Kate gives a side-by-side comparison of her high school vs. college experience and comes to the conclusion that her high school was so rigorous and demanding that college was easier for her.

Part 1 is here.

Transcription

Kamila
Hey college kids. Welcome back to my podcast. Who cares about college. This is part two of my interview with Kate. So check out part one if you have not done so already. Also a few quick reminders, make sure to subscribe so you know when new episodes come out, and check out my blog, a college kid.com on there, right, various articles about various college topics. But other than that, I hope you enjoyed the episode you’re going to do so now let’s finally get to the college experience. So you’re flying from one side of the United States to the other side of the United States. So did you have like a bit of fear? Like, I’m not going to know anybody? My parents are not with me. My brother’s not with me. I probably don’t have any relatives near me. So did you kind of feel that fear? Like, oh, I’m truly by myself now.

Kate
Yeah, actually funny story. My best friend from high school also goes to Duke. Oh, unfortunately, I didn’t have unfortunately sash fortunately, I didn’t have the experience of being like, I won’t know anyone. Um, but yeah, um, my best friend from high school, we actually joked about this a lot like junior year, like it was not intentional at all, like junior year was like, Ha, wouldn’t be so funny if we went to the same college. And then yeah, he got into Duke and I got into Duke and it was the right fit for both of us. And so we decided to go so I always had someone who I knew at Duke, which is really, really nice to have. And I was really excited to get as far away from home as I could, like, I know, this isn’t like shared with a lot of students. Like, I was never really that close with my family. Like literally, when my parents dropped me off. I was like, bye. And they’re like, bye. And they left like, a lot of my friends were like crying and it was like a whole thing. I was just like, oh, it’s not that big of a deal. Um, I think I also deal with change pretty well. Like I’m kind of someone who likes change in many ways. And so I was really excited to go to college and find new friends and start a new endeavor in life. Um, so yeah, I didn’t really have that many feelings of like, I didn’t really get homesick my freshman year, I think that might just be because I’m weird. But it was nice to have someone who I knew at my school, you know, I call him like my safety blanket, because I’ve literally known him since first grade. And that’s been super nice. But you know, like my friends from home and my, my family is always just a call away. It’s not like, I have this crazy timezone difference only three hours. And also like, Duke is really nice that there’s tons of kids from Seattle there. And so there’s like a direct flight there. So it’s like, pretty easy to come home. But yeah.

Kamila
Interesting. So going into college, and this is specific, this question specifically tailored towards the, I guess, top tier schools, because you have those people who are like rocket scientists by the age of 18. And you’re just like, how? So when you went to Duke, did you ever feel like, I’m sure you were in the top of your class or near the top of your class in high school? Did you ever feel like oh my god, now there’s so many smart people around me, people who had the same GPA, close enough LSAT, a CT score, who also did a bunch of extracurricular. So did you have that kind of feeling of? Oh, I’m not at the top top anymore.

Kate
Actually, I was never really at the top of my high school. Um, I was not a good student. I was not competitive. It was very, very competitive. Yeah. I mean, like, my friends, like my closest friends from high school, go to Harvard, Stanford Brown, like, you know, peer institutions. IV plus for sure. And, um, the thing is, I was always more of like, low key in high school, I kind of like, did my own thing, and didn’t really care about what other people were doing. And that has kind of followed me in college. I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m like low key anymore, but I still don’t really care about what other people are doing. I just kind of do what I want to do. And yeah, I get upset when I’m not able to do things that I want to do. But I take it more as like personal growth rather than like, Oh, screw all these other people who are like stealing opportunities from me, you know? And I would honestly say that college academically is easier than high school. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. Um, and I know it’s different for all other schools, you know, um, but I think with my high school, especially, everything was rigorous. But in college, like you can choose which rigorous classes to take and which ones not to take and like, what fun classes you’re going to take, like, you have so much more freedom. You only take four classes every semester. For us. It’s like you only take four classes. And in college, it’s like you’re taking or in high school, you’re taking like seven simultaneously Your classes like it. And then you have all these other things like you do after school sports, and you have to help your parents and you do all these extra other extracurriculars. Like, to me High School always felt very tough. And this was also echoed by like my friend who went to my high school and kind of saying, like, oh, yeah, Duke is easier than our high school life, just because everyone like, like, 100% of my high school, like in my program was really smart and doing really well. And like, I kind of got used to that. And then when I came to college, like, the thing is, is like, you have to also think about where all these students are coming from, like, a lot of them are coming from public schools in North Carolina, public schools from Texas like, and yeah, there’s tons of kids from private schools, too. But when you think about the quality of education nation nationwide, it’s a large range. And a lot of these kids never had to study in high school. A lot of these kids were top of their class. And now they’re struggling, because they never really learned how to study for something super rigorous. Like, there’s definitely people who struggle at Duke. And there’s also people who are used to it, because they came from a high school that was highly competitive and toxic.

