Summer 2012

Summer events for High School Students

What
  1. Have a weekly meeting, let us say friday 6 - 8pm followed by Dinner, social hour
  2. During the meeting we talk about topics in a structured environment
  3. Preference is given to kids with adults filling in time
  4. We talk about anything we think we know something about
Topics
  1. current events, politics
  2. Sports
  3. Business, finance
  4. Technology, web, programming
  5. Music, Arts
  6. Colleges, SAT
Why
  1. Communication is a very important skill
  2. Bonding with other families, kids with same age is a good idea in a casual low pressure environment
  3. We can learn more from each other than any paid outsider
  4. It is a lot of fun
Commitment
  1. buy-in of participants - need to show up a certain minimum weekends
  2. volunteering - make time to participate and willingness to host

Thoughts driving this experiment

Summer

Summer is

  1. An opportunity to relax and recharge the batteries
  2. Mandatory vacation time
  3. Catch up on activities we do not get to do during school year
Because

It is also important to send kids to various camps, because

  1. We have money to send them
  2. It makes us feel better about contributing to kids growth
  3. We are free to focus on our professional commitments
Sucess

We all want our kids to be successful in their life

  1. Get admission in a good college
  2. Get a good job and make a lot of money
  3. Settle down and buy a big house

Topic Suggestions for Students

Keywords

We are going to focus on three keywords

  1. Commitment
    • perseverance and being able to stick with something when the going gets tough
    • showing self-improvement and organization improvement through commitment -- this can be related to progression
    • showing passion in ones work
    • Demonstrate "Do what you are passionate about and do it well"
  2. Progression
  3. Excellence
Thought

It would be nice if each child can write something about last year in school that demonstrates these three qualities. Frequently, there is a debate about public vs. private school, benefits of expensive summer camps etc. Many of these are the function of how much money parents are willing to spend. However, it is not solely about the money parents are willing to spend.

It is about what a person does given the facts of life. If you make the best of the situation, people are willing to engage you more because they feel that you will do the best with the resources provided to you. Thus we should all be able to demonstrate what we did in the context of these three keywords.

Topics for Parents

Parents have to decide on hosting and the knowledge/experience we want to share with Students. Umesh & Nupur will be the fallback option if no other family is available to host or coordinate the conversation.

Parent talk topics fall in the category of their area of expertise. It is a way of sharing some of the things we know and our children may not know but it would be nice to provide them a window in the world of adults. Maybe we can organize a meeting where we eat food cooked by kids (not sure if it can be made to work).

Leadership

This section contains class material from kevin's leadership class. Wikipedia Link.

Lot of people are looking for leadership qualities in the person they want to work with. A person is not only expected to have the qualities but should be able to explain it on his/her own. To express a thought, you need some words. A thought can be expressed better if a person has good vocabulary. It also helps focus effort on important concepts. Look at some of the attributes commonly associated with leaders and see which ones you can relate to. express it in sentences

.

GOOD LEADERS ARE...

CONFIDENT      APPROACHABLE      ASSERTIVE, but   not AGGRESSIVE


GOAL-ORIENTEDRECOGNIZE OTHERS’ STRENGTHS          ADAPTABLE

COMMUNICATE COMPLEXITY, & COMMUNICATE CLEARLY       

RECOGNIZE OWN WEAKNESSESINNOVATIVE      COOPERATIVE


MORALRESPECTFULADMIRABLEINTELLIGENT

TOLERANTCHARISMATICSELFLESS

Why are these topics important

Please see the following two pictures. Let us discuss similarities and differences between them and see if it helps us figure out why these conversations are relevant.

  vs.  

Similarities

  1. Humans
  2. Gender: Female
  3. Reasonable to say that they love their families
  4. work very hard
  5. Probably same level of happiness or resentment
  6. Want to maximize the money they take home for family

Differences

  • Do you notice any differences
  • List the differences

Questions

  • What would you rather be
  • Is one better
  • What do you want to be between the two extremes
  • What would it take to achieve your goal/desire
  • Can Adults help you achieve your goal

My issues with Juice Tank

I have many issues with Juice Tank. I feel that these are good outings in the sense that it gives a set of friends to get together and see new places and meet new people. That is all good. However, this does not validate the content or style of delivery. In my experience, winners win because they know how to think, they practice their art form and they are dedicated to excellence. The rest are trained to act in a certain manner and to perform certain tasks. For me the discriminating thoughts comes from my perception if they are demonstrating to my kids how to think in contrast to teaching him what to think. I have had enough of "what to think".

I can illustrate my difficulty using some points we discussed:

  • Networking
  • I believe networking is a lifestyle issue and we benefit from good networking in all aspects of life. To limit it to Career, College is something I have difficulty identifying with. We have a very good network among ourselves and at least Mittals have benefited tremendously from it.
  • American Express
  • I felt that there was an association between the person being number two and his title. The titles are misleading and should be understood as such. A smarter conversation would have involved explanation corporate structure of the Company and how he is number two and what he does. Words to the effect that 25,000 people work for him are misleading. he does not write review of 25,000 people and the number of people who report to him are probably same as in any other organization (20-50). Nobody can work with 25,000 people.
  • Charley Travels
  • A dude gave a talk about how good he is and how much one should travel on budget and somehow linked it to his professional success. An connection between a set of disconnected facts was implied and I think it was as fake as preaching by a preacher.

Any activity that puts smart kids in close proximity of each other and provides them exposure to other smart people is worth the money. In that sense, it was a good investment. Let us not take it to other extreme and turn Mukesh Patel into the next Messiah whose words should be accepted without critique. The issues of good investment and validity of everything that was presented can be separated.