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My Business of Sports 101 Journey

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date July 22, 2022
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Vaishnavi Sharma,
Bombay Scottish School

I have been an ardent fan of sports, primarily cricket for the majority of my life and always wanted to become proficient in the field. However, being an athlete was not my cup of tea and I thought that my dream of being a part of the dynamic world of sports would just remain a dream. Fortunately this all changed when I read about the Business of Sports 101 Programme and decided to enroll myself in it. 

Being a part of this programme has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life and the credit for that goes to the amazing mentors from Deakin University. The professors introduced us to different aspects of sports management in fun and interactive ways. Sitting in front of my laptop in the morning was not a chore, but the most exciting part of the day for me. 

During the eleven day long course, we were taught many topics such as sport organization, broadcasting and nutrition. Instead of making the learning process theoretical, we were given an opportunity to practically apply the knowledge during group discussions. At first, I was intimidated at the thought of joining the break out rooms, preparing notes and discussing my opinions with others. But those fears quickly faded away when I saw how supportive the professors and mentors were and how they respected every student’s opinion. 

I enjoyed each session, but the best one for me was the one where we learnt about Operation and Facility Management in sports. During that session, the groups had to make their own Big Bash League Team! We got to choose a city for our team, a marquee player, team colors, in short, we could do what we thought was best.  I was on cloud nine during that session and did not want it to end. 

Till a few years back, sport management was not seen as a viable field but our mentors for the programme definitely proved this fact wrong. There were many students from Deakin who told us about their experiences and inspired many to carve a path for themselves in the sport management field. Another experience that I will always cherish is meeting Mr Zameer Kochar, the CMO of the IPL team Rajasthan Royals. He spoke about the different ways in which a sports team is marketed, how it is important to have a strong foundation for your team and about the ways in which they were giving back to the community. The interaction that we had with him and the other students from Deakin has motivated me to continue to pursue sports management.

I am really happy that I decided to be a part of the programme. The knowledge that I have gained and the interactions that I have had are something I will cherish forever. I want to thank Big Red Education for curating this amazing programme for us. Now I look forward to our internship with Rajasthan Royals where we get to apply what we have learned to a live project. 

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Aarna’s Ivy Early Entrepreneur Journey

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date July 22, 2022
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Aarna Gupta
Grade 9, Step by Step School

The Ivy Early Entrepreneur program was a wonderful experience for a business enthusiast like me. Learning from professionals in their respective fields, hearing their insights, and learning from their journey were some of the key components that make this program perfect for someone who wants to learn more about the hows and whats of entrepreneurship. During the program, we learnt the process from actually having an idea to it finally culminating into our very own business project. At every step of the way: ideation, brainstorming, prototyping, business modeling, branding, etc you get to hear the valuable opinions from experts, and using that allows you to bring your own project into perspective. We had the opportunity to interact with all of the mentors and it was truly a dream come true and such experiences can’t be replicated and are key to progressing your business idea. The mentors explained the concept to us through extremely elaborate documents breaking down all of it and making it very easy for us to comprehend. 

The process was interesting and thrilling and helped us make our business idea tangible. I spent months wondering how these things might work, but these 7 days have unlocked a plethora of ideas and different ways to work with them. I think one of the most important things I learned from this program is that age is just a number after all. Your entrepreneurship journey starts when you want it to. 

Executing a business includes a number of components that require different levels of creativity, practicality, and brainstorming and during the program, we went through all of these explicitly. I extremely enjoyed the sessions on market research and how to find your target market as well as the one on business modeling and marketing. It was fascinating to understand how to conduct surveys, look at the requirements of your audience, understand how to create a brand, how to keep your customers satisfied etc. 