Kamila
Yeah, I mean, I kind of sometimes forget that my high school is also really, really competitive. So I think it’s normal, but then it’s other people might consider it very competitive, too. So going into college, so use a you, you don’t like authority, and you like your natural leader. So going into college, was it also the same, like I’m going to, you know, go to these clubs, I’m going to try to aim for these internships.

Kate
So I think college is different, because a lot of the leadership positions you can take on are soulful, based, like, it’s not very common, like so for example, Greek life, other social organizations, pre professional organizations, like they’re all social. And so like, when you are the president of a social organization, it’s like less work. Like it’s not less work, but it’s like less of going the extra mile, then like being the president of Model UN, because like, you absolutely have no stake in Model UN and you like, I mean, at least me like I couldn’t care less about it. Um, and in college, it’s like, I’m like, for example, I’m was the vice president of like an entrepreneurship society. And everyone in society was my friend and I loved hanging out with them, and I would spend most of my time with them. And so it’s different because I think leadership positions in college are very much so elective, like no one’s doing a leadership position to get into grad school, like no one cares about that. No one’s doing a leadership position to get an internship at a company. Like I think there, you do it, because you’re passionate about it, and you care about it, and you want to contribute and I that definitely comes out in college. Um, as for internships, I really jumped into my major head on head first, um, I have done three internships. Each summer, I’ve done an internship at a company during software engineering. So I was at General Electric, my freshman summer, and then I was at Facebook, my sophomore in junior summer. So I in many ways, I’ve been really lucky to get the opportunities that I wanted. And I think that I set myself up well for that. There are definitely people who do struggle with getting internships that they really want. But I think in general, hard work pays off. Practicing pays off, and being a good person pays off. I think you really forget that in high school that like being a good person is important. And in college, I think that that’s been a big reason why I wanted to help other people like help younger people get the get the jobs that they wanted, or whatever is because I’m like, I really like this person, I want to help them.

Kamila
And okay, so you did an internship every single summer that you were able to, so go you when you were in high school, you had the goal of okay, I’m going to get into college. This is why I’m doing all of this. I’m working really hard on this for myself, but also to get into a good college. So in when you arrived at college, did you have the same sort of drive like, Okay, I’m in college now. Now I need to prepare myself for the workforce. So what drove your like motivation to get these internships and like, I guess participated in a bunch of clubs? Yeah, well, it felt like what you

