Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category

Facebook Wants a Piece of the Twitter (SMS) Revolution Pie

Posted: December 4, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, facebook, liberation struggles, Social, Social Media, Strategy
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Strategic move indeed, Facebook rolls out plans for a new messaging service via SMS mobile phone services.  You might be wondering how antiquated, right?

I would be as well if I hadn’t spent a few months following the “backend” of the story about social media and its use during revolutions in the Middle East, in Iran before that, in disaster relief in Japan and the list does go on.  We in the US primarily interact with the world wide web on some form of personal computer in the form of desktop (less so today), laptops and/or tablets and the growing smart phones.  However, this technology has not translated for the rest of the world.  The transfer of use is greatly limited by costs.  An average middle class income in Egypt for example could hardly afford the cost of a personal computer and the internet services charges associated with it.  However, everyone out of necessity as well, can afford a cell phone and pay-as-use cards or chips for mobile phones.

Internet use, therefore seems like a everyday occurrence, is in fact a luxury in the developing world.  Facebooks fortunes rest on access to the internet via out of reach technology for these countries.  While facebook may have a billion users, its potential in many markets has or is maxed out because the vast majority of people don’t use the internet daily.

Twitter on the other hand represents a business model and in particular accessibility that is unparalleled by many social media providers through its connection to SMS, or texting message connectivity.  In one sit down a user in Egypt can set up an account via Twitter but not have to rely on direct internet access in order to stay connected on their cell phone to the internet.  They still have access to the vastness that is the internet network to get their message out, but they dont rely on the internet website directly.

Thats why many in the Western media labeled the recent Arab revolutions to Twitter.  I am finding out that that is itself a major point of debate and criticism and would require a whole other post but the conclusion is that Facebooks model is very limiting.

Just to get you some figures: prior to the Egyptian revolution, the population was around 78 million.  The mobile phone industry had 73% penetration into the market, with only 10% of that connected with Data to the internet.  Think about it this way, formal bank accounts in Egypt only amounted to 10% of the population.  More people used a cell phone then had a bank account.

Now consider internet connectivity in Egypt.  According to the pre-Revolution-Mubarak Ministry of Communication 2010 study, only 22% of the population had access.

Putting that into context think about the United States, with a population of 130 million people, there are 120 million cell phone subscribers here.  Thats incredible!  And internet access, while not complete, is still higher then that of Egypt.

Given the industry environment in the developing world, this makes complete sense for Facebook to want to get access to this market.  Facebook is assuming that this messaging, free and subsidized by the company, will lead to new users, therefore new marketing and data gathering prospects.  The downside is that the assumption is based on a growth in internet access, or developing a messaging service that is able to take millions of text messages and making sense of gathered data.  Subsidized messages, MIGHT, allow Facebook to send direct advertisement messages.

The kicker here is that Facebook had been given the title of “SMS Killer” (according to wired a year earlier) just around the beginning of this past year according to NYTimes blog and here we are with Facebook readjusting its strategy to fit the global marketscape with its no-user-account-needed-SMS-chat capability.  Will text messaging disappear?  Probably not, but what it does mean is that Facebook has now realized the marketscape and impediment to its capturing a segment of the larger broader market.  Check out this talk at TED by Robert Neuwirth about this market-D and how cell providers in Africa had to rethink their strategy to get market penetration into Nigeria, the largest market in Africa.

Vandalizing with the Succulent Sort

Posted: December 3, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Green Deen, leadership, Organic Gardening, Politics, Progressive, Social, Strategy, team work
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http://assets.inhabitat.com/files/gratewithflowers.jpgIn thinking about cityscape and living experience, I admit Los Angeles is one big paved over concrete and asphalt uglyscape. There are very few places that look attractive and those are largely found in affluent areas. If you read my 10 TED Lectures you must watch post, there were two lectures that addressed this very issue. The first was by Pam Warhurst who challenges the notion of bureaucracy being able to change something like the plants in and around the city or create open natural spaces, so in a way like the Succulent Vandals, her group of folks in English town of Todmorden went about transforming the landscape by making it edible. Yes, you read that correctly. The second talk was by Kent Larson who proposed that building in the future city requires us to examine the fundamental notions we have about cites by considering a rule of 20 minutes. You can watch both the lectures here, along with the 8 others that I recommend you to watch.

So it was not to long after watching those TED lectures that I ran across these planting vandals who turn up on a abandoned, ugly and neglected Los Angeles city lot and transform it over night into a city garden. The practice known as Guerrilla Gardening is spreading, and for good reason, lots of ugly cement/asphalt cites need to greenified. I think this is just another great example of civic engagement and people saying enough with the bull shit, if government can’t get it (changing the cityscape) done, we will do what we can.

Finding Your Inner Social Butterfly- A Way to Network Like a Pro

Posted: October 10, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, career, Education, job, networking, New Leaders Council, profession, professional, Progressive, Public Relations, San Diego World Trade Center, Strategy, undergraduate, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
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“Great another networking event!”  The fact that being inebriated makes you less conscious of your behavior, thus making the tedious task of “small talk socializing” at the event easier makes for an attractive reason to drink (sip here won’t hurt!).  But if you choose to stick to the halal/haram distinction (the sunnah and Quranic mandate) then you can’t get your liquor on.

Being drunk also won’t make the situation easier, nor will it be beneficial to you in your personal life or for you career.  I think lots of folks feel that “networking” is just a useless term that lacks any credible real world translation.  Its fake, so people there are fake, and the conversations there are shallow and ultimately its what you do if you are in the world of business, of any sorts.  Working at a non-profit I got to go to my fair share of these “networking” events.  They come in a variety of window dressings but ultimately its a means for people to meet other people and get something out of it.

If you are like me, you probably found yourself going toward the corners of the room and finding a group to “nest” with because its safe.  But as the years went on I learned to challenge myself and some of the greatest collaborations I had the opportunity to work on came from meeting people in these situations.

If you don’t believe me then just pick up a networking book, anyone, and the statistics are all laid bare.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of jobs are found through networking.  All my internship during college, my college jobs as well as my career at CAIR came through networking.

Okay, so I shouldn’t have to be selling you on networking, if thats the case this blogpost isn’t for, go over to this post at Yale, do some soul searching there.  Below is a how to guide to become a better networker.

I learned to network by watching some amazing networkers, then imitating their style and adapting it to work for myself.  There are some basic rules you should remember because networking is a tedious task, its not just simply talking to people, its learning to be efficient in what you talk about.  You also have to show a little gumption by presenting yourself as composed an interested in what people have to say even though you might not be.  Also, you need to come off as being an interesting person yourself.  All of that is an sort of craft, call it acting?  This means you can’t have emotional meltdowns, you should stick with the solid rule of leaving religion and politics out of the conversation (a bit hard to to do if you follow certain religious etiquette’s and practices, at which point its the big elephant in the room).  Finally, you got to look your best, be presentable because first impressions count.