The great part about these 7 days was that we really got to get into all of the important topics, taking time to absorb all of them and simultaneously implementing them which really helped improve my understanding of it. There were various hands-on tasks, especially during the prototyping stage and it was interesting to explore all of these different avenues of entrepreneurship. The program also played a key role in inspiring and motivating us as we heard so many stories about different start ups and how they progressed and eventually achieved immense success in their fields. Not only that, but the Ivy program also is an opportunity for us to collaborate with other kids around the country and build a brand with them. It was wonderful getting to know everyone and having the chance to work with such an amazing team. 

The experience really gave me a heads-up as to what entrepreneurship entails and helped me contemplate my ideas, organize them and make them into a concrete plan. If you’re someone

wondering how entrepreneurship works and how to work towards your business idea, then this program is your calling. 

Lastly, I would like to thank the mentors and everyone who helped make this program so memorable.

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3(+1) Tricks to Get Rid of Creative Blocks

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date July 22, 2022
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Creative blocks are frustrating. You feel desperate to ideate, design, build something; and yet, the muse continuously eludes you.  Sometimes, you can see the entire plan in your mind but your hands just won’t move in the correct ways. Trying to create anything while stuck in the mires of a creative block always feels like repeatedly banging your head against a wall but making no headway whatsoever. The entire creative process then becomes an exercise in futility, and almost always feels like a waste of precious resources of time and energy. For students and industry professionals alike, it is hence crucial to understand why they are unable to access their creativity, and what they can do to remove those obstructions.

Scrambled Eggs: A Study in Creative Thinking

It’s an oft-repeated story: The melody to Paul McCartney’s classic song, “Yesterday” came to him in a dream. He woke up, harried, unsure of where—and if—he had ever heard this tune before but certain that he needed to write this down. Grabbing a pen and paper, he jotted down the notes from his dreams, and as placeholders for the now-iconic lyrics of “Yesterday” he wrote: “Scrambled eggs, Oh you’ve got such lovely legs, Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXTJBr9tt8Q [Yesterday (With Spoken Word Intro / Live From Studio 50, New York City / 1965)]

The creative development of “Yesterday’s” lyrics from “Scrambled eggs, Oh you’ve got such lovely legs” to “Yesterday, All my troubles seemed so far away” is a study in the human efforts and tenacity necessary in any creative endeavor. McCartney, unable to come up with the suitable and perfect lyrics to his melody could have sat stuck in his bedroom, neither jotting down any lyrics nor this beautiful melody. He, however, acted differently. He chose to build with the resources he had at hand, at that moment and put a pin in the part of the process he was incapable of tackling then. 

Why Do Creative Blocks Occur?

The root cause of almost every kind of creative block out there is a lack of patience and enough time. Creativity needs time to breathe and bloom. If you are trying to create something while you are stressed about personal issues, anxious about criticism, or already feeling overwhelmed and burnt out, you will inevitably fail. You will try to tackle multiple elements at once; unable to concentrate and give any of them adequate time and space. Creative projects need space and time to evolve and develop in your mind — remember: it is not the rule but the exception when you are able to deliver a finished creative project, top to bottom furnished, in one single go. Those kinds of sprints are miraculous; and more often than not a lofty standard. 

While creating, it is important to center yourself and know that you are capable of ideating and executing your designs. It can feel frustrating to be unable to come up with the perfect idea in the exact moment; but you need to remind yourself that just because you are not able to think of the perfect idea in that moment does not mean that you are not able to think of any ideas. Scrambled eggs: placeholders are your best friends. Use them. You can always come back to your design later —  carve out time from your daily schedule to sit down with yourself, and recuperate. Take a walk, watch a film, have a hot cup of tea — do something that makes you feel more in touch with yourself. 

Tips & Tricks

Sometimes, however, a lack of patience cannot be cured by a simple—though undeniably delicious—hot cup of tea. Sometimes, the issue runs deeper, and requires more time and self analysis to be unknotted. Besides patience and placeholders, here are few more long-term tricks and tips you can try to get rid of your creative blocks:

1. Expand Your Imagination

You can often feel unable to access your creative energy because you are stuck in a rut. You meet the same kinds of people every day, engage with the same old ideas, and dance with the same rusted perspectives. In this case, you need adventure. You need a splash of imagination to break yourself out of the cycle of rut you are stuck in. Here, while creating then, you need to question your assumptions. Ask yourself, “What if…?” What if I tried to write this essay by opening with a song lyric instead of a quote? What if I tried to design this comic strip using only two colors instead of eight? What if…? Allow yourself the freedom to experiment, and see the magic happen.