Kate
were supposed to do, right? Okay, like now you’re in college, like your entire 18 years of life have gotten you to this point, like, What the hell do you do now? And a lot of part times it’s like, well, now you get a job. It was like very, very, very natural progression, or like, you know, now you do research try to go to grad school, try to go to med school. And for me, it was like, Okay, I’m gonna try to find a job. And to some extent, I do regret like, having done internships, all three summers, like Duke has so many amazing summer programs like we have this thing called Duke engage where Duke will pay for you to go to a foreign country and so actually do service work for like eight weeks. And I didn’t do it because I got an internship. And I was going to do that, um, and I regret doing that, like my friend, he went to Tanzania and built medical equipment. And that’s like an amazing experience. And that was one of the things, one of the things that I do regret from, like, how I approached the workforce, but at the same time, like, if I didn’t do that internship freshman year, who knows if I would be where I am now, you know, um, so I definitely took my drive with me in college, you know, I’m kind of like a person who naturally wants to step up a lot. And so like, I mean, you’re gonna think that I’m overkill again. But I’m, I’m the president of two organizations, Vice President, I’m another organization, I’m also in student government. And so people will be like, Oh, why are you such an overachiever? But like, honestly, it’s just because I get involved in these awesome communities, and I want to contribute. And so I take up like a leadership position, you know what I mean? Um, so, I would definitely say like, I didn’t force myself to do that. And kind of what I was saying before, like, No one forces themselves to be your president in college, because there’s no point in it other than you being invested in it personally.

Kamila
And okay, so you’re talking about these organizations, which I want to get to, but first, I want to talk about your internship. So you got these internships, freshmen and sophomore junior year? Uh, can you take us through? I forgot the first one that you did. But you said you did Facebook sophomore, junior year. So can you talk us through the internships and what you exactly did and what you learned from them? Yeah, so

Kate
I was a software engineer and a software engineering intern for all three, my first summer was at GE. So General Electric. And yeah, essentially, what you do is you join a team, and they’re working on a product and they give you have a project to do for the summer, and you do it and then you have a great time. I mean, like, it’s an experience like it’s like working, it’s literally just working, except your job is a little easier, because people like could cookie cut it out for you. Um, yeah, you work in a team. There’s like other interns at the company that you can be friends with, and you live with other interns, and you get to know them, you make friends, and you explore the city. It’s essentially just living somewhere and working somewhere. Um, it’s been really fun. I really enjoyed my experiences, all three summers, obviously, the last summer was remote. So that one was, like, less enjoyable. But I still learned a lot. Um, regarding what I learned, there’s a lot of things you learn. One thing that I kind of said before is like getting to know adults is so important. And truly like, making relationships with adults has been my and I say that as if I’m not an adult. Now, I’m making relationships with adults has been the highlight of all of my internships, getting to know people, stories, people’s journeys, I, one of my engineering managers at Facebook, my sophomore year was a professional poker player for seven years and decided to become an engineer like, and that’s something that I’ve never even heard about, you know, and these people also come from all sorts of backgrounds, like they’re not all from top 10 schools, like it’s so overrated. And they have interesting life experiences. Some of them have kids, some of them have lived in other countries, some of them, you know, really like to sing and have musician career. So it’s been really cool. Meeting people outside of like, you know, high school is such a bubble college is also such a bubble. And working at a company is kind of the first time where you’re really immersed. I mean, it’s still a bubble, unfortunately, but you’re kind of immersed with a broader bubble than you’ve been your entire life.

Kamila
I’m curious about how you, I mean, I guess being in a top 10 school, you have all these connections, and it’s easier than someone who like goes to a state school, in some ways, but how did you get an internship with Facebook? That’s a huge name people a lot of kids are aiming for like Facebook, Google and such.

Kate
Yeah, actually, um, my I actually met them at an event my freshman year, they took my resume, they thought I was interesting. And I interviewed with them I interviewed all the way into the final round, and I was a freshman. So I didn’t know anything. And so I bombed the final round, and everything’s fine. And then they reached out to me again, my sophomore year and said, Hey, we want to interview you again. So that kind of goes also to show like, don’t be afraid to fail, like take all the opportunities you can get. And even if you do fail, like all failure is a lesson to be learned. And so I got the internship the second time I interviewed and yeah, I stayed for my junior year. So I didn’t like interview again, for that. I would say for anyone interested in going into tech, connections and referrals are a lot. They’re not as intense as banking or consulting. But they’re so important to get a referral from someone you know, at the company. And a lot of times people are willing to give referrals like they’re happy to help. And you don’t have to be like extremely close with someone to get a referral either. Other than that, like try to go to campus events. I know this can be kind of hard if you go to a really big school and these events have like 400 Kids have them. But try to get to know recruiters try to go to career fairs. Try to, like if you have friends who work at a company that you want to work out, talk to them about their experiences. But be sure to remember, like, no matter who you’re making a connection with you, like, do not be a crappy person, like do not make it come off. Like the only reason you’re talking to them is because you want a job from them, like, really be interested in their journey, how they got there, what advice they have, and then you know, ask like, you know, would you be able to help me in my recruiting journey in any way? Like, don’t be grabby? Because that’s the worst thing is like being a snake.