Like any art its something that through practice and some basic foundational understandings you can make your own.  One of the ultimate networkers I have met in my time is a guy who goes by the initials O.G.  He’s the ultimate social networking guru.  If you know him, you probably can drop his name in any new city you happen to be in and people will know him, or know of him.  His style is classic, simple and pretty ingenious.  He opens with “So, whats your story.”  You feel like he’s there to listen to you and through the first five minutes he’ll get all that makes you the person you are- your name, your brief personal history, why you are at the event, where you are from, what you do, and anything else you drop within that time frame.  Then he’s on to the other folks in the room and just like that he’s worked the room where he’s met all the faces he hasn’t been introduced to.

Thats the key though, being introduced.  You tell yourself someone is going to introduce you to this person, or that person, but that never happens, what then?  Try this activity- give yourself 3 minutes of time without any distractions.  Write down “What is your story?” and start the timer.    See what you write down.  If you want further proof, ask two other people to do the same thing.  What I notice is that there is a common thread in the responses people put down to that question, but sometimes there are big holes.  Like someone might not put down “why they are at an event” because thats outside the context of the conversation, yet that helps establish a point of relations.  In the future people will remember that you were at that particular even for that particular purpose.

At the end of the day you want your networking experience to be beneficial, to give it purpose you need to construct some foundation to work off of.  I find that there are some really good questions, and I present them in an order that will make sense later:

  1. What brings you to the event?  how are you connected to the organization?
  2. Whats your name?
  3. Where are you from?  Where do you live?
  4. Whats your profession?
  5. When your not working, what do you like to do?
  6. Where have you travelled? Or do you have any travel plans in the future?
  7. Ask any question- except for politics and/or religion- unless the other person brings it up.
This is something I picked from Simon Vetter when I was attending the San Diego World Trade Center’s monthly speaking series.  I found it incredibly useful in teaching how to network, get better at art of networking, or help manage anxiety about networking events.  I wish someone had told me this earlier because it makes networking easier.
You are probably thinking that this technique will require you to take a notecard with you so that way you can sneak a peak at the questions and jot down the list as you go along talking to someone.  No, actually you don’t have to do that.  In fact, in my blogpost “I wish they had name tags at weddings” I introduced the technique I learned about remember names.  The idea is that you associate what your trying to remember with an image that you will clearly recollect when required to do so.  This is a memory technique that is ancient and forgotten, but I am going to show you how Mr. Vetter applied it to the same string of questions above and I think it will help you remember when your at the next networking event.
Close your eyes an imagine each statement.  Remember that you need to connect each image to the one before it, like a string of pearls.
  1. Imagine yourself in a stadium full of people (whatever sporting even you fancy);
  2. See your name written on the field;
  3. In the corner of the field you see your house;
  4. Out of the house- door, window, chimney, whatever- you see a briefcase flying out.
  5. You keep your eyes locked on the briefcase until it gets pierced by a golf club and falls down;
  6. At this point you begin to see an airplane flying above the stadium;
  7. You follow the airplane until you notice it has a green light at the front of it.

Now you tell yourself this ridiculous string of images until you begin to associate the line of questioning in which the stadium reflect the question of “why are you here? How are you associated to this event?”  The name on the field is your way of introducing yourself to the person your talking to and getting their name.  The house in the corner is the question about “where the person lives and whats their background?”  (remember their name, if its Indian, well your names sounds like Indian…)  The flying briefcase is connected to the question about the persons profession.  The golf club is about what the person does outside of work- they might sit on a non-profit board or be interested in the environment and you happen to know someone who shares that interest.  The airplane is the question about traveling, and Mr.Vetter basically said that everyone likes to travel so its a neutral safe question to ask in order to get insight into the person your talking to, who knows they might be speaking at a conference that just might be something you would want to go to in order to advance your professional network?  Finally the green light is your opportunity to ask any questions that you feel will help you get to know the person.

Thats networking technique in  a nutshell.  Go to the mosque or some community event and try it.  At the end of the day if you won’t take risks and challenge yourself to talk to people you don’t know, no technique is going to help you.  You have to be willing to put yourself out there, this technique is a means of managing the anxiety and awkwardness presented in networking situations.  Finally, remember don’t stick to one person, the more you move around the room the comfortable the situation gets.  At some point people won’t be strangers, you would have met most of the folks present and the networking situation won’t be as intimidating as it would be had you not mingled.

MSA- New Year, New Board, Same Problems

Posted: September 26, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, Education, identity, Islam, leadership, Muslim Youth Leadership Program, Social, Strategy, undergraduate
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How can the board of a student organization ensure a productive year?  That was the question that developed over the coarse of a conversation I had with one of my High-School-Student-Mentees-turned-college-student-leader at his UC’s MSA (Muslim Student Association).  I honestly didn’t think I would be able to give him a proper answer to his questions given the short notice and my lack of initial interest in having the conversation late at night (and right before I went off to the gym!).

Surprisingly I woke up this morning thinking “Wow, Affad, you probably provided one of the best responses (at least, I have ever come up with, I can indulge in a little bragging) to the perpetual challenge faced by incoming boards when it comes to leadership.  The idea of leadership is wrought with all sorts of examples of GREAT leaders, and not so effective ones.  While I think that charismatic leadership offers the most return for your money, not having a central charismatic leader doesn’t mean that the organization will suffer.

The cult of personality often obscures the reality of what in essence leadership is all about- its about people, relationships and properly managing those relationships.  This is something that anyone can do if they are willing to step up to the plate.  We all recognize that bad leaders, or more appropriately, ineffective leaders are people who are divisive, marginalizing, polarizing and all sorts of uncompromising.  The word compromise itself takes on a religious tenor when put in the context of MSA’s- “No brother we don’t compromise with the Sunnah wa’Jammah.”    But what in my discussion last night I tried to emphasize the idea that many of the conflicts don’t arise because of fundamental theological issues, rather they are simple issues of leadership and work styles that give rise to problems with how people manage conflict that arises from disagreements.

The board over a period of time will internalize these mismanaged responses by exhibiting them in terms of fundamentals, overly simplistic black-and-white realities.  ”That brother is to liberal” and “That brother is to conservative” doesn’t really address the issue of “how do we function to make things work in the MSA?”  The response to this is always to play the “my way, or the highway” approach because that ensures a zero-sum reality, when in fact, such an outcome never really results in any good to anyone.

One of the best ways that a incoming board, filled with new leaders, can get ahead of the pitfalls of board dysfunction and construct the grounds for a successful year, is to have a real board retreat.  We aren’t talking about sitting around a table, saying duahs and talking for an hour only to adjourn until you come back in the Fall.  I am talking about a structured, day or weekend long, relationship building and planning session.

Since the new year is just beginning its not to late to do something constructive.  Like my conversation with MSA board member X last night, a day long retreat can be planned and executed still.  Here’s how to do it:

  1. Find someone who is willing to chair the planning, logistics and moderation of the retreat.  This person should ideally be the President or Vice President of your organization.
  2. Chair needs to come up with an agenda (more on this below), location (should be comfortable for sitting down prayers and moving around activities), logistics (get food- healthy, drinks, papers, markers, all the stuff you need).  Delegate where appropriate.
  3. Agenda- this should be thoughtfully constructed to make the most out of the time your spending together.
  4. Execute the retreat.
  5. Follow up with folks individually and ask if it was productive, what can change, what worked really well.  Make adjustments, leave for next years incoming board to repeat.

