Pact reflection 2

Thomas Woodside
3-7, August 20
Kiva
Kevin O'Brien
kevin@kiva.org

Towards the end of my time at Kiva, I began a new project that aimed to cut down on the amount of time Kiva's community support team has to spend responding to common and tedious questions. For instance, despite entries on their FAQ page, Kiva gets many email requests with questions about how to change passwords and email addresses, which are all answered in a very similar way.
I had written a program that attempted to identify the most likely existing solutions for new questions. The program could identify the top 3 most likely solutions, and testing showed that the correct solution would likely be among those 3 more than 50% of the time.
I presented my findings at a meeting with the community support team and the machine learning weekly meeting. We brainstormed various ways to present the predictions: we could show them on Kiva’s website before Kiva issued a request, or we could include them in the confirmation email they receive after they submit a request. Hopefully in the future, these predictions will allow the community support team to focus on more important cases.
After the meeting, I worked with Melissa, a software engineer, to set up a new server environment that anyone at Kiva could use to do simple data analysis. We ended up staying in the office until about 7 because of some tricky issues with the setup. In the end, we had it set up, and now anyone at Kiva who knows a little Python can easily do analysis on Kiva’s data.

Brian Mhatre
7/5/2018 1:30
Penisula Bridge
Rolando Victoria
rvictoria@menloschool.org

Going into my second week of teaching at Penisula bridge I had a whole new group of students. I focused the second week of the class primarily on website development. The kids the second week of the program were a little less interested in the material and more interested in playing Roblox. This presented a bit of a challenge when trying to keep the kids entertained for an hour. I tried to incorporate more fun stuff into my lessons and reference Roblox in a lot of my explanations. Managing sixth graders definitely tested my patience on multiple occasions but luckily my calm and relaxed nature won out on all occasions. I think my overall impact was relatively limited since I was only with the kids for two weeks and wasn’t able to go that deep into any subjects. The only impact I think I could have had on the students is encouraging them to pursue computer science in the future. Although I also did teach them some useful things they can do in terminal (their computers text interface). Overall I enjoyed my time working with these kids and I learned a lot from them. Communicating with them effectively was a skill that I honed during my time a bridge and I think this also helped me become a more understanding person in general.

Brian Mhatre
7/5/2018 1:30
Penisula Bridge
Rolando Victoria
rvictoria@menloschool.org

Going into my PACT project I wasn’t sure how I was going to be received. I was trying to teach computer science to kids how to code so I was definitely a little worried about how interested the kids would be. For the first week, I taught the kids a combination of lessons from code.org as well as show them cool things that they could do in terminal. The kids took a little interest in the lessons but I took quite a bit of encouragement to get them to do the work. However, they were a lot more receptive towards learning stuff in terminal. I showed them a bunch of commands that allowed them to do all sorts of things with their computer and they were really genuinely interested in learning more. This was really encouraging for me and was really nice to see. Going into this opportunity I felt if I could have an impact on just one kid and change their views on a future in computer science I would consider the opportunity a success. I am really appreciative to have had this opportunity to share something I am very passionate about with kids who were willing to learn. At the end of the day while I may not have had the biggest impact on any individual kid I think I did do a good job of showing the kids some of the cool stuff that can be accomplished with Computer Science.

