. I need to. I'm still in student mode. I need to transition to adult mode. Doctor mode really get into the zone, but.

Another year and a half later, I still felt the same way and I was confused because I was like what? What do I do? This is everything I've always wanted. Why am I not fulfilled? Why am I not happy? This is what I've been planning for for the last few years. This is the goal I set for myself and here it is.

But I'm not happy.

So what I decided to do. It wasn't the hardest things that had to do, but I decided to look for something different. I decided to leave that job and not, you know, become a partner in that practice and it's really challenging, especially because we're told you know you need to set your goals. You need to follow through, but leaving that position opened up more time for me to educate myself to have different opportunities to lecture, attend more meetings, and be able to really reassess who I am and who I want to be. So I looked back at my life for a bit.

And I took some time and I said, when when did I feel really good? When did I feel like I was learning a lot? When did I feel like I was doing what I wanted to do? And when I think about that I look back to my time at Wesleyan and what I was doing and I said, how can I re incorporate those things that I discovered and learned I liked and I've gotten away from how can I re insert them into my life?

One thing I missed was performing. I was, uh, I did was a Jennings scholar. I don't know if any of you did that, but basically it was kind of like an applied minor in vocal performance. So I was able to perform a lot while doing all my other studies. And that was one of my favorite things while being at Wesleyan, one of the best things I experiences I got was having that along with my biology degree and and I didn't feel like I was getting to perform at all and that was something I cared about. So I looked for ways to increase my lecturing skills to work with other companies that need people that can lecture and talk about their thesis that I'm passionate about.

And I filled that void.

I enjoyed leadership when I was on the students in it and learning to help work with my peers to make the school better. So I looked for that in my life and I joined the Pennsylvania Optometric Association and work my way into the leadership structure because I said This is something that's important. I wanna make this profession better.

And I looked at who I was all throughout my time there at Wesleyan, I said I was really happy and I was doing all these different things. They weren't necessarily all leading towards the same goal directly, but they provided me skills that have helped me even more since I left that job. So after three months of leaving, you know, after I left that I was.

So much happier was making more money than I had and I was doing everything that I wanted to do. It was a lot more work, but I was a lot happier and I think that's something that that we shouldn't be afraid of. You shouldn't be afraid of making a change, especially when you realize you're not happy, even if that goal that you set. If you've reached your getting close, you realize, man, this isn't necessarily what I thought it was going to be, and that's OK.

But the reason I want to share this story is that you think that your goals that you set have to be reality, but no one tells you.

What to do when your goal isn't what you thought it should be? When this goal you set you been preparing for doesn't match, you are at that time no one tells you how to do it. You may finish. I will get your dream job, but realize you're not fulfilled. You're not happy in it, and no one tells you necessarily directly what to do, but I want you to be confident in the fact that you went to Wesleyan. You have this diverse experience, and when you decide to make a change and say this is something that that I'm not happy with and I want to do something different, it's OK.

To do that, because Wesleyan is prepared you to do whatever it is you want, it's prepared you with a breadth of knowledge of breath, of experience in working with different types of people to be successful.

So I have confidence in that and don't feel like you have to settle into something too early because it's like I said through this, it's really hard to make a prediction about yourself.

Before you really know who that person is, so the future you doesn't exist yet.

You can look back at yourself when you were 18. Is there OK? That's the person I was, but it's really really hard.

To look at the person you're going to be in five years and then predict who that person is going to be. So I'm going to challenge your goal setting so you don't try to predict for that person. So IW is allowed you to explore a diverse range of experiences and develop. Like I said, I keep saying range, somebody should make a drinking game for how many times they range in this, but I hope that you've developed a ton of range and I know you've developed a ton of range while you've been at school, and I don't want you to be.

Worried about making changes going forward? Don't be too quick to to marry your first career option. No, it's OK to change. No, you have the skills to make a change in to do different things. You know your journey towards career success isn't a one way St don't think of it is even a two Lane highway. It's really like an 8 Lane Highway. There's multiple paths that will lead you to success and there's detours and sometimes exit ramps along the way and you have to take a little bit of a change sometimes, and that's OK, but think of it like that. There's a lot to experience and to do that will lead you towards success, but but.

