How has ISM benefitted Aditi Adya?

"ISM gave me many opportunities to showcase myself and be creative with the topic of study that I chose. From a personal standpoint, I was overall able to work on representing myself to the best of my ability as well as my organizational and study skills before heading into my first year of college. I'm naturally a very extroverted person, so I was able to take the conversational skills I already had and learn how to put them to use in the professional world. With professionalism being a huge part of the ISM program, our simple learnings on how to build a resume and act in an interview got me to where I am today. The presentations and research assessments also motivated me to learn more about Cybersecurity (my topic of study) and creatively think of ways to connect what I was reading in articles with my work outside of school. I feel like my ongoing research in Cybersecurity and my original work I did as a part of the ISM Program is what got me a job as a Computer Engineering Research Assistant with the US Army Corps of Engineers. Overall, being in ISM made me a much more confident and motivated person that I am today."

What was a challenge they faced and overcame?

"One challenge I faced during my first year of ISM was practicing my presentations many times so that I would not have to look at my script. I was always nervous that I would miss a sentence I had in my script during my presentation and that would throw everything off, but I eventually learned for my Final Presentation during my first year, to just have bullet points and talk naturally because that is what speaks to the audience the most. As I got more used to making presentations without scripts, I was able to overcome this challenge and slowly work towards giving my Final Presentation during ISM 2 without looking at the script and bullet points that I had set out just in case."

Advice

"Make the most of the wonderful opportunities given to you as an ISM student! Everything we learn in that class is relevant to succeed in your academics and careers. You were accepted for a reason, so work hard and make your mentors and Mr. Pirtle proud! And always remember to care for your classmates and friends in the program because everybody’s drive and motivation will make you all succeed."