How has ISM benefitted Baye Baughman?

"Personally, ISM provided an outlet to find the passions and interests concerning my future career. The two years that I was in ISM, I studied the field of becoming a Physician Assistant. While I have since chosen another path in the medical field, ISM gave me the opportunity to explore the medical field and all that it has to offer. Without ISM, I wouldn’t have been able to observe surgeries, shadow medical professionals in the medical offices, or gain connections in the community. From a professional standpoint, ISM is where I truly began to develop a sense of professionalism. The tasks of calling professionals, completing written research, building a mature resume, and public speaking are all aspects that ISM honed in on. ISM is where I structured my resume and to this day, I still use the same foundation when I am
updating."

What was a challenge they faced and overcame?

"I was fortunate enough to not have any major bumps in the road, but a challenge that I did face in ISM was dealing with the struggle of contacting professionals. I had a pretty lengthy contact list, but I felt that it was very hard to get a hold of a professional. It was frustrating to see that even after leaving voicemails and following up, I was getting very little response or the response wasn’t on a timeline that I wanted. I would say with this scenario, the best thing to do is keep up the effort by finding different times to call, and eventually you’ll find success. I decided to pick out a few contacts that I felt would be most successful and eventually someone called me back on their personal phone because the office voicemails got lost in translation."

Advice

"Treat this journey as your future reality. So many times I heard students complaining about the workload because it was only a high school class. This is true, but in reality, the students in this class that put in the effort are going to be so far ahead when college and real-life comes around. How many students can confidently walk into an

interview or conduct a phone call at the level ISM students can? It amazed me when I got to college when I saw that my school study habits and communication with my professors succeeded. The written work was lengthy and there were a lot of write-ups that had to be completed with mentor visits and research. However, once I realized how interesting the work was, I found that all the work I did I could use later on."