Ann Marie Tran — Advocacy Associate — Asian Americans for Community Improvement

Ann Marie Tran actively participated in nonprofit work throughout high school and identified it early on as one of her passions. However, Tran decided to take a break from strenuous work and took a hiatus from nonprofit while at University of California, Santa Cruz, only to come back to it later. While Tran admitted that finding balance between her many passions was difficult, she stressed the importance of reflecting back and evaluating past decisions to ultimately reach a healthy relationship between life and work. Currently working at the nonprofit Asian Americans for Community Involvement, Tran plans to study paralegal classes and become a lawyer.

Her main advice to students?

 “When you see something that you like and you want, make a step forward to take it, but also work on building your resume and building yourself up,” Tran said. “Not only your resume, but your character and your qualities to deserve it. You can’t just get something — you need to work for it.”

Terry Trumbull — Environmental Science Professor — San Jose State University; Santa Clara University

Terry Trumbull is an environmental scientist who has worked for a multitude of agencies, including the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trumbull began as a Chair of the California Waste Management Board for five years, eventually becoming a managing partner of the Trumbull Law Firm. His occupation includes solving environment-related issues for over 200 California cities and clients. Trumbull advises students to take up internships and other learn more about all types of science.

“I cannot overemphasize the importance of understanding science,” Trumbull said.

 He also advocates for student involvement in contemporary issues by taking up internships or jobs in related fields.

“I don’t care whether its an environmental one [organization] or not,” Trumball said. “There’s just a zillion different opportunities to make a difference.”

Abha Kumar — Ophthalmologist — Santa Clara Valley Medical

Abha Kumar began her career in medicine at the age of 16 while at a missionary  school in India. After travelling to the U.S., Kumar began her residency at Stanford for ophthalmology and currently works part time at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in that same field. Though entering the field of medicine requires many years of work and “150% of the hours you are willing to give,” Kumar believes that no other field is as gratifying. As Kumar’s teachers and mentors shaped her decision to enter medicine, she likewise advises students to understand medicine’s demands and find a leader.

“When you are thinking of going into the career of medicine, this is the advice I would give you: research the field, come to talks like this, research on the internet, talk to people who … are in medicine and ask them questions about what a life in medicine is,” Kumar said. “The second step is to see if you can actually go and work with somebody who has done medicine or is practicing medicine. You may have this idea in your head from Grey’s Anatomy or ER of what you think medicine is, but when you actually line up after many years of studying you may realize this is nothing like what you read.”

Altay Sendil — Qualitative Researcher — Pinterest

Altay Sendil is currently a Qualitative User Experience Researcher at Pinterest, and conducts research and surveys. Sendil grew up in Saudi Arabia and attended Georgia Tech, majoring in mechanical engineering. He felt unfulfilled with his engineering job, and decided to return to Graduate School.

For the past few years Sendil has been working with Pinterest, and previously worked as a Project Lead at design and consulting firm IDEO in Palo Alto.

“I think of my job as understanding everyone’s perspective reality,” Sendil said. He said he enjoys trying to understand one’s views and the motivations behind their decisions, using such skills to analyze data and information for his job.

Tim Kawakami — Sports Writer — San Jose Mercury News

Tim Kawakami writes as a sports columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Throughout high school in California, his original intentions were to be a lawyer or a rock ‘n roll critic. It was only after attending Northwestern University and observing journalism students passionately covering sports stories that Kawakami realized he could live his love of writing through journalism. The main piece of advice he tells students is to actively participate and show bosses that they are capable of taking responsibilities.

“Just show up. I tell this to beginning journalists all the time. Eighty percent of this [journalism] job is showing up and making sure they [bosses] know you’re going to show up,” Kawakami said. “Determination and curiosity would be the two things that bosses want to see. The boss has to hire you to do the job. You can say you can do the job but the boss has to know that first. Once they give you that opportunity you gotta run through it.”

Avi Lele — Entrepreneur — Stockpile CEO

Avi Lele is an entrepreneur who founded Stockpile, a company that produces stock gift cards. Lele grew up in Tennessee and Massachusetts, and later studied engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and law at Harvard College. While Lele practiced law for over 15 years, he decided to pursue Stockpile after discovering that a large number of people are interested in obtaining various companies’ stock. Lele says that perseverance is important as an entrepreneur.

“We’ve faced every challenge you can think of,” Lele said. “Everyone says ‘No you can’t do this. This has never been done.’ You just have to stay focused. If you think you know what you’re doing then figure it out. There’s a reason a lot of things haven’t been done before. It’s because people just figure you can’t do them but the truth is you can.”

Cordelia Duff — Creative Lead — Kiwi Inc.

While writing may have been Cordelia Duff’s initial passion, by chance it allowed her to enter the field of game design when she received an internship to create video game story lines. A University of Chicago dropout, Duff began an internship at Kiwi Inc. at the age of 19 where she worked to create story and character lines. An aspect of working at a game design company that Duff herself has experienced is its instability. One main lesson from working in game design is to never take failure personally and learn to grow from them.

“What I’m starting to learn through all this instability in my job is that … there are so many different things in your life that are important and so many different things that change and grow,” Duff said. “That’s usually a really good thing. I got laid off and it turned out awesome because  I got back in contact with the people at Kiwi and found out that the CEO and two other people were trying to revive the company.”

Rob Koo — Story Board Artist —  Dreamworks

Rob Koo is a Dreamworks animator and storyboard artist, and for the past 20 years has worked on films such as “Kung Fu Panda,” “Chicken Run” and “Shrek.” Koo first began work in the “grueling” animation industry at age 17 and developed his skills at an art-based high school in Canada. After graduation, Koo worked for multiple television series including “Care Bears,” traveling to nations such as Sweden and Denmark to observe and work in animation there. In 2001 and 2010 he won two Annie Awards for excellence in animation for his work in “Shrek” and “Merry Madagascar” respectively. As a storyboard artist, Koo assembles movies together, creating a blueprint that details how a movie progresses. Koo advised students to follow their passions regardless of how difficult such profession is.

“Make sure you do something you really love to do,” Koo said.

Philippe Bouissou — Managing Director — Blue Dots Partners

Philippe Bouissou graduated from a university in Paris, France, holds a B.S. in mathematics and has a Ph.D. in physics and chaos theory. A former Apple employee, Bouissou now works as a consultant to streamline companies’ business opportunities and increase revenue. However, Bouissou’s initial aspiration was to become an Air Force pilot, a dream cut short due to his poor eyesight.

“If anything, I was sure that I was going to be a pilot,” Bouissou said. “I was working hard and there was nothing that could derail me from my dream. Then it happened and I couldn’t be a pilot. The first lesson I learned is to have a dream — that’s great — but also think about what happens if for whatever reason you can’t fulfill that dream.”

Bouissou also advised students to look beyond money incentives when searching for a job, and instead suggested finding something that they are passionate about.

“To me success has never been about the money,” Bouissou said. “It’s been about how happy I am and how much I learn and grow out of the job I do everyday. … You need to look at yourself very deeply and say, ‘What is it that I really, really like?’”

Lisa Gevelber — VP Marketing — Google