Agenda-

This is the most important part of your whole retreat.   It needs to be designed with care and insight into whats the purpose behind everything you do.  My conversation last night worked out a really nice program that can be replicated, with modifications for your particular organizational needs.

  1. Early Bird catches the warm- so start the day early.  Because folks are groggy provide coffee, but have ice breakers that involve activity.  My favorite is “Big Watermelon”- its silly, stupid and just plain funny.  But when people get involved with it, it will lower the level of anxiety and guard folks have so that the rest of the day is productive.  If you feel the folks aren’t going to want to start off doing something like that but you need something that will help build closer bonds and deepen the relationship of folks beyond “knowing people” then there is the “Toilet Paper” game or the “Name Your Name” game.  Both are great to get past the “His name is Mohammad and he’s from Fresno” relationship.
  2. Lay the Ground Rules- in order for your board to function  you need ground rules, these rules aren’t just for this retreat, they should be for the following year.  This means whenever the board meet, these rules are displayed and people religiously observe them.  This sets the tone not only for what it takes to participate in the retreat, but through out the year.  These rules should be simple, they should be focused and you shouldn’t have a crap load of them.  This is a social contract that you’re coming up with, social contracts should be straight forward like “honesty is the best policy” or “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you” (or better yet- the Golden Rule).
  3. Follow this up with another ice breaker, maybe here is a good opportunity to do Big Watermelon, after serious business like the ground rules a silly game is just the right prescription to move on.
  4. Focus on Leadership, this is the place where you can understand what other people know about leadership, but more importantly, how each person on your board reacts and carry’s out their functions.  My suggestion is don’t lecture, rather create workshops that are interactive, you want to continue to build bonds and deepen board members relationship with one another, create trust, nurture open lines of communications. The retreat is the way to jump over the “trial by fire” process because it puts people in a situation where they have to start functioning as a cohesive group outside the rigors of the actual year.  When it comes leadership workshop, here’s what I suggested last night
  • Do a group activity where each person posts 2-3 leadership qualities on the board.  Each person should/can talk about why this is important to them.  If you want the group can list the top 5 important qualities, which would help do the next activity.
  • The group then should discuss an example from the Prophetic Seerah that exemplifies the qualities.  Each person should be involved in discussing this.
  • The leadership portion should be divided by Zuhr prayer.
  • Lunch, it should be time for mingling or you can do a lunch oriented activity to continue to build the bonds of brotherhood/sisterhood.
  • When you reconvene, or do this during a working lunch if time is short, people should write down their thoughts on what leadership is after the conversation that took place on the topic.  Also they should list their leadership strengths and weaknesses. That last part is really important.
  • The President at this point needs to start the session by talking about leadership (“the lecture”).  Here it is important to lay out how the President functions.  For example if it was me, I would say look emails and phone calls are great, but text messages are much more efficient for me.  Stuff like that is what will help the functionality of the group.
  • Do a talk back session where everybody shares their leadership style.
  • Have a group activity that address how the group will respond to challenges.  Your MSA might have dealt with similar challenges in the past, choose those, rework them and present scenarios and talk through how the board will address the issues.  Who does what?  What worked in the past?  What should have been done?  Its important to work through nightmare scenarios, I wont list out the why here.
  1. The final session, after Asr prayers, should be around the idea of upcoming year.  Talk out goals, set metrics.  Each board member should set one thing they wish to build upon from past years, or pioneer, during their tenure in office.  You should end it by Maghrib, afterwards go out and have dinner to celebrate making it through a difficult day, but also because you have an exciting year up ahead!

Things to look out for:

  1. Make sure everyone participates.  People should recognize that they need to “Step back AND step up”- especially when talking about leadership, everyone should be participating and those that are more aggressive in their participation need to allow and encourage others to participate.
  2. While this will seem liberal of me, there has to be mixed gender interaction.  Your board consists of guys and girls, no matter where their Islamic comfortability level is at, they need to be able to interact with the opposite gender.  They can establish boundaries during the coarse of the retreat, but that shouldn’t be used as an excuse to not participate or to segregate the process.  I can’t emphasize this enough, to make the organization cohesive, the board has to be able to work together comfortably.  That does not give license for “kicking it” but it also means that the guys and girls should be divided by a “virtual purdah”.
  3. The President should pay close attention to potential conflict areas, between people, perspectives, ways of doing things.  This will be critical because it will help to manage them moving forward.
  4. The atmosphere needs to be professional, but not stuffy.  This is important fine line, but to much joking around will result in a process that isn’t genuine.  To much seriousness will give you a group of people that suppressed their thoughts and inhibited constructive idea’s and perspectives.  The moderator needs to play a strong role to maintain a balance, but other key allies should step up to the plate and help guide the process along the fine line.
  5. Be cognizant that people are coming from a diverse background.  The job of the MSA board isn’t just to have a successful year, your Amana is also to develop strong leaders.  You are only as strong as the weakest leader you have on your board.  Help strengthen that person over the year, you will greatly strengthen the Muslim community by producing a top notch leader.

 

What Happens After MYLP? and General Advice for High School and Undergraduate Students

Posted: July 10, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, CAIR, leadership, Social, Social Media, Strategy, team work
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Last summer I gave my last workshop on Community Organizing at the 7th Annual Muslim Youth Leadership Program that takes place in Sacramento.  Now its time for the 8th installment of MYLP and I wanted to share some thoughts with the Alumni of the program.  I have been part of the program for the past seven years.  It is by far one of my favorite programs because it gets high school students to engage with the legislative process and understand how they can empower and change their communities.

The program started with a half dozen kids from across the state of California and last year there were 56 students that came from across the state.  AMAZING.  But the past years participants have gone on to University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Boston University, Duke and Stanford for graduate studies- just to name a few places.  Students have written compelling opinion pieces helped with election campaigns, gotten amazing internships, traveled internationally for research, got research published in major journals, worked on lobbying for healthcare bills and even found some pretty dope jobs.  These kids that come to MYLP are truly gifted before they join the program, but I like to think that they are all empowered to find a new avenue to pursue their dreams and still be civically engaged.  Its this difficult terms we call being “well rounded.” (More on this later.)

But every year participants get excited and often their excitement doesn’t translate or materialize into some community project success.  I think that is not an issue but the real problem is to run into a wall and loose that excitment when faced with disappointment or relativity slow development.  Here is some advice for the students who participated in past years MYLP programs.

If you are already in college go read the Undie-years.  If you are a Senior in High School read Seniorities, maybe check out the Junior year post.  If you are younger then jump to the part for the young’ins.  If you are a parent reading this then you should start with the section that is most pertinent to your child, however, let me warn you this post might not make sense because its not written for parents, but rather those brave few students who stumble here.

