Meeting Summary 11/12/2020

• We reflected on the Computer Science career fair that took place during winter break. We talked about the next career fair, which is still undecided. We might invite professor Liu from CSUN if we can for the next time, but in the future, we might invite guest speakers (high school students, college students, professors, etc) to talk to us via Skype or FaceTime. If people have fields they are particularly interested, they should inform Holly.
• We talked about raising funds for Youth Group. Holly, Authur, and other people are selling couplets (for Spring Festival) and magic show tickets. Andie is selling original products (badges, charms, postcards, stickers) for her club within her school. If any Youth Group member is interested in “contracting for” the selling of these products, Andie will provide them with the products and any profit (earned by Youth Group members) will go to Youth Group.
• If the Robotics program for elementary school students led by Prof Liu is actually going to happen (which we aren’t sure yet), Alex will be in charge of arranging it. Currently, he is trying to contact Prof Liu for more information. 
• We plan to start some monthly literature discussion sessions, inspired by Holly and Authur. We want to have everyone free to choose the book they want to read, so what we do in the discussion will be that each of us summarizes their book, shares their thoughts and the reason they recommend/don’t recommend it. The discussions will be very liberal, and people can always extend their discussion about a single interesting thought/theme mentioned, which we believe will be meaningful. 

Lecture Notes, Tech Career Presentation

Here is a summary of the First Lecture in the Career exploration series, the Tech Industry

Youth group career path series: Computer science tech industry

Lecture Notes

People: Mr. Don Sun, Mr. Shiang Long, Dr. Chang Li

Mr. Don Sun

-         Works at Open X

-         Is a product manager currently

-         Was interested in computer games, which lead him to coding

Mr. Shiang Long:

-         Just started his job

-         Looked at CS and it seemed like a good fit for him

Dr. Chiang Li

-         Works for IBM

-         Liked math and science as a high schooler

-         When she got to college, she became more interested in Computer Science, instead of Engineering

Q: What is a typical day in the tech field?

Mr. Don Sun: There are typically quite a few meetings, were people talk about what they are doing. It typically varies, as sometimes I work on my own, I work with others, or when we collaborate together

Mr. Shiang Long: Every morning we will have various meetings, and I typically have a lot of meetings on all aspects of the project.

Dr. Chiang Li: It is typically flexible, as long as you are on schedule to complete your task.

Q: What do you like about doing your job?

Dr. Chiang Li: It provides a decent pay, and you work with a lot of smart people, and you work with different kinds of people with different types of background.

Don: I feel like I am solving a lot of interesting problems, I feel that coding is like a set of building blocks, as you can create some new solutions with the tools given. I feel that I have more direction, as you have more guidelines and standards than school.

Shiang: I feel that my field varies and changes a lot.

Q: What is the ugly truth behind your job, what do you not like about your job?

Shiang: There is a lot of pressure, as you have to be on top of your job. There also is some amount of politics involved.

Don: This is different than school, as the dynamic of group projects changes, as the politics in the job varies differently.

Chiang: IBM is so big, and it can feel overwhelming. However, there are a lot of resources that you can fully utilize and you can also find your own mentor to guide along the path. It takes some time to adjust to this framework, but give it time, and it will work.

Q: How do you adapt to the changes in the field?

Shiang: It is important to be adaptable and have a good manager.

Don: I adapt by being observant and having a good grasp of your surroundings.

Q: What does success look like in your field?

Chiang: It depends on what you want to be. For instance, in IBM you can choose the management or tech path, which allows you to expand your skills in those respective areas.

Don: I’ll just speak for myself, as a software engineer. I feel that as an engineer, you need to solve problems at a higher level of abstraction, as that will allow you to tackle general problems and be more involved in your field.

Shiang: I feel that I have outgrown that fresh phase, and as a result, I focus more on the bonuses, and rewards that I get, as I understand that I cannot be complacent, as I am easily replaced.

Q: What would you say to your past self, as a lot of people are high schoollers in this lecture.

Shiang: I feel that it is important to seek out internships and career opportunities

Don: I agree. I would also add that expanding your math maturity is important, as it gives you the tool kit to understand and code large problems.

Chiang: I feel that I shouldn’t have worried, as I now know that life is full of adventures and challenges, and I can’t even remember my current child desires and wants academically. Another thing that I would like to add is that I recommend you seek and bring along your desires and interests in college. The lessons learned in this quest will help you out a lot. For instance, in IBM, there are a lot of variety among the various fields, as you have people who do psychology, and AI projects. I also believe that as highschoolers, you should try and spend more time with your parents, as I believe highschoolers need to emphasize family time, especially as that young age.