To efficiently use the ‘What if…?’ tool, you should also set yourself a time limit. A cool trick I learned during the Big Red Education’s Harvard Youth Lead The Change conference this summer was to give yourself a prompt, set your timer to thirty (30) seconds, and write down whatever ideas and designs that pop in your head. I have found that the constrained time limit alongside an absurd prompt really gets the adrenaline going; leading me to come up with many out-of-the-box ideas I was unable to even fathom while stuck in a creative rut. 

2. Organization

The issue sometimes is not that you do not have any ideas; but that you have too many of them and zero knowledge of how to begin sorting through them all. This can overwhelm you. In this event, you need organizational tools to facilitate yourself and better understand and plan out your creative process. To do this, you can try many different tools like Pros/Cons list, Highlighting Notes, etc. My personal favorite is a matrix I was introduced to by Kriti Thakur, a mentor at Big Red Education’s Ivy Early Entrepreneur program this summer: the Now, Wow, How, Ciao matrix. 

The Now, Wow, How, Ciao matrix offers a fun and effective way to organize your ideas. In the ‘Now’ column you put down the ideas which you have already used before and can implement again easily. In the ‘Wow’ column, jot down the ideas which are easily implementable but haven’t been tried before by you. In the ‘How’ column go the ideas which are really cool and innovative, but also require some research on your part to fully figure out how to execute. And in the ‘Ciao’ column sit the ideas which are quite basic and yet, very tedious and hard to implement; a waste of your resources.

The next time you feel stuck and overwhelmed with too many ideas, design options, etc. I would definitely recommend that you try out this matrix, and see how it goes!

3. Routine, Commitment, and Faulty Work Habits

Creative blocks can also be triggered by long-time fault lines like disorganized routines, low commitment, or faulty work habits which do not work for you. In all these cases, the problem runs much deeper than immediate stressors and requires a substantial amount of analysis to discern and rectify. Sometimes, the issue is too much work and a lack of adequate understanding about how to tackle it all. You can spend entire days trying to ideate and create; but all your efforts will inevitably fall through if you are unable to get rid of thoughts about all the other work that you are still left to do, and all the other tasks that are still sitting on your plate. This can cause overwhelming stress, leading to long stretches of time in which you find yourself with zero energy and commitment to work on anything at all. 

What you need, here, is a change of pace. Upend your regular routine, and sit with yourself to figure out where the problem lies. Perhaps, you require not two but three days to finish one essay. Perhaps, you ideate better in the evenings and execute better in the mornings instead of what you originally were trying to do — ideation in the mornings and execution in the evenings. Perhaps, you unfailingly need to take a walk or meditate on days when you have to strategize about your projects’ ideas or write that important speech. The problem is not only that you are going about your process in the wrong way; the problem is primarily that you do not have any idea what you are doing wrong. Stop, take a deep breath, and look at your routine. Figure out what needs fixing; and you will definitely see the change reflected in your work. 

Long-Term Effects of Creative Blocks

A creative block is a temporary setback but can unfailingly cause long-lasting feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness. Repeatedly passing it off as a one-time event and choosing to ignore its cause can be extremely detrimental to your professional development, and consequently, your mental, emotional and physical health. The negative feelings caused by creative blocks can fester and quickly turn toxic; encouraging its subjects to turn to harmful indulgences like smoking, alcohol, drugs, etc. to deal with them, on a day-to-day basis. 

