Youth Empowerment Conference Reflection Journal

                 
     On Saturday, I went to the youth empowerment conference where I listened to panelists talk about how they made their way to success. Mia was a community manager who talked about how she went abroad to China and had many different experiences. She talked about how she ended up at her job. She talked about her struggles of finding a job after graduating from Harvard and how she went on internships. There was a Lieutenant who said he didn't know what he wanted to be and decided giving a shot to being a police officer when somebody recommended it to him. He said that he had to study for 16 hours a day for the tests that he needed to take to get promoted to a higher rank. There was TT Torrez who came and talked about her childhood. She grew up in poverty and was determined to succeed and made that her goal at a young age. Her mother left her at a friend's house and she realized that the only person who can believe in her success is her herself. She didn't let anything stop her from reaching success and now she works at Hot 97.1.
      The panelists talked about how they overcame their struggles to get to the place they are in today. They never gave up on trying and was passionate about their work. They said that it was important to be prepared and familiarize yourself with others so that they can give you opportunities. They gave prize giveaways to people with the raffle tickets they gave out earlier. People won iTunes gift card and movie tickets. Then a new panel of people came. There was Ahmed who was a student graduating from high school and going to a college. He talked about how the people around you effected you. He talked about how we should try to do more so we can be able to do something that others can't. There was also a coast guard officer who got his job through networking. Then they talked about how networking played a huge role for being successful. We were able to ask the panelist questions that we had. Then Cheryl Wills came and talked about her ancestors. She is a reporter for NY1 and also a journalist. She talked about how there was a hero in everyone's family but how we don't know about it. There was a guy that talked about the different types of geniuses. For example musical genius, athletic genius, and numbers genius. There was also a high schooler named Harry. He talked about how he almost got beaten up to death with an aluminum bat from hanging around the wrong crowd. This made him disable. He said to not hang out with the wrong crowd and if you are to get out now because nothing good will come from it. The purpose of this event was to motivate and inspire students to follow their path to success.