Don't feel behind.

If you're not sure what that is yet, so if you're about to graduate right now and you are 100% sure what success looks like to you, don't feel behind. See this as an opportunity to explore what success is going to be for you, and look for what's going to make you happy and as you finish school with guard lus of if you're in your career or if you're not sure what you're doing yet, I want you to seek out continued life experiences that will challenge you like I was.

Teach you something new like Illinois Wesleyan has and allow you to continue to think Analytically and to learn like you have it. I will, and it's perfectly acceptable to abandon and change a goal. If you know that that goal isn't a good match for you.

So don't fall victim with the assumption that you have to stay the person that you are right now and you can't change.

And if you need any proof of this think about how quickly our world changed right now I mentioned this earlier in the presentation but just think about how quickly you know I look at myself even 2 months ago and the goals that we had those are all different now everything is changed so you have to be able and willing to change your goals and know that you're prepared from your time at Westland to be able to change those goals and to be able to do what you need to do.

So be proud of that.

So hopefully it's been interesting and you know I want you to always remind yourself of your time.

And I will, you know, it's really made you an expert knowledge acquisition and skill development, and you have the ability to learn about yourself most importantly and really, what you want to be calm and what you want to develop too. I love the new slogan that Wesleyan has since I graduated. It's about being breakthrough. I want you to know that you can be breakthrough on whatever you want to do because of the diverse knowledge we've developed and that you will continue to develop.

Moving forward, always remind yourself this is something I tried to do for myself personally. Always remind myself of the Westland motto because I absolutely love it, but it's knowledge and wisdom, knowledge and wisdom knowledge. This fact.

But wisdom is the understanding and the application of those facts to allow us to think.

And Broad Wisdom and all of these experiences we've gained over the last few years. And you continue to develop equal range and honing in on this and developing it in working on expanding your range will create more successful you moving forward.

I want you to remind yourself all the time. Think about these things all the time about the people. The experience is all the things you had. I will.

That's what I did when I wasn't fulfilled I thought about what when was I was when skews me when was I fulfilled and the most fulfilled I was was at Wesleyan because I was challenged and encouraged to explore all these different things that I wanted to take that and put that into my life inject that into my life right now so that I can be the same type of person and continue lifelong acquisition of knowledge and development of wisdom because I think that is so so so important and I hope that you cherish those experiences.

And as you move forward and like look for opportunities.

That you can give back.

The other students that attend Wesleyan look for ways that you can help IW you when called upon support Illinois Wesleyan because I know personally the experience that I have changed my life and I hope that your experiences have.

Well, and as you think, back and then you know is this last few weeks of school. Think about those in. Remind yourself that you need to continue to support Wesleyan, whether it's in volunteering for things, donating money, do it because you know, and you want other people to have the same life changing experience that you have because I think that's so important and it's missing in a lot of institutions in the country. But the liberal arts education, we get it. Wesleyan prepares us for continued success. Now going forward and I want to leave you with one thing. I actually have a little picture of it.

But everyone talks about minor Myers and is is is saying that I'm going to paraphrase, but basically go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good and I think he I don't know this is for sure, but I think he took this really from something John Wesley said. So the founder of Wesleyan tradition. So all the West Windsor are named after John Wesley and he said do all the good. You can buy all the means you can in all the ways you can. All the places you can.

At all the Times you can to all the people you can, as long as you ever can. and I think this rings true now.

More than ever and I like I said I have this hanging up in my in my living room because I think this is so important and it's something that I always remind myself every time I walk out the door I remind myself of this it reminds me of my experience at Wesleyan it reminds me of the person I want to be and the person I'm continually striving to be and I don't really know who that person is yet but know that you and me like we're getting all of these experiences every day to become a better person and learn more and more so thank you for your time.