Kamila
Yeah. And I have a question about the like, I guess, for you, it’d be Duke and then just top tier schools in general. So further price you’re paying, you would hope that you’re going to get a lot in return right for the schools. So do you think that Duke has given you enough to help you to succeed in the future in terms of connections? First and foremost, why people go to like these top schools, and then just the actual, like, experiences that you’ve gotten? Do you feel satisfied with what Duke has given you?

Kate
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I’ve taken advantage of a lot of things. And something that I’ve like, kind of recently had to remind myself is like, you do not just have four years to make all the connections in your life. Like you will have always the fact that you went to Duke to connect you to someone else. And it’s totally okay, if you don’t have the time to connect with someone in college to reach out to them, like 10 years down the line be like, hey, like, I remember, we were in the same class at Duke. And I really want to get to know you want to grab coffee. And that’s perfectly fine to do. I think a lot of times college students like boxed themselves into like a very specific timeline of I need to like meet all the people I’m going to need later in life, like right now. And that’s definitely not true. You can make these connections literally at any point in your life. And you’ll always have connecting you. And kind of like the inverse of that, as well as like, your connection to other people is not only ever going to be that you went to Duke together, like you don’t have to go to a top tier school to become friends, people who did go to top tier schools or even like recognize that going to a top tier school means nothing after you graduate like it’s really about the kind of community that you surround yourself with, and what you’re looking for from a college experience, like a lot of my friends, a bigger state schools, maybe they graduate in two years, because what they’re looking for is like a degree that will get them a job. For me, I really wanted to go to a liberal arts university, because I knew that it would provide the kind of community that I’m looking for in the sense of like, there’s a diverse range of people to get to know like, some of my friends are pre med, and my friends are Popol majors, like some of my friends created their own major, like they’re all not in like they’re not all engineering. And also, like, there’s a real emphasis on social life like that is such a big part of American University. And that’s why I wanted to go to do but the thing is, like, that’s not what defines you for the rest of your life. Like, you don’t have to only talk to people who go to your alma mater, like when you’re graduated, you can talk to anyone, as long as you reach out to them and aren’t a crappy person and just say, like, hey, I really want to get to know you get to know your journey, like people are more than happy to talk to you about where they are. And if you become friends, you become friends. That’s great.

Kamila
And so you’re, like, basically graduated, like you’re very close to, and you’re going to be going into the workforce soon. So do you have like steady connections to get you started? Like, do you think you have a leg up from other people who are entering the workforce? Like, for example, Facebook, they connected with you, you did internships for them? Do you find that like you have more connections? Because you did those internships with them?

Kate
Well, internships will always be helpful in getting you the next job, you know, especially like, think of it this way, if you’re an employer, and you want to hire an engineer, and you have two applications, one from someone who’s never done an engineering job, and one from someone who’s had three internships, you know, who are you going to be more partial to hiring? More experience? Exactly. So getting experience is always, always always helpful. I would say, though, that that doesn’t apply for every industry for one. So for example, if you’re trying to go to grad school, your internship experience doesn’t really matter. It matters more what kind of research you want to do and what kind of research you have done. Um, the other thing I would say is that again, your network like yeah, I have made friends from my internships who I’m still in touch with, and it’s been really fun. Um, but you can become friends with those people. Even if you don’t work at the same company. You can reach out to those people. Even if you don’t really have anything connecting you it will be harder for sure. So I would say like Think about what you want in life, if you want the nice cushy job at big tech, yeah, like do an internship and then get the job and stay there. But if you want to found your own company, or if you want to go to grad school, then you don’t need to talk to people in big tech, you need to talk to people who have founded companies, or people who work at VC firms or people who are doing PhDs at other, or other schools. And so the connections that you make, be intentional about them connect with people who are going to be a resource for you. And that’s different for every person.