Raab PACT Reflection 2

Colin Raab

April 28th, May 5th and May 12th

Dance Arts Center

Carol Nicholas

+16502187871

As the S.N.A.P. spring session came to a close, the final performance loomed ahead.
Like any vaguely theatrical performance, things would always come together at the
last minute, sometimes even during the performance itself. In the final few classes
I had worked with 2 students: Alessandra and Jacob, a student whose siblings had
attended Menlo, and whom I’ve worked with many times. Jacob, like Alessandra, is
rarely vocal, but is generally much more willing to jump headfirst into the activity at
hand. Jacob’s enthusiasm is refreshing, but it’s much more rewarding to see a student
come out of their shell and begin to enjoy dancing and singing because of your help.
Jacob makes me feel comfortable, but my job as a buddy is to make the students
comfortable. In the final sessions before the performance, Alessandra was still struggling
with some of themoves, not because they were difficult, but because she had a lot of
inhibitions. In this sense, she isn’t very different from many of us, who allow ourselves to
be controlled by our self-conscious nature, and then fail to really enjoy our time together
with others. When the final performance came, her previous hesitancy was replaced by
a certain excitement as she knew her family and relatives would be in the audience. My
role as the ‘encouragement’ then shifted to ‘guidance’, as I needed to direct her
enthusiasm into performing the correct dance moves. At the end of the performance,
instead of reverting to her usually uncommunicative self, she proudly said her name in
front of the audience as instructed during the final bow. My experience proved the
profound influence a buddy can have on someone with a mental disability, and the
invaluable reward a buddy gains in terms of compassion, patience and confidence.

Raab PACT Reflection 1

Colin Raab

March 24th, 31st and April 7th

Dance Arts Center

Carol Nicholas

+16502187871

At Dance Arts Center, the spring session of S.N.A.P., a program aimed towards sharing
the joy of dancing and the arts with special needs kids, had begun. Each volunteer
student might be paired with the same buddy or a different buddy for the 10 weeks,
and in the past I had done both. This session, I began with Alessandra, a girl I had met
in previous S.N.A.P. sessions, as well as when I volunteered as a referee for AYSO’s
special needs VIP program. She was originally hesitant to have someone new as a
buddy, as she had had the same buddy for the past 2 or 3 sessions. Needless to say,
it took a couple classes before she would even talk to me, but she rarely talked to
anyone other than her mom in the first place. In previous sessions, I typically worked
with kids who were pretty vocal (sometimes too much so when they would disrupt the
entire class), so working with someone who refused to communicate other than in
head-shaking was at first a trying experience. Once she had become accustomed to
being back at S.N.A.P., Alessandra more readily participated in the dances and
became more animated in her gestures and facial expressions. I noticed that as she
enjoyed each class more and more, so did I, because I felt that my directions and
efforts to convey the dances and songs to her were having a greater effect.

PACT Reflection 2

Bridget Quigley
5/29/18, 6:00pm
Scott Ammon
Eshoo.SAB@mail.house.gov

The students on the advisory board attended meetings twice a month in order to give and receive feedback about our developing policy papers. Each student reviewed approximately 5 papers per meeting, and our finished drafts were officially reviewed and edited by members of Congresswoman Eshoo's board in her Washington, D.C. office.

I really appreciated all of the feedback, especially from her assistants in Washington, D.C. because it felt as though my policy paper was truly going to be valued and appreciated by the Congresswoman, and not simply a project that she would not pay any attention to.

I continued to work on my solution, pulling statistics about mass deportation from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement fiscal year studies. By the time I finalized my proposal, I was urging the Congresswoman to work with the national government to devise a system in which adult undocumented immigrants could earn citizenship and permanent residency by providing proof of a clean criminal record, steady employment and income, and other necessary requirements.

Finally, the day of the presentation had arrived. As nervous as I was about the Congresswoman reviewing my policy paper as I recited my speech, I was thrilled that she would finally be able to hear the product of my months of hard work and research.

After speaking, I was delighted to hear the Congresswoman tell me that she absolutely loved my proposal, and that she agreed that the government needed a system such as the one I suggested. She told me that she had been working on a similar project with the government, and had high hopes for its success.

The Congresswoman's positive reaction to my proposal was more than I could have asked for. Not only was I happy that she approved of my ideas, but that she was currently working on something similar and would try to implement some of my ideas into her project was amazing. I felt as though my work was truly making an impact on a national level, and hopefully someday soon it will be able to help adult undocumented immigrants across the country gain citizenship and permanent residency. I felt like I was not just a student working on a project, this experience actually enabled me to make a change on a national level, and help those in desperate need.