Q: How do you maintain work life balance?

Shiang: I feel that work life balance is hard to maintain in a CS job, as many jobs require for you to be on call, in case your system breaks down, which can cause a lot of stress on this relationship.

Q: What is another skill that you feel is important besides coding?

Chiang: I feel that communicating is an crucial skill besides CS. This is because the ability to connect to people allows for better work ability and collaborate with people. A good way to practice this is by always having a good relationship with your teacher, which can help your teacher to help you down the road.

Don: I think that communication, both verbal and written is especially important, as you are able to express your ideas in a clear manner, helping your group communicate better and better express your ideas. Written communication is also important, as it is a lot more permanent than verbal.

Shiang: I would like people to practice communication skills, as you have to collaborate in groups, and is also needed in various job related projects, such as recruiting.

Q: Is there a class/subject that you didn’t particular think much of in school, but found helpful after becoming a working professional.

Shiang: I believe that school did not prepare me well, as it taught me the basics, but not the actual job experience, which you learn on the job.

Don: I agree. School doesn’t teach you the specifics that you need, it just tells you how to think and learn. However, the way that you think is essentially a different way to think and problem solve, and this diversity can help you in a CS career.

Chiang: I think the biggest thing that school provided me with is that it allowed me to have a baseline, which allowed me to build up and learn a greater amount of things. The solid foundation allowed me to diverge and go into different directions. For high school and college students, I think that you should look around and seek out opportunities from career fairs and professors.

Q: Any word of wisdom or encouragement for the audience?

Shiang: I feel that CS and tech is infiltrating into a lot of fields. An important thing to know that tech will be into everything, and you can use technology to just expand your interests. You don’t have to sit at a computer, just use the skillset CS teaches you.

Don: I feel that CS, if you have an interest in it, it should be a genuine interest, and not things that the other people tell you, and be true to yourself on what you truly want to do.

Chiang: I agree with Don. It is important to be true to yourself, and seek out your interests, and understand and follow your interests. In my opinion, it is best to seek out the things that you are interested in, as you will be significantly more interested and motivated to learn those subjects. I see that coding is a lot of hands on activity. For instance, a lot of the interns, the people do not want to roll up their sleeves and work, so they failed in that aspect of their tasks. In the end, I feel that there are many people who can do a lot in the tech field, as artists can be involved in the UI design.

Youth Group Open House on Dec 1st 2019

The Open House was successful with around 30 parents/students showed up.


PPT can be found at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Yui7fmRFr4T47NV_bq6NL0Up3vxXTPm4 



Reference:
https://www.dvd-ppt-slideshow.com/blog/3-methods-to-add-powerpoint-to-google-blogger/

Youth Group Time Line

Sep 14th, 2019:  SFVCCA Youth Group officially announced to the community that it is up and running!  This date is one day after the Chinese Mid autumn festival. We would like to make this day as anniversary day for youth group,

Meeting Minutes 9/8/19

Meeting Minutes 9/8/19 

Documented by: Alex Lu

Duration: 8:15 am to 9:00 am   

Participants: Alex Lu, Holly Wang, Aaron Du, Olivia Zhao, Eric Wang, Wendy Shen

9/14/19 Meeting Agenda (5:00 to 5:30)

From 4:00 to 5:00, each officer is recommended to bring some easy games to play with kids

Adults

1. Eric: starts off the meeting and speaks about the youth group (1 minute)
2. Po (何寶輝): SFVCCA Current present (1 minute)
3. Wil Lang (朗果偉): Health Club 社長 (3 minutes)
4. Jack Chen (陳梓湖) Heritage Foundation 主任委員 (30 seconds)
5. Travor Introduce Chiffany Shi, Art/craft teacher for youth group and she will have a few projects on display. She prefers not to give speech. 
6. Chang Li, will introduce herself as the parent representative (3 minutes)

Students:

1. Each officer/board member will introduce themselves and what they expect out of this youth group 
2. Alex/ Andie will introduce the different activities we have scheduled 
3. Arthur will read a thank you note to everyone for their contributions to this youth group.
4. There will be a Q&A session from the parents  
5. Summary: Someone will ask for support families for donation (Trevor?) Because we don’t have all the financial kinks sorted out, for now, we will ask for contact information from parents interested in donating. As of now, the goal is that each family will donate around 100-200 dollars to the group in the future. 