Kamila
Yeah, that’s true. Okay. So let’s move on to you did mention that you were president of two organizations and vice president of a third one. So can you tell us what those are and how you came to, like, I guess, hold that position?

Kate
Yeah, um, so I’m currently the president of a women in tech organization. It’s called D tech. It’s a really amazing organization that provides support and community for women in tech, and also helps them find housing for the summer. So like, the summer I did detec, I lived with seven of the girls from Duke, who were also doing tech internships, which was really fun. And I became the president of this organization, because I’m really passionate about diversity in tech, and I want to really support it, I became really involved in the organization. And that’s been really exciting for me. And another organization. I’m also the president of the Panhellenic Association, which is the association that governs sorority life. So I got involved in this like, because I had joined a sorority, and then I decided that I wanted to apply and then I just ended up joining the exact board. I was like, other positions for previous years. And then this year, it was kind of weird, because our president stepped down to take a gap semester, and so I became the new president. Um, and then I’m the vice president of the cube, which is an entrepreneurial society at Duke. It’s essentially a social living group that is focused on entrepreneurship. So a lot of us are founders or working at startups, or just like really interested in VC. And we kind of all you know, we are all friends, and we kind of are a community. But we also talk a lot about like entrepreneurship, how can we be supporting each other, etc. And then the last thing is, I’m also on Duke student government. I’m the director of technology and innovation. And this was like, um, so I’m on the cabinet, which is like, the board that helps with the DSU president. Um, and I just, like applied to this position, because I thought that it was cool.

Kamila
So you have these I guess we can say, quote, unquote, extracurriculars. I guess that would be the high school equivalent of them. So you said that coming into duke it wasn’t that much of a shock for you because of how rigorous your high school was. So can you give us a little bit of side by side comparison of what it was like just overall like managing your schoolwork, your extracurriculars your social life in high school in comparison to doing the same at Duke your academics first and foremost then your extracurriculars and then your social life as well? Can you can you provide a little comparison there?

Kate
Yeah, I mean social life is completely different right? Like college is 24/7 Like people go out like a lot and you can decide to go out you can also not go out and also make friends and and you know, you eat your meals with all your friends like breakfast lunch dinner, you take classes with like friends, you meet people through there, it’s just like a completely different world I would say like high school is so much like, you wake up at 7am like I haven’t woken up at 7am in like forever, um, and

Kamila
7am I have to wake up at 545

Kate
Exactly right it gets like early on earlier like I woke up at 7am for high school, I would drive to school, I would like Miss first period a lot of the time and then I would like go in like sit through all these classes and then maybe go get lunch with friends then go home and then like do work and then like go to bed like it was like a very very structured thing. Something that I see that some people struggle with with college is like having so little structure and having to I guess like determine for yourself how much you’re going to spend on different things. So like, you know, you only have like let’s say like your time is like a pie. And you know, a quarter slice of that pie is academic stuff. So you have like three fourths of this pie left and you can spend all of it on going out and you know going to parties, or you can spend half of it doing that and half of that half of it doing research or you can like you know, dedicate more time to things that you want to do. So it’s like it’s very freeform on what you want to do and what you spend time doing and I I see some people struggle with this, but I also See, some people really thrive, because they can really say for themselves what they prioritize. And for me, I think that applies to like how I approach college and like, I prioritize my extracurriculars and getting a job. And then each year it changes. So like my second year, I didn’t really worry that much about getting a job. And I prioritize more on on my social life. And then the third year I went abroad, so I prioritize something else. And every year it changes. And I like that about college. But it’s just it’s different. It’s a different experience for everyone. Whereas High School is kind of like, you can kind of say what high school is going to be like, no matter who you are, and where you live.