PACT Reflection 1

Bridget Quigley
12/12/17, 6:00pm
Scott Ammon
Eshoo.SAB@mail.house.gov

I have always been very passionate about social justice and human rights. When I started high school, I wanted to participate in extracurriculars that would allow me to exercise this passion. I joined my city's youth council, and started studying journalism so that I could write for my school's newspaper and produce pieces about injustice and human rights violations. However, I wanted to enact change on a larger scale than my school and local community. So I joined California Congresswoman Anna Eshoo's Student Advisory Board.

After submitting my application and being accepted onto the board, I had no idea what to expect before the first meeting. When I arrived, I was surrounded by a group of students just as passionate as I was. Our meeting was lead by one of the Senior Field Representatives of Congresswoman Eshoo's office. Our project for the year was to choose a topic that we were passionate about, identify a problem, and develop a solution. Each student would then propose this solution to the Congresswoman herself at a board meeting in May.

I immediately began to search for a problem relating to social justice. I settled on fighting for the protection of adult undocumented immigrants. While people are fighting to protect children of undocumented immigrants through DACA and the DREAM Act, adults are being forced to return to their "home countries" after having remained law-abiding people and building a life in the United States. I felt that this was unjust and began to develop a solution to this issue of mass deportation.

Our positions on the board allowed us to utilize computers that had access to government information to help us conduct our research. I hoped that my extensive research and effort on this policy paper would make a significant impact on the Congresswoman.

Francie Huebner
July 1 8:30-3:00
Mr. Victoria
rvictoria@menloschool.org

Throughout my time at Bridge, I also discovered my strengths when working in a team, as I joined with some of my fellow TA’s to organize field trips, field days, and the events of the last day. Although I rather take a leadership role, I learned how to delegate my responsibilities and learn how to be flexible so I wasn’t overwhelmed with all of the details. For example, when organizing the first field day, I had spent two days searching for fun games for the students to play throughout the day in a rotating schedule. I had one of the TA’s find games to play, while I worked on timing. The next day I created a spreadsheet of the day and asked one of my more artistically inclined TA’s to draw a map of the day. Even though all of this hard work went into organizing, when I met with one of the teachers who wanted to plan they field day, they decided to change every part of what I had planned. Although frustrating because the field day was the next day, it was a valuable lesson to learn how to adapt quickly and efficiently. It took some extra time to figure out, but the next day was field day so it had to be done. One of my favorite moments of Bridge was looking around and seeing all of the students having so much fun during this field day. It was so rewarding to see all of the hard work we put into this day pay off in the end.

Francie Huebner
Jun 26 8:30-3:00
Mr. Victoria
rvictoria@menloschool.org

Peninsula Bridge is an organization that conducts a summer school for highly motivated low income students. As this is my third year helping out, I knew the expectations I was held to and how the program worked. The reason I kept coming back to Bridge was because I could see the impact that the program makes on its students. This past summer I was the Lead TA which required me to organize the daily activities that took place after class. In order to organize these activities, which we called enrichment, I had to make sure there were enough variety in the classes so that all ninety students enjoyed what they were doing. Each of my fellow TA’s helped by each leading a class -- the topics ranging from a basketball practice to a coding class. Because we wanted each student to want to be in the enrichment they participated in, we wanted them to choose which class they would be in. This proved to be more difficult than expected because we had to collect the top three choices from each student and then organize them into equally sized classes. The first week, if we gave each student their top choice, there would have been thirty six students playing soccer and only four in the drama class. Ultimately, the distribution was accomplished by creating a list of the classes on a slip of paper that we distributed during lunch to each student. In order to hand out the papers and make sure every student got one, I had to make lunchtime announcements to the entire group. During this process, I realized I have a strong, commanding voice and I am confident with my public speaking skills.

