How to stand out with small projects
Your biggest fear may be to have to find what you want to do in life. Even if you know what you want to do in life, you may have trouble explaining how you got to that point. Explaining yourself in a cover letter or interview can be challenging to show how passionate you are about your chosen field, but your experiences that led you there are the key feature to let a school or future employer know why you want to be there.
Finding your career path
As a high school student, the two biggest questions you are asked are where do you want to go to college and what do you want to major in? Penn State’s studies have reported that 80% of college freshman were not certain what they want to major in and that 50% of college students switch their major at least once. This is largely due to the fact that students in high school do not have the experience to be certain that they know what they want to do for the rest of their life. If you do not know what you want to do then how can you be expected to pick a college? Everyone has interests and ideas of what they would like to do, but to make these decisions you need to get out there and try it.
As an example, let’s say you are a high school junior interested in marketing and designing websites. Take a look at small projects over the summer. You could help someone design a website or create an email marketing campaign for their product. These experiences will help you solidify the decision you have to make. Once you know this the next step becomes immensely less stressful and applying much easier. You can pick a school that offers a great program in your chosen field and that first application letter is going to be a breeze as you explain why you choose the school and what let you there.
Standing out from the rest
Maybe you are already passionate in a field of your choice. That is great, but do you have the experience you want? You should be looking at small projects too. If you never worked for an employer in your industry you are going to want to make yourself stand out from the rest of your field and small projects are a great way to do that. Not only can they beef up your resume, but you can talk about them when you get the interview. That passion that you drove into the project you worked on gives any employer confidence that you are the right person for the job.
Finding the small projects
Finding projects to work on may be the hardest part, but it does not have to be. You may have already helped someone work on a project that you could use. If it is relevant to the field you want then you should use it, but someone who truly is passionate about their field will keep looking for projects. Taking on a DIY yourself project or checking the classifieds is great, but getting motivated is the first step.