Whenever you find yourself stuck in a creative rut, do not ignore it. Make time for yourself and figure out why you are unable to access your creative energy; and go about the required steps to fix the fault. If you find yourself unable to fully understand why you are feeling this way, do not hesitate to approach a mental health professional and seek their help. For students and professionals alike, a creative block can drastically affect their work, resulting in repeatedly missed deadlines, low-quality outputs, etc.; all of which inevitably affects the subjects’ health detrimentally. 

Always, the best trick to get rid of creative blocks is to just create. Scribble on your design board, jot down paragraphs of meandering, tangential ideas — but create. The primary reason we get stuck in creative blocks is not because we do not have any ideas, but because we keep seeking perfect ideas and in their pursuit, stop creating altogether. 

Just create. The rest will follow. 

Published on June 30, 2022

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The Secret Ingredient to the Perfect College Application!

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date June 30, 2022
• No Comments on The Secret Ingredient to the Perfect College Application!

Did you know that Tomas Lindahl, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry failed the subject in high school? Or that John Gurdon, Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine ranked dead last in Biology in his year?

And yet, both of them made it to prestigious universities and won the most eminent award in their fields!

Sir John B. Gurdon
Winner of Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2012
image courtesy: www.nobelprize.org

Tomas Lindahl
Winner of Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 2015
image courtesy: www.nobelprize.org

The truth is, while high school scores are important, they can only take you so far in your college applications to leading global universities. To stand out from the crowd, there is one thing that elevate your college application above all else – A high school passion project!

Unlike a class project, a passion project is an independent or group project created to achieve a specific goal or mission. This could range from helping an underprivileged community, to solving an entrepreneurial problem and more. 

A project like this, especially one that YOU are passionate about, can showcase your commitment, focus, creativity, resourcefulness, motivation, and leadership skills – values that college admission offices are always looking out for in applicants!

In fact, A recent study done by Acceptitas showed that over 75% of current Harvard students completed a passion project in high school and felt that it significantly impacted their application.

Case in point, 16-year-old Saikaran Apalla’s entrepreneurial project – SCOPE.

Started By Saikiran after attending the Ivy Early Entrepreneur program, SCOPE is a dynamic and personalized network that connects entrepreneurs with like-minded people, content and opportunities. It aims to build a collaborative community where users can share their experiences, learn from each other and ultimately be successful.

 Watch here!

Saikiran’s focused and extensive project brought him global attention, and he has even completed a Junior CEO program certified by Brown University. 

But for those of you that have a knack for social skills as opposed to entrepreneurial expertise, the options are endless as well!

Take for example, Sia Bishnoi and Taahira Bhalla’s Social Change Project – Project Drakht.

Started by Taahira Bhalla and Sia Bishnoi of The Shri Ram School, Moulsari – both from Harvard Youth Lead the Change 2016 – Project Drakht was set up to provide Ferozepur Meo, an underprivileged village in Haryana, with access to clean water.

They first pitched their idea during the conference, and after it received considerable attention and support, the duo implemented it. Project Drakht ultimately helped nearly 2,200 people from 300 families!

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Their project impressed a lot of colleges, and Tahira and Sia ultimately landed spots in Babson College and Parsons School of Design respectively!

So, how do you make your own fleshed-out project?

That’s where we can help you!

Big Red Education offers multiple courses from Ivy League Professors that take you beyond classroom education and into the practicalities of life.

Our flagship programs, Harvard Youth Lead the Change and Ivy Early Entrepreneur teach you the ins and outs of leadership and entrepreneurship respectively, and offer you expert mentorship in creating full-fledged projects!

At Harvard Youth Lead the Change, you work in a group to understand a global issue and ultimately develop a social change project to address it, under guidance from Harvard University Mentors. After the program, you continue to receive a year of mentorship to implement your project in your local communities and beyond.

At Ivy Early Entrepreneur, you learn how to start your business and create a growth-oriented mindset from successful entrepreneurs who are alumni of Ivy League colleges. Picking up skills like market research and design thinking, you create a group project that envisions a start-up, and  subsequently practice your learnings in a guaranteed internship with our partner firms!