1.  You already got into college, Undergraduates or the way I see’em, the Undie-years

2.  Senioritis- You are a Senior in High School

3.  You are a Junior in High School (looooong post, but worth your time!)

4.  You’re Young and Restless

MYLP: The Undie-years- Navigating the undergraduate years toward your profession, career and mission in life

Posted: July 10, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, career, CSU, Education, freshman year, high school, identity, Islam, Junior year, Justice, Law, leadership, Muslim Youth Leadership Program, Orange County, Politics, private university, profession, Progressive, public education, senior year, Social, Social Media, Strategy, team work, UC, undergraduate
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Tighty wighties or boxers, or do you go for the boxer briefs?  How about the European butt huggers?  Undergraduate years are like experimenting with the pair of drawers that your going to be most comfortable with (I limit this to the Brothers, analogizing for sisters on this point seems highly inappropriate, even for me!)

If you went off to college then you should be focusing on your grades.  Make sure you understand your learning style (see Academic counseling or places like UCSD’s OASIS) so you can make the most of your learning experience.  You want to do good in your classes, so you get more free time and also get opportunities to intern (experience based learning is the reality of our economy today).  I say this bit of advice to all my mentee’s- don’t worry about CHOOSING A MAJOR the first year and half you are at college.  If you went to community college or to a four year institution, plan your first two years around the general education courses you need to take along with the transfer classes needed to go from a junior college to a university. (if this is not making sense go read my post on Senioritis)

The planning you do at this juncture is critical and as always be proactive by making these plans in consultation with your parents, counselors and if you are blessed with a mentor, use that person for input and advice.  Impress your parents at your maturity and desire to involve them in the process.  Regardless your transition from high school might be rough, so I always say play it safe and take the bare minimum of courses needed to be a full time student.  In the end you will want to socialize and do things that are new/fun and its best to manage all of that in a way that doesn’t affect your grades.

If you  are a science major, than you need more “well rounding”- if your in the humanities and social sciences, well so is like 60% of the folks at your school and most of them are unemployed or struggling or worse competing for very limited Masters and Ph.D. programs.  You will need to be “well rounded” regardless what your focus is.  Unless your absolutely brilliant or are majoring in the four careers that isn’t faced with unemployment- best you work with what your good at and build up some exceptional skills and experience.

This is where you need to find consistency, discipline and a passion toward an arch of activities that will

a) help you get transferable skills

b) provide life experiences and

c) help you gain an edge over your competitors.

Pre-med folks, honestly, everyone goes to volunteer at a “hospital”, so get smart and think about something unique.  Here is a hypothetical “pre-med student” to help you understand my point:

You like swimming- might of swam on your high school team maybe?- and you are pre-med, looking to stand out?  Go be a lifeguard, get advance first aid training and teach kids how to swim in your spare time.  That, right there is an arch that brings together your personal passion, your career aspirations and your academic work.  You get transferable skills, you showcase leadership skills, you indicate your ability to empathize and work with what you will find to be challenging experiences and if you’re lucky some European guy wearing a speedo will need mouth to mouth resuscitation and you, you my friend, will be the one to give it to him.  BAM!  You saved a person life and now can speak to that experience in your medical school application.  If you got your academics in order and you achieved decent success on your MCAT your a shoe in, hopefully, to an American Medical school.

What the hell am I talking about?  Well to really draw it down to simple, basically I have provided you with- an amazing resume, a means to keep your grades decent, showcase your ability to have consistency, discipline, focus and growth (its not like you will become a swimming instructor over night…); you get an amazing personal statement (While serving as a life guard I learned that my passion for swimming allowed me to save a persons life.  It is with this passion that I am applying to your EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE MEDICAL SCHOOL because you offer me the best opportunity toward my professional dreams of becoming a UNDER PAID AND SEVERELY UPSET PEDIATRIC SURGEON); you get a good source of “alternative, but strong” recommendation letters, you diversify your life experiences as long as you have some of the traditional stuff but all of this is grounded on your passion, that thing that really makes you happy in life.

So as college students dont fall into the trap of doing what Muhammad X and Fatima Y gone done, find an arch in your life that you can develop separately but bring neatly together toward your professional aspirations.  Also challenge yourself to do things that you might not initially feel like you are going to like, those make some of the best personal statements.  Don’t get peer pressured into cookie cutter learning styles and plans, go at your own pace and make it worthwhile- taking five years instead of four and doing a study abroad program is WORTHWHILE.  You working in a science lab playing with flies?  Well so are so many others, so you better work on trying to get published or do your own unique research.  If your pre-med consider not doing the hum drum Biology major, go into Economics if you like money and business and development.

Also, by January you need to figure out what you’re doing in the summer besides taking summer school.  You need to build your resume and resume opportunities fill up fast.  The first two years should be of planned-controlled exploring, but you should hone in on your major by the end of that period and more importantly have internship opportunities lined up that are going to help you in that major and toward a career goal.  Also always be flexible with your plans- shit happens, say Alhumdulillah and suck in some air and figure out how to move along.

You will want to socialize, you will face drama due to that experience.  The experience will put your morality to the test, along with your values and principles.  You will question everything in life eventually.  *****looking for yourself, feeling lost, confused, etc***** You will feel like a zombie (trust me, being an Undie is nothing like being in graduate school so don’t over emphasize your experience, the world will not cry for you).  You will most likely behave at your worst.  Your world might just utterly stop making sense.  You will talk fast all the time or will take a back seat, when you do talk you might always say the wrong things.  You will find new sense of pride in your culture, nationality, heritage or you will run screaming to the hills from all that.  Its to be expected- but you should find a way to manage this-finding-yourself-process or else you will loose yourself in it, but I do admit, its probably the best part of a college experience.

You need God.  You’re now in a place where all you have are the principles and values you were raised with.  All around you are different lifestyles, different norms and values that will challenge the core upon which you are built on.  You will either reject and create a bubble, reject and embrace this new world; stumble awkwardly through the mess or find a way to thrive while embracing your core values- that choice is also yours.

Take refuge in God, stay God conscience, be cognizant of peer pressure and anytime you feel like doing something you will regret don’t struggle with yourself, I say run to God and seek refuge with God.  Don’t ask for patience or perseverance or determination to overcome the tests and trials and temptations, ask God to grant you the grace to see yourself through the test, provide you with the Mercy of his refuge, acknowledge your desire (for X) so that you can ask God to provide you with what is better for your eternal life (REMEMBER THAT PART, this whole life thing isn’t about you being here, but rather it is for you to do your mission, God entrusted you with it, those things that count toward your afterlife).

Finally surround yourself with people who will bring the good out from you and encourage you to do the right things, you can’t shelter yourself, in fact, I highly recommend not doing that because when you get to working full time, you’re going to be in for a real surprise, but definitely don’t throw yourself out into the deep end of the lake when there are dangers you just are not aware of.

Disclaimer about the MSA- I just told you to hang out with Muslims, and part of college Muslim life is the Muslim Student Association (MSA).  I am an MSA-head, guilty of being a former vice president at my school and all sorts of other MSA activities-for-the-greater-good-of-the-Ummah.  While the MSA is amazing and necessary and critical, there are limits and there are just down right things that are more important than the MSA.  You should go to the MSA because its a community (you get great advice on classes, notes, tests, books…the company of good people); Ramadan and prayers on campus.  Halaqahs and other social events.  The MSA will enrich your life, will add drama to your life, will provide you with some of your best friends for life.  You will want to help out, eventually some of you will want to run for leadership positions- which is wonderful.  (I am speaking to the MYLP Alumni)

But all of you MYLP kids have a degree of activism that I believe should outgrow the MSA within the first two years of being there.  Do your thing and move on to other leadership positions outside of the “Muslim bubble”- dont get stuck there, make friends with other folks, be leaders in other causes, leave leadership of the MSA for the non-MYLP folks.

