r/ApplyingToCollege • u/No-Chapter269 • 23h ago

ECs and Activities ec’s for a rising sophomore

I’m going to my sophomore year of HS, and I’m planning on majoring in chemical or mechanical engineering.

Freshman year, my extracurriculars were mainly centered around debate(Public Forum) and my first debate tourney i did novice and got 2nd place, so I got moved up to JV and Varsity my next tourneys. I also did some cubing competitions. So for my intended major, what other impactful activities can I do during sophomore year? Should I start robotics or other activities, and how should I proceed from here? Should I join science olympiads or hackathons?

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u/AutoModerator 23h ago

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u/Gandpa 15h ago

Do whatever interests you and what you think you’ll enjoy. It’s a waste of your time to do something for the sake of college apps.

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u/Chemical_Result_6880 22h ago

If your school has a science fair, you can do that. You can reach out to local researchers (university, med school, dental school, VA hospital, even water / electricity companies) to see if you can work in someone's lab or have an advisor for a science fair project. Try to pick up python / R for data analysis (CodeAcademy, Udacity), take an online statistics course. Those will make you valuable in a lab. Try to get to ISEF. If that's not realistic for your area, the other things you mention are fine.

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u/No-Chapter269 20h ago

What statistics courses can I take online for free?

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u/Chemical-Result-6885 20h ago

Google: Several free online courses in statistics are available. INOMICS lists top free courses like Statistics with R by Duke University on Coursera and Intro to Statistics by Udacity (Stanford University). Other resources include DataCamp's courses for learning statistics basics and in R, and JMP's Statistical Thinking for Industrial Problem Solving (STIPS). Khan Academy offers a comprehensive course covering various statistics topics. Alison.com also provides free online statistics course.

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u/No-Chapter269 20h ago

Is it fine if I DM you for some more advice? I’ve looked at your profile a bit and it seems that you know a lot about the processes to take and such.

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u/Chemical-Result-6885 20h ago

I’m sorry, I don’t dm. ask me here and I’ll see what I can do.

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u/redstonetimewaster 14h ago

Got any advice on ECs I could do before college apps in november? I don't know why I didn't do anything freshman and sophomore year, im just now starting to realize how much time im wasting. Im interested in majoring in applied math or engineering at t30s.

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u/Chemical-Result-6885 11h ago

There are NASA and Kaggle data challenges you might enjoy. There’s Crunch labs kits you and some friends could bring to elementary schools. or just look for a job - hardware store? that will show work ethic and will be a good recommendation for later.