“My biggest advice is to follow your passion. Know that the road towards accomplishing your career goals; the path, the steps, some of it can be tough. So get all the options and information of what else is out there, before you make your decision. It’s okay to fail once in a while--and get out and try something new. But don’t give up easily. Pick something, try it, give it your 100%, and you may fail; however, don’t retreat at the first failure and for the wrong reasons. Give it a good honest attempt." "Another tip for you is that you have many people giving you advice, but in the end you have to decide what works for you. Be in control, take initiative, don’t let someone shove something down your throat and let them say, 'this is what you need to do.' In the end have a good reason for what you’re doing. “ - Dr. Nitin Baliga

"My advice is, do what really excites you. And you have to figure that out, because no one can tell you what’s going to excite you. And it may take a while to really figure that out, you may have to explore it. You want to be truthful with yourself, about what you find passionate and exciting and really fun--that’s really key. And then after you’ve settled on something, I’d say go after it with real determination and really set out to learn the discipline, in whatever direction you want to go. And I think the third piece of advice again is always work with really interesting people who for the most part are smarter than you, because you always learn a lot from people who are smarter than you and they’re fun and exciting to work with. So that would be my advice. I think the key thing is whatever you do, you have to be cross disciplinary...if you’re going to go into science, go into it with an attempt to understand it from many directions." - Dr. Leroy Hood

"Most high schoolers don’t know what to do or what they want to do because they like everything. Be inquisitive. Broaden your view. Talk to people about finding passions. Most importantly, find what you like!" -Dr. Monica Orellana