This past Sunday, after the student presentations, MIT graduate and Braingenie founder Tim Zheng gave a seminar discussing success strategies for college applications and entrepreneurship.

Tim Zheng graduated from MIT this spring, where he studied Math, Finance, and Computer Science. He has worked at notable investment and consulting firms such as Citadel, Goldman Sachs, Boston Consulting Group, and Jane Street Capital. However, he has recently quit his high paying job to focus on his own start-up, Braingenie.com, an e-learning website for math and science education.

Zheng began the seminar with a discussion of the college application process and the advantages of attending a "top college." He explained that attending top colleges not only provides students with extensive academic resources but also opens up unique opportunities to meet motivated and innovative people, along with providing students with advantages in the job recruiting process. He described his own experiences at MIT and the people he met there, three of whom eventually worked with him on the Braingenie project.

Afterwards, Zheng presented a run-through of the college application process and how to best plan for it. He explained that it was always good to plan early, and that it was important to focus on a student's strengths when planning for and filling out a college application. He pointed to his own interests in math and science, showing how he focused on these interests in both his course selection and extracurricular activities.

He then discussed life in college and how to best prepare for a successful career, describing two contrasting examples of people who did and didn't prepare well for a career. Zheng remarked specifically on the need to focus on making oneself valuable to society, on preparing the skills for a successful career. Although, as he pointed out, hobbies are important to everyday enjoyment, they don't matter as much when it comes to finding a job. As a result, he said, while students should definitely pursue activities they enjoy, they should also think about specific interests that can enable them to pursue greater academic and career opportunities.

At the end of his seminar, Zheng invited audience members to ask questions on topics ranging from middle school academic preparation to college interviews. Feedback was positive. Many parents felt that they learned a lot about how they could best prepare their children for a successful experience in high school, college, and beyond.

 

 

This report was published on 《侨报周末》 on 12/3. A shorter version of this report was published on 《侨报》日报 on 12/2. The following is link to the epaper: http://epaper.sinovision.net/?pid=27560&zoom=in