For those stumbling onto my blog who are Muslim, know this about the MSA: you need to figure out what the MSA means to you, what you have to offer the MSA, but more importantly what the MSA has to offer you.  If the equation does not equal out you should be asking yourself why are you involved in its activism and if the answer to that question is that “its fee’sabilillah brother” then I can’t help you.  You need to help yourself, nothing here or anywhere else will be of use to you because the blind answer to my question is not one that understands themselves very well.

Robert Frost has this oft repeated and very much cliched poem, I want you not to just know it, I want you to live it, experience it, embody it.  If you don’t want to be mediocre then I am telling you to be one with the poem.  If you want to survive, indeed, thrive in the new economy and the globalized world then you need to hustle, what I present to you above is your hustler manual.  Go forth and learn not to get by, but rather how to challenge yourself to become a better person, overcome those challenges (or learn from the failure) so that you can ultimately thrive as leaders.

Go back to the main MYLP blog post.

MYLP: Senioritis- You are a Senior in High School, What to do?

Posted: July 10, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, career, Education, freshman year, high school, identity, Islam, Junior year, Muslim Youth Leadership Program, Orange County, Politics, private university, Progressive, public education, senior year, Social, Strategy
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Students on the California Senate floor during CAIR’s MYLP program, preparing to debate and vote on their bills. Summer 2010

If you are a senior in high school then it might be to late for me to help you.  You either will apply the stuff above or will work on the stuff below to catch up.  Or you will stumble along in life like everyone else.  The thing is if you are going to college then  you either are BRILLIANT or ATHLETICALLY GIFTED or TALENTED in a way that sets you apart from everyone else.  If you aren’t that than you are the average college student.  Average is as average does.  As you make a decision as to what your doing with college, go back and read my post for Juniors.

If you haven’t thought about going to college, haven’t applied, haven’t heard back from or rejected by colleges then don’t worry your life isn’t over.  Either you recognize the situation, in which case your already ahead of the curve and can take actions to change your life around and make something of it.  The truth is most folks in your class don’t really know what to do, so they can’t make informed decisions and information is the hardest part, but the most important aspect in making life choices is to have the knowledge to make informed decisions.  Also, just because your grades were bad in high school does not prevent you from going to college and doing well, nor does it prevent you from going to a Top Rated university.  Don’t limit yourself because of what you perceive as insurmountable circumstances.

When you go back to read my post for Juniors in High School, make sure you pay special attention to the Community College part.  Understand the reality of the education system and the economy we are now in.  What you need to prioritize in your life at this very moment is to figure out what drives you, what motivates you, what holds you back- the fears, the anxiety, the long held doubts.  You need to confront yourself and prepare yourself to be a new person.

You need God in your life not drama.  You need solitude not social networks.  You need reflection not affection.  You need to prioritize not to solely find excitement in your life.  You must learn to master yourself if you want to make something out of yourself and every time you think you mastered yourself, thats the time to think long and hard because the devil is laughing at your arrogance, so turn to God my friend.  You will make mistakes- lots of them, you’re young, restless and think you know the world.  The worst part of this might be that you actually think the world owes you something, sorry that is a massive misperception, the world owes you nothing, but you owe the world respect.

If you want to thrive, you must focus on becoming a better person.  There are many routes to that better person, I am telling you that the best route for you- indeed the only route- should be one of God consciousness.

Go back to main MYLP blog post.

MYLP: You’re a Junior in High School, the madness is deafening!

Posted: July 10, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, career, CSU, Education, freshman year, high school, identity, Islam, Junior year, Muslim Youth Leadership Program, Orange County, private university, profession, public education, Strategy, UC, Uncategorized
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Students convening at MYLP 2010 before presenting their bills to the committee

You have a major life decision ahead of you.  There are lots of spoken and unspoken expectations.  There are lots of pressures on you from all sorts of places.  The thing is if you are going to college then you either are BRILLIANT or ATHLETICALLY GIFTED or TALENTED in a way that sets you apart from everyone else or mix of these, but if institutions are running after you then lets not kid ourselves with the situation at hand.  You are the proud membeer of the average class.  Average is as average does and your in good company because thats like 90% of your peers.

But you can set yourself apart.  First you have a choice- OPTION A) are you going to go to a four year institution or OPTION B) are you going to a community college.  Both choices offer options that will make a world of difference for you.

OPTION A)  The choice you have here is between a private school or a public school.  In the state of California, our education system was designed specifically around the time of that the job market and our national security required two types of people- people who were innovators and intellectuals, researchers and discoverers; and the flip side was the desire to have doers, appliers and processors.  For the first batch of people California created the exclusive University of California (UC’s) system and for the second batch of people there was the California State University (CSU’s) system.  The idea was that the UC’s would be exclusive, they would provide the basis for research, innovation, theoretical development while the CSU’s would provide the folks who would work in fields requiring the necessary technical know-how that couldn’t just be picked up in the workplace or taught in high school.

In fact, our public education system was designed around the industrial revolution, its purpose was to provide a steady supply of workers who had learned the basic life skills, were endowed with the simplest of historical, social, cultural and scientific knowledge so as to make American society functional.  But the primary purpose was to create people who listened and applied themselves to do what they were told to do.  Back then college and university life was an exclusive enclave for the rich, post-WWII saw the strategic shift in creating a broader and more accessible secondary education system so that the United States could send people to the moon, launch missiles, blow up entire cities, create faster planes, communicate in encoded messages- this was what President Eisenhower called the Military-Industrial-Complex.

Forty years later at the beginning of the 1990′s we had defeated the Soviet Union in a way that created massive wealth and allowed for the accumulation of that wealth like never before.  Our innovations, driven by the need to stay ten-steps ahead of the Russians had brought about the shrinking of the globe, we were now in the globalized society, where Americans set the norms and our culture was the standard one would compare too.  Ten years later the world drastically changed- globalization had equalized the field so that countries that could specialize and trade could also dictate the terms by which the world- specifically the US- would interact with them.  The global order while set by the West through institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, was shifting as countries discovered that not all of the world can modernize like the West, that there were different models to work with.

But this world order has been sustained by all of the fresh graduates that came out of the public and private university’s of the United States.  While we set the standard for the world, the world quickly learned and shifted into the new world order that was developing prior to 9/11.  Countries like China and India, Brazil and South Africa, along with Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Peru, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia as well as Russia would come to represent the alternative model.

You Dear High School student, who is looking only to your impending graduation, are part of a shifting world in which you have been taught all the wrong things and must rely on yourself to learn to cope with the new reality- in essence you need to hustle.  While you have all the material tools to do something with yourself, you can not- for the most part- compete against a capital driven market.  The UC’s are fishing for foreign students to take your seats so they can get more tuition, which in turn will fill the gaps in funding that is occurring from the budget cuts that they face, this in turn will help the UC’s to push research, create top notch scholars, whose work will create new companies and bring in new possible revenue streams- the education system you must understand is not about education for the purist of reasons, its a beast of the capitalist system and behaves to appropriately cash in on that system.

