Alumni Spotlight: Cindy Jiang

(Cindy did not want her photo posted, so she drew a cartoon representation of herself.. awesome!)

My name is Cindy and I was in SWEP for four years. During my first summer, I was an assistant secretary at JCYC, where I stamped checks and helped with paperwork. Then, the following three years, I interned at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCNC) for their Digital Leadership Program. I taught senior citizens basic computer skills, created lesson plans, and did paperwork. For example, every time we tutored a senior citizen, we would ask them to fill out a survey. After that, I would input the survey data into SurveyMonkey.

I liked working at JCCNC because teaching senior citizens made me feel more connected to them. I really enjoyed teaching them because they were all nice and tried their best at everything we explained to them.

I worked with my supervisor, Ryan Kimura, for three years and was able to build a good relationship with him. If I did not understand something, I would ask him and he would help me step by step. I feel like asking questions when you don’t get something is a form of communication with your supervisor that you need to practice and become comfortable with.

My favorite part of being in SWEP was going to the workshops. The workshops showed me what was to be expected from a professional employee and helped prepare me for my internship. SWEP gave me new skills and helped me build on skills that I already had. For example — before the program, I didn’t really have much patience with my mom and dad but after I started teaching at JCCNC, my patience level went up. That is because the key to teaching senior citizens is patience and communication.

Now, I am 18 years old and attending City College of San Francisco. I plan on transferring to a four year university and pursuing med school in the future. I am very focused on studying, but when I have free time, I go running. I like to text my friends and bother them. That’s about it on me. No more. The rest is a secret.