Junie, PILOT/College Connections Student, Burlington High School Graduate

Dancing in Korean and Nepalese dance troupes, learning Chinese, working at Aeropostale, coordinating International Week, and helping with “school tube” are just a few of the activities that Junie has juggled while at Burlington High School. This is all while participating in two of LLL’s programs – College Connections and PILOT. Needless to say, “driven” is an accurate description of the current Freshman at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. So how did it all begin? 

 

Junie’s family migrated from China in 2002 with no English skills. Her mother and father emphasized that she focus on academics with the expectation that she be “self-motivated” and instilled the value of as Junie states “…if you start something, you finish it.” This led her to dive into the English language and pursue every opportunity, including Linking Learning to Life programs. During her College Connections experience, she worked with Dhyana Bradley, the program’s coordinator, in order to learn how to take responsibility for her own learning by honing her time management skills, how to ask for help in her classes and developing relationships with her professors. “I really utilized Dhyana as much as possible with advising me on classes and scheduling around my other responsibilities,” Junie states. 

 

During her experience in PILOT, Junie feels she strengthened her people skills, learned how to network and connect with others and in her words “step up and do what is right.” An interesting piece she adds is the different perspective that PILOT gave her on various populations within our community. Being a minority herself, she found that she could make a difference in others’ minorities and immigrants’ lives by reaching out and saying “I went through that, I’ve been in your shoes before.” The PILOT program also exposed her to several career fields, including hospitality management which she thought she wanted to pursue. Junie completed a job shadow at the front desk of the Sheraton Hotel in Burlington and decided that what she actually likes is helping people but in a less stressed environment. After listening to the panelists during the PILOT healthcare day, she decided she would like to do research and “find a cure for something.” She is now studying biomolecular science at Clarkson University after completing a summer research program there this summer.