Hopefully you've learned something a little bit more about range and you're able to better look back at your experience and think, how can I incorporate this moving forward in my life, and how can I continue to develop it and maybe encourage other people to look at things and look at the different experiences they have for a different light? Just 'cause you're not focusing on one topic all the time doesn't mean you're not succeeding. It's OK to try different things. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. Eric, um, so we're going to move into the Q&A part of the presentation now, so I figured I'd start. and I mean, you touched on this a lot in your presentation, but just kind of a quick little nutshell. How did your education at Wesling in preparing for working with range, especially during kovid? And how does that apply to your career now?

Yeah, it's uh, can you hear me? OK? Change my speaker a little bit, but it's something that it's hard to really understand how it prepared you until it happens and it's something that you have to look back at and say, OK, you have to analyze yourself like we talked about. OK, instead of looking for look back and say what works before what didn't. How can I change that now? and I think being able to have a diverse experience like we had at Westland helps you think a little more different and little more unique to help solve the problems that we're going to face. I mean.

Yeah.

So the first thing that happened for me is trying to figure out. OK, I'm an optometrist. I see patients for a living and now my patients were told they have to stay home. What am I going to do? You know, I'm functionally unemployed. Sounds like crap. What do I do so we had to work really quickly to try to incorporate a telehealth program and to do some things that are going to better communicate with our patients so that the people that need care can still get some sort of care, even if it's just a better Ave to have a discussion with me. But also to how to communicate better overall with our patients about what's going on. Make sure they're getting the right information about.

The pandemic and make sure that it's being directed by me and I think having a more diverse experience on how to communicate. So like when I think of Wesley in my writing skills, are something that I didn't realize I would need so much. You know, you think you're going to be a physician or a doctor and you're like I won't have to ride anymore papers. I write more notes and papers and I ever happen. I'm so thankful that I had to take all those writing flags and things like that because it is really made the communication aspect so much easier and it's made kind of transitioning to this.

I can't talk to my patient in person. I have to be able to write and type and and communicate with him in different ways. It's made a lot easier so thanks.

Cool.

Yeah.

And then another one that I have is. So what experience our relationship was kind of the most formative at Illinois Wesleyan, and I'm sure that's hard. 'cause they're probably a lot, but.

There's there's a lot you know it's to be honest. I think it is the relationships that you develop with people at Wesleyan, that that I think we're most formative for me because that was kind of the basis in terms of directing what I did next. You know, having really strong relationship with friends who are similar and other friends that were very different from me being able to have those hard conversations about politics about science about different things that helped make me and then more diverse to be able to have them encourage.

Me to challenge myself. I remember when I wasn't sure if I wanted to to join students in it, or like do things like that. Or you know, it's like I don't want to do collegiate choir. That's a lot harder, but having people there that can push you and challenge you and people that genuinely care about you. Those are some of the things that I take away is some of the best experiences and most transitive experiences is being in a safe, safe environment to have hard conversations where I know I can talk to you about something and we can disagree, but you're still my friend and we care about each other. I think that's what really helps make.

People are more diverse and and a part of what gives you even more range. You know going forward after Wesley.

Right?

Um, if you have any questions, you can post them in the chat.

Don't be shy.

So how did your path to optometry school work? Do you touch on that again?

Yeah it was. This is something you know. It's kind of interesting. One thing I don't know a lot of people don't know it's actually took a year off between Westland Optometry School and that was something that was kind of a challenge it, you know, when I think about this range thing, it actually at first you think I'm taking a step backwards? You know, I'm not going straight from undergrad to professional school. I'm taking a step back and that's what traditional norms kind of teach you is. If you do this.

You're not going to be successful, but my wife, who is also an optometry. She actually took two years off between school because she wanted to explore and try different things before she decided what she was going to do next in the same thing was for me. You know, I wanted to experience different things. I really loved optometry and I said I really like this. But before I make this commitment for the rest of my life, I need to be sure about this. So why don't I get some different experiences? Why don't I learn a little bit more about myself and then I'll know, is this the right direction? I want to go? Or do I want to do I want to try something different because you still have time to.

Even if you're you know you're 10 years out of schools that 10 years from now, you're like.

Yeah.

I want to do something different. No, it's OK. And then you can do so.

