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Essay questions

General questions

1. Why do you want to attend an O4U conference? Why do you specifically want to attend the conference you selected? Some prompts to get you thinking: How would attending O4U make a difference in helping you achieve your professional or personal goals? What do you hope to gain from the speakers, professionals, recruiters and your fellow attendees? What can you contribute to the event?

2. What is an interest or passion of yours? Some prompts to get you thinking (for illustrative purposes): What are you most excited about on the weekends? What unique interest of yours sets you apart from your friends? What side projects or activities make you happiest?

3. If you have attended any previous O4U conference, please complete this additional essay: What were your biggest takeaways from the last O4U conference you attended? What are your goals for this year as opposed to your previous time attending? If admitted this year, how will you work to positively influence other first-time attendees’ experiences? 

Engineering

1. What is the most innovative thing you have witnessed in the past year? This can be something you created yourself or something created by another individual, company, movement, or entity. Please describe why you admire the innovation and how it has personally impacted you.

   Examples: 3-D printed face masks for essential workers, drive-by birthday celebrations, #BlackOutTuesday, see-through masks for deaf and hard of hearing communities, etc.

2. What has been your proudest achievement in your engineering student experience or leadership experience? Were there any obstacles you overcame? What did you learn from it?

   Examples: An engineering project you supported/led, high school/college awards or recognition, an event you planned and executed, making an impact on an organization, etc.

Business

• Why do you want to attend the O4U Business Conference?

  You may consider the following for your response:

  • How would attending O4UB make a difference in helping you achieve your professional or personal goals?

  • What do you hope to gain from the speakers, professionals, recruiters and your fellow attendees?

  • What can you contribute to the event?

  • If you have attended another O4U conference, why Business?

• Tell us about a personal pursuit, goal, or activity that is meaningful to you and why.

  Please refrain from recruiting goals. You may consider the following for your response:

  • What interests or passions do you have that you spend a lot of time on and why?

  • What accomplishments have you completed that changed your perspective or direction in life?

  • What academic, business passions, or entrepreneurial ideas are you motivated by?

• O4UB is a community made up of people with a multitude of diverse backgrounds and experiences. Tell us about one of the communities that is an important part of your life. What is the role you play and how do you contribute to this community?

  A community can be a network of peers sharing similar identity or background, community organizations (i.e., religious groups, local non-profit collectives, local social groups, etc.), or even clubs that are significant to you. You may consider the following for your response:

  • Why is this community important to you?

  • Who is the community made up of and how do you interact with them?

  • Are you contributing to the community via a traditional leadership role or filling a gap in a different way?

  • What impact has this community experience had on you?

• What makes a company successful? Please give a specific example of a company.

  When responding, please make sure to define what success means or includes. In selecting an example, you may choose an existing company or a startup idea of your own. You may consider the following for your response:

  • To whom is this success important? (e.g., shareholders, stakeholders, customers, etc..)

  • How does this make a company successful?

  • What is the importance of defining success this way? 

Marketing

1. Good marketing does more than sell a product or service. It leverages artistic creativity, storytelling, critical thinking, business analytics, and consumer insights to move people to action. Great marketing takes part in shaping cultural conversation. What is your favorite or least favorite marketing campaign of the past year, and why?

   No marketing background? No worries. We are more interested in your thought process than your knowledge of marketing. Some prompts to get you thinking: What was the campaign's target audience, approach to collecting data, and impact on consumers? Why do you think it was successful or not in accomplishing its goals? Was it focused on brand recognition or driving specific action? How would you improve it (using data, creative processes, etc.)?

2. What matters most to you, and why? (Optional)

   Some prompts to get you thinking: Illustrate how a person, place, situation, or event has influenced you—do some deep self-examination, so you can genuinely illustrate who you are and how you came to be the person you are today. Show the “how” and “why” rather than focusing merely on what you’ve done or accomplished.

Tech

1. How will your unique experiences and/or background contribute to the O4U Tech 2021 class?

2. Tell us about a piece of technology that you find meaningful. Why is it meaningful to you?