In the next decade, if things continue to go the way they do, people like you, like me, my brother and sister, my cousins, will not be able to access the UC system.  If we are lucky we might be able to get into the CSU’s to become the tools of a new-non-existent-manufacturing-based economy.  But to get into that system we will pay what a UC or private school tuition currently costs.  In essence the economic market will cut us off from higher education.   That might be a good thing, some people argue that the UC system is not meant for everyone- I mean why are we seeing so many people going to a UC to get a degree in Anthropology or Psychology?  The fact is most people are taking out inordinate amounts of loans to get bachelor degrees in fields where jobs are not readily available, why treat the UC system as an entitlement when it should be a privilege?

You can reject my opinion or you can accept it, you can also believe that the above argument for access to the UC’s is valid, or not.  That doesn’t matter, because I am not writing this to come up with some conclusion on the role of secondary education.  This is about where you are at right now and what you mean to do with your life.  If you decide to go to a four year institution- either private or public- then you better damn well know what you are doing with your life.  Its not a joke, and its not all about partying and living it up.

You are a poor broke student who tries to live a fabulously rich life and something is going to hurt at one time or another- either you’re going to hurt now by dumping this delusion about a life of all sorts of freedom and studying at a college or you’re going to hurt for the next 30 years of your life as you pay off the loans you take out to get your undergraduate degree.  You better know what you want and how to get there.

You might choose a state school- then your choice is between a UC or a CSU.  If you know that theory and research are things critical in your future professional life- choose a UC.  Not all CSU’s offer you that opportunity as they are designed to be technical schools.  This is a HUGE generalization but I will stick to it in order to simplify your decision making process.  If you really care to, you can spend a lot of your time researching all the programs offered by CSU and UC to figure out whats the best choice, but if you are already hella confused and don’t know what to do then well this is the best framework to approach this whole situation.

Neither of the choices is a good or bad choice when it comes to CSU’s or UC’s.  Rather, the way I frame it to you, is that your choice (regardless of the institution) only good if you make it on the premise that you’re fully informed about where you choose to go, that you have a plan on what you are going to do there and that you have a basic understanding of the role that institution will play in your future career success.  That is a good choice and what ever best fits that is the school for you.

Your parents will want you to go to a prestigious school, people expect you to go to some name brand school, social and cultural pressure are pushing you to go somewhere that will bring honor to your parents and your family.  Cut the bull shit and decide to go to a school where you know you can succeed and where you will get the best deal that works for your specific circumstance.  Do not let other people far removed from you dictate your choices, the only one’s who should carry that influence are your parents but even they are limited because they aren’t the ones who will be studying there, you will, but they will expect you to perform at a high level.

When choosing the four year institution I gave you two choices in California, with one sub-choice in the public schools- UC vs CSU.  Well in private schools you have a similar choice as well.  You can choose the brand name school- USC or Stanford, Harvard or Yale- you get the picture?

Right, but then there are what are known as the small liberal arts schools.  These are smaller private institutions that are historically focused on particular type or form of education/experience.  Here in California examples are Pomona, Occidental (where President Obama went for part of his undergrad), Pepperdine (its actually Evangelical), Chapman (also a developed Protestant college), Loyola (Catholic Jesuit), Claremont McKenna, Whittier College, Soka University; across the country you have Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, and surprisingly, Westpoint, US Military Academy or the Naval Academy and then you have schools that are historically Black like Howard,  Tuskegee and Spelman.

For me the future of education right now, rests in these small private schools.  If you’re state public university education tuition is comparable to one of these small schools, you might be better off going to one of them rather then your school and here is why:  For starters your public institution depends on funding from taxpayers, budgets dictate programs, cuts, growths, services etc.  Most brand named public schools (i.e. UCLA, CUNY, UW) are student cattle farms the first two years- you take General education courses that are 100+ students in each class, never see your professor let alone interact one-on-one, most teaching is done by underpaid, overworked, undervalued (non-unionized) graduate students.  The bottom line is that you are paying a lot of money at this premium institution just because of the “BRAND NAME” and its supposed quality of education.  That education unfortunately is for its upper division courses, and more frequently even those are being taught more by Graduate TA’s than professors, so their graduate program is really where that “brand associated education” is taking place.  Professors at these institutions are there because they wish to teach but are pushed to publish their research, to push the academic/intellectual boundaries either by choice or through administrative emphasis on rankings, the end result is that you- the undergraduate student- is not the primary concern for them (even if they genuinely wish it to be) but definitely not the University.

Now if you take a small liberal arts school like Amherst, you’re probably going to be paying the same amount of tuition to sit in a freshman class of probably no more than 70 students that at UCLA would be in a auditorium of 180 students, and probably  filled beyond capacity.  To entice you to go to these liberal arts schools, administrators there are giving guarantees of graduating within four years or your tuition is waived (whereas some UC’s are kicking students out if they don’t get their degrees within a certain period of time, though for many students the problem is that their classes aren’t offered or are wait listed- most common now at the CSU’s), or generous scholarships for you to attend their school.  All the while they emphasize the intimate nature of the college experience there.

That is why I think this is probably the best educational buy on the market.  You get a four year educational experience comparable to a brand-name institute, possibly better grades and more likely glowing professor recommendation letters.  If you desire to go on to a master’s or Ph.D. program, you would have a leg up on graduates from BRAND NAME SCHOOL and also would actually go to a BRAND NAME SCHOOL’s program that got it the ranking it has, without suffering through the undergraduate doldrums (or student loans…).  Granted a liberal arts school might not get you to become a Nobel Laurette in Physics, that will require a BRAND NAME SCHOOL I fear….or maybe not, if you can figure out a creative way to get into a Ph.D. program at said brand name school through the liberal arts institutional education….I mean President Obama became a Harvard lawyer through his liberal arts institution, so there is some food for thought.

A small note on Private institutions (i.e. USC, Stanford, Yale etc), they are great opportunities, but if you are poor or utterly stuck in the middle class they are expensive ordeals unless you get a scholarship or there is a particularly pressing desire to go to that particular school (i.e. you know you want to be a diplomat and got into Columbia or Georgetown, well you hit the jackpot because that is definitely the way to get to the State Department).  But I think these private institutions are a lot like their public counterparts, approach with caution, have a plan, be flexible and figure out finances before committing yourself to anything.

There is always an alternative for people who know exactly what they want and people who feel they want a chance to explore their options by themselves some time with their parents/social pressures etc.  That is the community college route.  It is by far still the most worthwhile education experience, but its also a hazard of folks who get stuck in its maze and never find a way out.  DO NOT BE THE LATTER.