So Adrian asked, can you talk about can you talk more about how you stay involved at Wesleyan now that you're in along?

Yeah, sometimes it can actually be kinda hard because you know the school. They're focused their number one focus is the students so they're not thinking about certain things, so I really want to stay involved. The best thing I do is making sure I donate every year. Even if it's just a little bit. You know it makes a big difference for current students so that's one way I stay involved, and the opportunity came up to.

Be on the Young Alumni Council, which I realized I'm almost not a young alumni anymore. It's one of those points in your life. We like crap, but an opportunity came up and this was soon after I had this experience. I told you guys about about switching my jobs and I remember, you know I want to be able to help other alums really devote their lives and devoted to change and to becoming better. and I want to help us make the student experience better if we can from that transition from student to alumni so.

It's something that I guess to answer the question short, you have to look out. You have to want it. You have to say I want to be involved and I care about the future of this school and I want to donate my time or my resources are both to make sure that other people can have that. So I encourage you to ask where there's an opportunity to help or look for things that you want to learn more about and say. How can I help with this? I really don't know much about marketing, but I'd like to learn and I want to help promote all in. How can I help promote all and things like that? So great question, thanks.

I'm Serena asked what your favorite School of Music memory is.

Oh nice, there a lot of those I I have to say as a biology nerd, I think something like favorite times were actually in the School of Music and with a lot of my music friends. So when we.

Did collegiate choir and like the we went on tour and we remember went through like torano Rochester. We went up that way and I have so many it's hard to narrow it down but some of my favorite memories came from that experience and just spending some time with amazing people that were different than me. You know I wasn't spending time with a bunch of biology nerves which was nice because it was a different type of person and I learned so much more about myself through that experience and having that diversity that it really has changed my outlook on things and.

And you know some of those people are some of my favorite people in the world, and some of the nicest people I loved. Being able to participate in the school music. And it was an awesome experience. So thanks for that.

Hopefully I answered it. Maybe you want one more direct, I don't know.

Does anyone else have anything they'd like to ask in the chat?

It's weird not being able to see People's reaction.

Yeah, I wish I could see all your faces that you probably wouldn't want to admit what you're wearing right now.

Free haircuts I was telling him earlier. My wife cut my hair she's developing arrange. She tried it. I peer pressure and she did it. I think it turned out OK.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

You might think. I mean, we'll see, but don't be scared. You know this is the time to try new stuff during when you're stuck at home. I learned how to do concrete work.

Yeah.

Which is a challenge, but I feel like I learn some new skills, so don't be don't be scared to do that kind of stuff while you're stuck at home. Or you know, once you're done with Wesleyan classes, try doing an online classic Corsair at something that.

You didn't have an opportunity to learn, you know, and challenge yourself. It's really a lot of fun, so I've tried to take take this as a positive opportunity to learn some new things. And really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Try new stuff. It's it's been awesome in a way, I mean beyond the pandemic. You know my time at home I've made the most invitations I tried to.

Alright, well if there's no other questions, I just want to thank you for donating your time today and speaking with us and offering us that incredible advice. It also like to thank everyone who joined us for the class of 2020 Titan talks webinars series. You'll be everyone who attended, will be receiving an email with the survey in it later today where you can give your feedback and we'd love to hear that so we can make future webinars series even better. So this series is actually in.

Three parts, so tomorrow we have Jordan Delmon presenting five skills to lead where you are, and that will be tomorrow at 6:00 PM central time I hope that all of you will be able to join us and celebrate the class of 2020, 'cause it would have been our senior dinner tomorrow. So we're going to do a special little toast during the web and R and then on Thursday is the final web and are in the series and that will be again at noon Central time.

And we'll have Casey, Erin Clark and Julia fog presenting on high stakes conversation skills for interviews, digital message meetings, and using your virtual voice.

You should have got an email about these. I've also posted at least this one, if not the other two in the senior Facebook group. If there's, I'll make sure that I posted the rest of them there too. So if you.

Have any questions? Feel free to reach out to me or anyone in alumni relations. Uh, and I hope to see you all tomorrow. Thank you so much for coming by.