For many UHS students, summer is a daunting task. Despite the freedom of a warm, restful vacation, summer lacks the familiar cadence of classes and clubs, giving students more time than they know what to do with.
The restless uncertainty of summer draws students towards various activities, including vacations, jobs and summer programs. For senior Evan Zhong, summer led him toward an internship at the Irvine City Council.
“So I’ve grown to be very involved in our community and school,” Zhong said. “I noticed how city council members, and also city council in general, are very focused on community responsibility and community development, especially with the new Great Park plan.”
Zhong interned in Council member Mike Carroll’s office for six weeks over the summer. He dedicated an hour to traveling around the city each week and touring locations like the Great Park, animal shelters and the Heritage Park Fine Arts Center.
“I would go to a different place in Irvine and learn more about its history and what Irvine really does at those places,” Zhong said.
In some places, Zhong set up tables to distribute flyers and information. He also returned to the office to complete digital reports with the guidance of adult employees.
“I learned how to do geospatial data analysis,” Zhong said. “I learned a little bit about business economics [and] corporate finance, these little things that would help with my project.”
The experience taught him about professionalism, ethics and event planning, and it helped him realize his goal of serving the local community.
“I’ve already been interested in serving people and creating big new events,” Zhong said. “But I realized that if you really want to help people systematically, and if you want to help a big community, then there’s a lot of little steps that you have to [do] . . . behind the scenes.”
After his program, Zhong also felt a renewed interest in community service, revealing plans for a district-wide food drive hosted at UHS. Zhong and the rest of the UHS Associated Student Body (ASB) will organize the inaugural event, scheduled to take place before Thanksgiving this year.
“When you break it up into the little steps and little details that my internship taught me to look at, that makes everything a little more manageable and something we can really bring to life to Uni this year,” Zhong said.
Although many students like Zhong spent their summers close to home, others traveled thousands of miles away. Senior Minerva You spent her summer at Boston University in the Program for Mathematics for Young Scientists (PROMYS). The six-week experience aimed to simulate mathematical research at a university, with groups of students tasked with exploring mathematical fields without using search engines or previous results.
“For me, it was fractional linear functions,” You said. “We start from the very beginning, the definition, and then we slowly built up. We didn’t reach a final result, but we just got to learn a ton of really cool things.”
Students collaborated on the curriculum via problem sets and spent their free time holding assassins or card game tournaments. The activities created a natural camaraderie among You and other participants throughout and even after the program.
“I still talk with my friends from PROMYS, and we just talk about everything: school and math,” You said. “The people there just have really similar interests as you, and this isn’t something you could just meet in your general life.”
This school year, You aims to bring the knowledge and experience she gained from PROMYS to the UHS Math Club.
“Because I’m a club president, I think I’ll definitely want to teach it to the club so people could see how fun number theory is or how cool college math is like.”
Both students also hoped their experience would be brought to more UHS students.
“You don’t have to be interested in politics at all to enter this role,” Zhong said. “I think the people that would benefit the most from this . . . would be community-oriented leaders who aren’t sure what they want to go into in the future.”
Like Zhong, You also encouraged students to explore a variety of interests.
“Everyone who’s even a bit interested in math or wants to explore what college math is like . . . I think PROMYS would be a really great experience for them,” You said.
Even if students have a clear goal, the application process can seem complicated for many programs. You advised students to be persistent in their approach.
“Think through the problems thoroughly,” You said. “And then, even if you get an answer for the problem, don’t just stop.”
And if things don’t go perfectly?
“If one area doesn’t work out, then maybe you’ll be able to build up your profile in other areas, such as work experience,” Zhong said. “A lot of things are out of your control, but control what you can and make the most out of what you’re able to do.”