Community colleges are local- if you can bring yourself to stay home for another two years (or maybe three given how the budget cuts are really creating havoc on courses offered at the community college level too).  They are cheap- even with tuition increases you are paying pennies on the credit as compared to the four year tuition counterpart.  Speaking of which, you are making the smartest decision EVER!  The only difference between the community college courses and the first two years of General Education courses you take at a four year institution is price.  At UCLA you will take the same required classes you would take at Santa Monica Community College, except you pay pennies for your units compared to UCLA.  Besides being cheap, community colleges offer intimate learning environments, a very specific motivation path (to transfer out to a four year institution to get get your Bachelors in something) and the ease of living at home.  If you can’t handle doing your own chores, living with people, dealing with bills and all that stuff, stay at home so you can ensure your good grades.

The crazy thing about this secret route to a bachelors degree is that you go for two years to a community college and whatever school you transfer to is the school you get a diploma for.  So you spend three years at San Fernando Community College and transfer to UC Berkley, you graduate from there with a degree in economics, well, your diploma will say University of California, Berkley.  Its as if you never went to a community college!

The catch you ask?  Well for starters transferring to a UC or CSU from a community college is based on your GPA at the junior college, its based on a precise formula of courses you need to take in order to qualify for being considered for a transfer.  A good number of folks start at junior college with aspirations to transfer but they get stuck, they start working and they loose sight when they taste the wonders of a pay check.  Others get lost in the maze and don’t make it through, because junior college puts you in touch with folks that might not have aspirations like yours and are content with mediocrity.  Transferring, while guaranteed to a UC or CSU, is not always guaranteed to the school you want to go to.

If this route appeals to you, then plan it out.  You need to go and see what the transfer requirements are, what the college in your locality offers, when you will take what classes, when you need to apply to transfer.  I advice you to make a three year calendar where you plot out the above mentioned things so you get an idea of how to evaluate your progress.  Leave room for the reality of our economy- i.e. budget cuts, pressures on cutting classes, inability to take the classes you need in order to stay on track- so have back ups and options that allow you to keep moving toward your goal.

If you really want to get a leg up because you feel you are committed to this community college rout, you should consider leaving high school early in your junior year- yes, you can actually do that.  Go read the blog post on “young’ins” to get an idea of what this is all about.

To recap, regardless of what choice you make toward your college career the importance is that you understand what your getting yourself into.  Do your research, but most importantly understand yourself.  Reflect on how you study, what academic environment you thrive in, what are some career options for you- do you need to explore your choices, or do you know what you want and thats it?  Is it what you want to do or is it what others are telling you to do? (Remember if you can figure out a pitch you can possibly sell it to your parents and get their buy in’s, parents will listen to reason if there is maturity in your argument, but I understand there are all sorts of parents, hopefully yours will surprise you)  Don’t choose a school because its “famous” or that its in a specific city or area.  Those might not be really good variables to use to make a choice, or they might be, for instance I knew I did’t want to be in a school that was in a “big city”- UCLA and Cal were not attractive to me at all, but on the other end I didn’t want to go to a school out in the middle of nowhere like UC Merced or UC Davis.  After visiting UC Davis I realized I would have preferred the Davis environment because of its location away from things that distracted me at UCSD- primarily the beach.

Finally your junior year, what do you do?  Well get good grades.  Don’t slack now.  Remember that any thing you do requires your passion as well as quality, not quantity.  I know there are students, MYLP’er’s, who volunteer with 10 organizations.  As a person who hired interns, a resume that showed that much “volunteer” work told me only one thing- this person is not committed.  To me if you volunteered at one organization but grew as a leader there, had shown that you acquired skills and developed as a person, you were a qualified student versus the person who just threw themselves around doing things.  Quality over quantity- always.  These things are important not to just put on your resume or what they call make you a “well rounded person” but because they should be leaving you with real life experience, challenging you to grow from being a juvenile toward a mature and responsible young adult, and providing you with some transferable skills.

In more relevant terms, as an applicant to a university you will be given a prompt to write your personal essay on, something like:

BRAND NAME UNIVERSITY students possess intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development.

Well, most of your peers will respond with mediocre essays.  If I were an admissions counselor at said BNU, I would most likely yawn.  As an applicant you want me to perk up, I am reading between 75-100 essays during the week leading up to sending out admissions decisions.   Your peers will resort to exaggerated and cliched language to set themselves apart.  They will be mediocre or they will STAND OUT to the point where I have to put the applicant into the admission pile.  If you don’t stand out- because your mediocre like me- well you need to answer this prompt in a way to perk my interest.  I believe that “perk” is an applicant who in their essay can directly, simply but creatively (with a simplistic style) show to me “intellectual vitality” through their “experience” (most likely this is the easier one to approach, an “idea” is very challenging, most will miss the mark and write a really crappy essay, but if you hit the mark, that will be a STAND OUT APPLICANT).

Well your volunteer experience offers you a real life opportunity to present the unique person you are and how you bring something of value as a future BNU student.  You will do this by succinctly describing said experience, connecting it with your intellectual capability (probably something you learned in one of your classes at school, or if you have life experience, maybe as a boy scott, or in your Quran class, or learning to sail or surf…), the specific skill or set of skills that grew out of that experience and something that connects to the maturity, development you identified as well as MOST IMPORTANTLY how said BNU is going to help you over all other BNU’s and if you are succinct your academic pursuit/professional goals at BNU.

So putting it another way- why did you apply to MYLP?  What did you expect from MYLP?  What did you get from MYLP?  How is MYLP connected to your past experiences?  How is MYLP going to help you toward your future goals?  What specific skill can you identify that you got from MYLP?  Have you, or how will you, develop and apply that skill moving forward?  What other experiences do you think you can pursue to build on your MYLP experience?  Was there a particular idea that sparked your curiosity at MYLP?  Was there something you learned there that challenged you, or an experience at MYLP that was challenging?  Why?  What did you learn from that challenging experience?  What made it challenging for you?  Are there past experiences you had that connect, contradict, support you MYLP experience?  Was there someone that stood out at MYLP that you feel might be a role model?  What didn’t you like about MYLP, and will that influence you in your future choices?

If you answer these questions with a short sentence or two, or worse with one word, then you will produce a mediocre essay.  If you want more then mediocre, then spend some time reflecting and writing out your thoughts to the above questions.  Once you do that begin to delve past these questions and ask yourself about your life experiences up until this point.  Look for the similarities and differences.  Look for the arch that might be developing in your life story.  Think hard about how you have changed and personal experiences (or stories) that really stand out for you.  This type of introspective writing process will produce a personal essay that will stand out, but remember you shouldn’t expect this to happen overnight, in a day, a week or month.  Give yourself time to produce something of quality.  If you do this you will be learning some really important skills that will help you in your scholarship applications, your graduate school applications, your job interviews.

If you are applying to a private school or a small liberal arts school, expect a phone or in person interview.  Those are the make-it-or-break it situations.  You can BS your way through them like you did your essay, or you can learn important life skills by developing your story, by figuring out how to brand yourself, by having something of substance, value and coherence to talk about when you go into one of these interviews.  Trust me, I spent a few years doing interviews with interns and I knew bull shit when I heard it because I designed my questions in a way that would require a person to answer them with the things I was looking for in an answer.  College admissions folks have, in the end, perfected the skills of admissions and they are judging every speck of ink submitted to them and will compare your answers in an interview with the application.  The choice, like so many others, is yours.