Kamila
That is true. So I guess we’re coming to an end here, because we covered a lot of the broad topics that I wanted to cover. So the last thing I want you to do you give a lot of advice for like every portion of like college application, and just college in general, which is really great. But at the end here, I do this with everybody, can you give two pieces of advice? One would be for current high school students, they can be any year? What advice would you give them either to succeed in high school better prepare for college, whatever you want it to be? And then number two, what would you tell current students who are maybe going into college and don’t really know what they’re doing? So like, what was that? What is the one thing that you would tell for each of those groups of people?

Kate
All right, so the first one is for high school students who are looking to apply to college, right? Yeah,

Kamila
like, what what would you tell them either to enjoy high schoolers succeed in high school to help prepare for college, whichever one you want,

Kate
um, I would say don’t let yourself get sucked in by external pressure, and do the things that you actually think are valuable. And don’t let someone tell you like, you have to go to a top 10 school, like looking back on it. Um, I don’t think I would have been a great fit at a lot of the schools that I applied to, but I applied to them because they were top 10 schools. And I was like, you know, why not? And yeah, I would have been lucky to get there. But really think about what you’re looking for in a college and not just the ranking, you know, the thing is, like rankings will always change. If you’re in a top 20 school, your resources and life is going to be pretty similar. And yeah, so rankings don’t matter. That’s, that’s my, that’s my takeaway from that. And also, one thing that my high school English teacher told me is like, do you want to be a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond. And I think that really applies. Like, if I had gone to like Stanford, where everyone is super accomplished in computer science, and doing a lot of good things. I don’t think I would have thrived as much as going to Duke which is not an engineering school, more humanities focused, and has a very different culture. And so yeah, for students who are currently in college, I would say, follow the people. And this is like, advice that you will get for literally, everything in your job. In your personal life, you will get advice, people will tell you follow the people who you love and want to be like, um, so, you know, for jobs, it’s like, if you don’t like the people you’re working with, don’t work with them, like move jobs, you know, you should enjoy your daily life and kind of how this ties into college is like, Don’t feel pressured to hang out with people who you don’t want to be like, who you don’t actually, like, hang out with, like, just, you know, for whatever external pressure reasons or whatever, um, hang out with people who you like, who you love, focus on the relationships and try to make like close friendships. I know, it’s hard, especially now to be in remote college. But one of the goals that I set for myself going into college was to make one new close friend every semester. And I was able to do that. And I think that that helps me a lot and thinking about how can I be expanding my social circles? How can I really be thinking about like, creating real relationships, and not just like, bumping into everyone in saying, hey, let’s get lunch and then like, never actually getting lunch with them. Like, that’s going to happen for a lot of people who you know, but you should have close friends and you should try to make new close friends. And so yeah, that would be my two pieces of advice. I know. Like, that’s probably things that you hear very similarly. But like, I would just say, be like, this is kind of like weird, but I would just say like, wherever you are, wherever you whatever you have, try to be happy with who you are. Um, and because something my friends said the other day that I thought was like so funny. She said, don’t worry about the past because that’s depression and don’t worry about the future because that’s anxiety. Um, and I was like, Oh my God, I don’t know what to do with that information. But it’s True. Like all you have and all you can change is the present. So focus on who you are, who you want to be in getting to where you want to go.

Kamila
Thank you very much, Kate. This was a very informative episode with a lot of good advice there. So thank you so much for coming today.

Kate
Yeah, no worries. Thank you for having me. Okay,

Kamila
bye bye. Bye. That concludes my entire interview with Kate if you enjoyed that, please subscribe. Also yet again, check out my blog, a college kid.com to get some nice information there. But other than that, hope see you in the next one.