Social Media   

• As of now, Holly is still working on the website. There are still some issues with the wording that will be fixed and the activities list will be added soon. 
• For now, we will be using Andie’s banner but in the future, we can hold a banner contest along with a logo contest. 
• Before the 9/14 parent meeting, please review the website. Put something on the blog regarding what you’ve done in the youth group so far. 
• Please note that everything regarding our social media and internet usage must go through the board or some form of review. A checks-and-balances system must be established but here are a few things to note:
• There must be someone who approves our changes to the website or social media. This person is hopefully going to be an advisor 
• Our Youtube channel must be tightly controlled in order to prevent legal issues regarding music, content, etc. 
• Release forms (like media release) are required 

Internet 

• At the moment, the SFVCCA is a bit hesitant to pay for the internet at the SFVCCA facilities. As a result, it is possible that we may have to raise our own funds. 
• For now, we need a site survey regarding internet usage. We must figure out what we will be using the internet for when we will be using the internet, and where on the facilities will the internet be used. This will allow for easier planning.  
• Holly is currently working on a set of media usage rules as there must be guidelines on how we use the internet.

Youth Group Structure

• We need a method to document service hours. This can be through some sort of database or a Google Survey that we can use to ensure that each participant has their hours logged. 
• An accountant or treasurer is required to tell us the expenses regarding our youth group for transparency and future reference. 

Meeting Minutes: 9/1/2019

Meeting Minutes: 9/1/2019

Attendances: Arthur, Olivia, Aaron, Trevor, Holly, Change
Minutes recorded by Arthur Sun

New member, Aaron Du, joins the youth council.

Email Accounts

-        Discussing the usage of the accounts for the youth council. Holly suggests that the youthgroup@sfvcca.org be used to host more formal/internal documents and contents. Instead, sfvccayouthgroup@gmail.com should be used for the general information, such as the blog and other content.

-        It is now official, youthgroup@sfvcca.org will be used to host more formal/internal documents and contents. Instead, sfvccayouthgroup@gmail.com Is used to host the Facebook, blog, and zoom accounts.

CACA parent meeting

-        There is going to be a 20 minute presentation talking about the youth group. Here, we want to give a presentation about the youth group, allowing for the people to get an understanding of the youth group.

-        Here, the SFVCCA also plans to host the moon cake festival and so on.

-        IN this presentation, we plan to give a general presentation about the youth council, telling people all about the youth council, the activities we have planned, and thanking all of the people who were involved in the creation of the youth group.

-        Afterwords, the youth group presentation will be handed off to Eric, Po, and Jack in order to see what they want to say.

Parent Lecture Series

-        First lecture, CSUN librarian talking about how to write a college essay. This will be hosted in late September, and will be around 1 hour long, with time for question.

-        This series will be run by Holly, May, and Aaron’s mom.

Field Trips

-        Currently, we plan to host no field trips, because there is a worry for liability insurance as we currently have an event planed.

Liability Insurance

-        Already a fully functional google forms page. We can also link to a file to the liability waiver forms in full detail.

-        Will test this out in the first lecture series.

Community Event

-        This is an event that we can host with CACAYC, which we can get to come here and host events to have more events. Also, we will host events with the various Chinese youth clubs in Cleveland and Granada High Schools.

-        This event will be hosted every two weeks and will have various fun and games for the community gatherings.

Chinese Festival Table

-        While in discussion with the Chinese School PTA, it was discovered that the chair wanted to host a table that could be used for fundraising. The tables/booths that were suggested were the Calligraphy table, and the tea table.

Awareness to community

-        Once we advertise to the community, more and more people will be inclined to come. However, this will completely tie us up in terms of workload and other instances.

-        Holly emphasizes that we can’t say yes to all of the events that are offered and that we plan to host.

Websites

-        Holly highlights need to have a working banner, as well as a proper flyer in order to operate and advertise our youth group.

-        The website is hosted at wordy, and currently, we do not have a proper email working device. However, at this time, we will temporarily use the website.

Action items for next week

-        (Trevor)Logo and club involvements

-        (Aaron, Olivia, and Trevor) Forms on the membership and Liability insurance

-        Olivia will work on the logo

-        Will create new blog, which will have all the meeting minutes on there

Youth Group Banner