Remember while you are applying to colleges during your senior year, you should not forget that you need to maintain your grades and that you should continue to volunteer or work wherever you have- quality is only as good as consistency.  Consistency here isn’t about college applications, rather, its about the future once you get in.  Once you start college that first summer should be spent in a quality internship experience or meaningful work- if you haven’t worked or volunteered since your junior year of high school, which would be a span of about 15-18 months- then your part of the crowd and not a shining star, regardless its your choice.

Also during your senior year, if you plan to go away and live on your own, you need to start learning some life skills.  First, you need to sit down (with your parents ideally) to learn how to live within your means, on a budget.  You need to learn how to shop for groceries, how to wash your clothes, basic life survival skills should be learned at this point.  Unless you are rich and your parents will provide a maid for you, this is all crap you will need to do for yourself.  Worse if you live with others, they won’t know how to do it, or if they do they will expect you to do your own cleaning.  Budget is most important thing though in my mind, its the pit fall of our society because NO ONE AT ANY POINT TEACHES THIS ISSUE, but everyone is expected to know how to, yet so many people front by charging everything on a credit card.  Financial problems could sink your education, your future goals, your grades, your sanity and your relationships.  If you don’t know about your parents financial situation and expect them to cover for you, you might have a rude awakening.  If you know your parents financial situation then you should understand where you stand financially, no government agency is going to be coming to bail you or your parents out.

Also identify a person or two that you can rely on for college advice- specifically dealing with social situations- this might be your parents but I recommend someone who is neutral and won’t judge you, but be genuinely interested in providing you with unbiased advice.  This is important because at some point you will rely on these people to help you figure out how to cope, deal and respond to situations where your roommate is from hell, you’ve found yourself in a compromised situation, you just need to vent about your parents/social pressure or you’ve developed a thing for your TA and now pay attention to them more then your course work.  Yeh, this shit is real and its cray’ so find someone who you can rely on to provide sound advice on how to manage it.

From now until you start college you need to know yourself, know what allows you to thrive, know that you can generally plot out your future and finally that the experiences you apply yourself to should be quality experiences.  (I believe for the rest of your life you will be developing as a person, so now is the time to have the tools in hand on how to become the God intended you to be, the mission you were in trusted with by Him.  You don’t need to know what it is now, but if you seek it out by preparing yourself, when you find it, that will be when your life will be most fulfilling.)  You should find the connection between your passions- music? sports? drama? technology? academics?- and your volunteer experience along with your academics.  You want to set yourself apart, then apply yourself toward quality and reject the herding of the flock of sheep toward quantity, grades and BRAND NAME UNIVERSITY for the sake of doing what is expected of you.  Again its your choice to shine, I just provided you with some guideposts to do so.

Go back to the main MYLP blog post- by the way, kudos to you for making it through this post all the way!

Frustrated by Syria?-Try a Subversive Marketing Campaign

Posted: June 13, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Democrat, Justice, Marketing, Politics, Progressive, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy, Syria
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God I am so sick of seeing and hearing about how America and the West continue to do nothing about the massacre of innocent people, especially children.  To be left incompetent by the likes of Russia and China on an issue that sits squarely upon our shoulders is not just depressing because it shows exactly the type of Super Power the United  States of America is today but also a shame to those early Pilgrims who chose this land, and those Revolutionaries and soldiers the continued to die for this country, to make it a “beckon for the world.”

We talk about freedom and democracy, but there are real people today who are dying for those values and principles in Syria.  Maybe we just don’t have the necessary political environment to take any action, so its the circumstances we are left with as Americans.  Let the killing continue; the Butcher of Damascus slaughter children while our President and his administration sit back unable to say anything of significance.

In my own act of defience I sent a special Father’s Day reminder along with the First Lady’s message.

for fathers day the children of syria spill their blood for freedom and democracy

Subvert a campaign, subversive marketing, lets see how many “Free Syria’s” we can get out there to wish the “President a Happy Father’s Day”   Just go the campaigns website to fill out a card with your name as “Free Syria” or a likeness there of, then facebook, tweet, tumble or whatever your social media fancy is out of it.

Day 2- 70 Day Challenge- Get Up Off That ‘thaang!

Posted: February 13, 2012 in 70 day challenge, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, diabetes, Health, heart disease, obesity, Social, Strategy
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Checking in for Day 2 on my 70 Day Challenge- hold me accountable at youtube, pinterest, and twitter.

Some thoughts to reflect on, especially if it pertains to you:

The average American man’s waist size is a ponderous 38.8 inches, up from 37.5 in 1988, according to the journal Obesity Research. (David Zinczenko, The Abs Diet, Kindle Locations 263-264)

Physicians’ Health Study that has tracked 22,701 male physicians since 1982, they found that men whose waists measured more than 36.8 inches had a significantly elevated risk for myocardial infarction, or heart attack, in which an area of the heart muscle dies or is permanently damaged by a lack of bloodflow. (id. Kindle Location 261-263)

The National Diabetes Education Program suggests that there is a direct correlation between heart disease and diabetes.  They suggest that 65% of people diagnosed with diabetes die from from heart disease related issues- 65%!  Diabetes in essence increases the chances of creating more problems for Americans when it comes to heart issues and complications.  Whats even scarier is that year after year an average of 13 million Americans have been diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes, the most recent being Paula Deen from Food Network.  So while Americans don’t like being told what to do- or what to eat- and we don’t like being told how to live- more specifically, what to not eat (i.e. diets)- we definitely value our lives, but unfortunately, the culture of consumption in this country is killing us.  All those advances in allowing us to live longer, get nutritious foods and live healthy lives are being destroyed by our waist sizes.

My goal is to go from a waist size 36 to a waist size of 32.  Currently I am at 35, so just by exerting a whole lot of energy over two days- including crunches and push ups at night and in the morning- controlling my diet, mainly being very cognizant of the amount of food intake, I cut back an inch- yaay for results!  I love the VW commercial because it shows that if a dog can “get up off that ‘thaang” to do what it loves, so can I!

An this is a epidemic in the US, especially amongst kids.  Obsiety is literally sapping away our youth into a world of diseases that to me seem worse than polio or influenza, in that the cure lies in the habits and education of individuals; no flu shot or vaccination will make diabetes or heart disease disappear off the face of the planet.  The First Lady has an initiative that you should check out, called “Lets Move“, where I found this report, which to me is quite startling:

Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. The numbers are even higher in African American and Hispanic communities, where nearly 40% of the children are overweight or obese. If we don’t solve this problem, one third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives. Many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma.

You can check out the report for yourself here.  One of the key recommendation is for kids, and families, to do 40-60 minutes of physical activity a day!  Having seen the recommendation now over and over again from various health institutes, initiatives, doctors and remembering back to how much I hated that 1 hour of Physical Education I had to do in elementary, middle and high school- I realize that it really was keeping me healthy, and what I need today is 1 hour every day to do something physical.  It doesn’t have to be the gym, or lifting weights, but 1 hour of continuous activity that pushes your body and builds a sweat is critical to stay healthy!

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