Kiva first blog post

Thomas Woodside
12-5:30, Jul 30
Kiva
Kevin O'Brien
kevin@kiva.org

Kiva is a microlending nonprofit where anyone can lend $25 to an entrepreneur of their choosing. Over the past several weeks I've been working on an analysis of Kiva's web event data. My goal was to determine whether there are certain factors of a loan that make it more attractive to new lenders, with the aim of maximizing overall lending on the site.

When I arrived at Kiva, I sat down with my boss, Kiva’s CTO Kevin O’Brien, to discuss the analysis. I asked him a few questions about the structure of the data and about some discrepancies in my analysis and the database, and we resolved those questions.

We then went into a conference room for the weekly “Machine Learning/Data Science” discussion. I heard from some outgoing interns about their project, and from Kiva’s impact evaluation manager on a new experiment Kiva was running. I then presented my findings to the group. Many of my results were in line with expectations, but many people were surprised at the huge impact a certain sort order had on getting people to lend.

In the future, my analysis will hopefully inform some experiments Kiva is looking to put in place to maximize lending activity. Brandon Smith, a product manager, told me that they would like to see the effect of setting the “better” sort order I had discovered to be the default. If the change does indeed drive more lending, even more people around the world will receive capital to help grow their businesses and support their families.

Leighton Shiveley

7/6/18 3:30

The Riekes Center For Human Enhancement

Gary Riekes

Griekes@riekes.org

As my time at the Riekes Center continued my perspective grew on how this organization completely lived up to their stated values. Gary Riekes made it very clear from our initial meeting that his center was an inclusive environment with the core value being that each individual must be valued and respected. He continued by saying that each person is the only version of themselves that will ever be, and so therefore must be honored. I have come to realize that these inspiring and sincerely worded values are not just on paper, but are put into actions day in and day out by everyone who works there and attends as a member.

The diversity at Riekes is reflected in the people I’ve worked with there, ranging in age from ages 6 to 55. I am honored to say that I have created real relationships with all of them. Making true connections with these incredible people is the most satisfying part of it all. The goal of my sessions is to help others become more flexible, let go and just have fun moving, but the relationships I have made is what remains with me on the drive home. The Riekes Center has given me the ability to build a network with really good human beings – this is so heartwarming and uplifting to me that I could not be more grateful for the opportunity.

I originally wasn’t convinced that my stretch and dance sessions would make much of a difference to anyone, and feared that no one would really want to attend. However, at every visit I have ended up staying much longer than the planned two hours because of how many people come up and ask me to work with them. Hearing these words is so rewarding because it reassures me that I am making an impact on these people and that I am valued there. I feel as though I accomplished helping people with their individual goals while always respecting those I work with (and gaining a mutual respect in return) which are all part of this organization’s mission statement.

Leighton Shiveley 

4/19/18 3:30 

The Riekes Center For Human Enhancement

Gary Riekes 

Griekes@riekes.org

I have only ever heard great things about the Riekes Center. For this reason I was extremely excited to start my volunteering there, but also a little nervous because I wanted to live up to the high expectations. Although I had an initial plan of teaching dance and stretch classes going in, I knew that it was important to just go with the flow while I was there, and that a major part of the learning would take place when I was pushed outside of my comfort zone. I was well aware that I would not be working with dancers, but unaware of who exactly I would be working with. Gary explained that this organization was open to all ages, economic sectors, physical/mental capacities and that he encourages all his members to participate in activities that might new new/foreign to them. For example, athletes to stop in the music department and music students to step into the gym. I learned that anything I did there would not be judged and that working with each person was such a privilege. The nerves immediately vanished after stepping in the door for my first session.  As I walked in every person there was welcoming and introduced themselves with broad smiles on their faces. This kind energy extended passed the front door - throughout the entire session I was there I met so many warm and friendly people. I had planned on working with one person there who had been arranged by Gary and once that ended more people came up to me to join in, which was super gratifying because I felt like I was actually making an impact. After my first visit I was full of so much unexpected positive emotion, which came through the genuine connections I made with each person I worked with. I got to know them and their background while exposing them to something new, doing something I loved.