Dr. Ford is the Vice President and Chief of Surgery at Children鈥檚 Hospital Los Angeles and a Professor of Surgery and the Vice Dean for Medical Education at the University of Southern California鈥檚 Keck School of Medicine. He has been an for seven years and has mentored 17 Apprentices.

Mr. Kong is the Head of Product Design at Pasadena City College and a faculty member of the Graduate Industrial Design program at Art Center College of Design. He has been an 优蜜视频 Apprenticeship Mentor for 14 years and has mentored more than 150 Apprentices.

What did our guests enjoy?

Assorted hors d鈥檕euvres and cocktails were served, including the signature drink for the evening, the LeMOONdrop. Wine was generously donated by John and Pam Craig.

Delicious dinner was catered by celebrated local chef Claud Beltran of Pasadena鈥檚 The Eatery. Table decorations included beautiful centerpieces donated by Orchard Supply Hardware.

Thanks to generous donations by individuals and local businesses, there were more than thirty one-of-a-kind silent auction packages available, including:

• VIP tickets to tapings of The Big Bang Theory and Jimmy Kimmel Live!
• Behind-the-scenes tours of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
• Artwork created by past Apprentices, CDB Scholars, and CDB parents
• Gift certificates to local businesses
• Resources, services, and enrichment opportunities for gifted children and their parents

Attendees had the privilege of speaking with Mr. Stan Kong and Dr. Henri Ford, two incredible individuals who we are lucky to have as members of our community, and the evening provided an opportunity for many different members of our community to meet each other. Guests also enjoyed a heartfelt presentation by past 优蜜视频 Apprentices thanking Dr. Ford and Mr. Kong for their mentorship.

The growth of 优蜜视频 was palpable over the course of the evening, as all 优蜜视频 programs were represented and Mentors, program participants, board members, parents, supporters, and staff joined together to celebrate.

The bright young minds we serve were involved in every aspect of the event. 2012 Caroline D. Bradley Scholar Talya Klinger created beautiful, hand-blown glass awards for each of our honorees. Two Caroline D. Bradley alumni, Bo Yan Moran and Tanner Scharch, and 2013 Apprentice James Tom played live music for the Patron and Open Cocktails. During the evening鈥檚 program, 2008 Apprentice Thomas Zenteno spoke about his Apprenticeship with Mr. Kong, and 2010 Apprentice Clara Wang spoke about her Apprenticeship with Dr. Ford. Many former Apprentices of Dr. Ford and Mr. Kong were also featured in a video tribute to the honorees.

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Thank you again to all of our event sponsors, donors, and guests. Your participation in this event has played an integral part in our fundraising efforts for this year to help us continue to provide unique and valuable programs and services to bright young minds. We couldn鈥檛 do it without you!

Please help 优蜜视频 continue to shine! If you have not yet had the opportunity to donate or if you would like to make another contribution, we would greatly appreciate your support by clicking here.

Jennifer is 优蜜视频鈥檚 Marketing & Communications Coordinator. Her position includes more traditional communications media such as newsletters and brochures, but it also involves much more modern technology, including email newsletters, the 优蜜视频 blog and website, and social networks.

that 65% of today鈥檚 grade school students will end up in jobs that do not yet exist. I can tell you that my job, which includes a great deal of social media and online components, looks very different than what someone in a similar role would have done when I was in grade school. So, how can you prepare for a career field that doesn鈥檛 exist yet? I鈥檓 going to offer some advice that helped me get to where I am today.

Find a skill that you enjoy and go from there.

“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” 鈥� Carl Sagan

If you enjoy a skill that can translate into several career paths, hone it. I have always loved languages and writing. So, I took every opportunity I could throughout my education to develop a command of language (English and Spanish for now, but I鈥檓 working on Italian and French next, just for fun) and better my writing skills. I entered poetry contests. I kept a 鈥渏ournal鈥� of my thoughts and ideas and often wrote pages of reflections solely for the purpose of writing. My job now may be working with a variety of media that were rare 鈥� if in existence at all 鈥� when I was young, but at the root of much of my work is writing. I write every single day. It might be as simple as a tweet of less than 140 characters, or it might be an eight-page newsletter. Regardless of the length, the medium, or the purpose, honing my language and writing skills has helped me do my job each and every day.

Certain skills are also valuable across fields, so develop those, too. Written and oral communication skills are extremely valuable in any field. Critical thinking and problem solving are also skills that will take you far in any career. suggests building skills in key areas defined as 鈥渁nything humans still do better than robots.鈥� This includes 鈥渟olving unstructured problems and working with new information.鈥�

Find mentors, including at least one who has seen an industry 鈥� any industry 鈥� change over time.

Learn from that person how he or she adapted, how jobs and strategies changed. This will help you see for yourself what skills are necessary for the ever-changing business landscape. This can include academia, as well. You should also build relationships with a wide variety of people both inside and outside of your area of interest. While you are still in school, these can be teachers or peers.

Learn how to be a good employee, regardless of the field you enter. Be willing to learn new things every day.

Here are a few tips on how to be a good employee, most of which stress the importance of constantly learning new things:

• Learn from the people around you. Respect coworkers and their ideas.
• Learn how to respectfully voice your opinions and ideas. This can be difficult, especially for introverts, but your ideas are valuable to the discussion.
• Be willing to do something that doesn鈥檛 exactly fit your job description.
• Take responsibility for your mistakes, and learn from them.

Be flexible. Be open. Be innovative. Be well-rounded.

Gifted individuals are used to thinking outside the box. Go with that instinct. Just because something has been done a certain way in the past does not mean it has to be done that way in the future. Be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new ways of doing things. Be open to new possibilities.

Don鈥檛 pigeonhole yourself into a narrow job description or field of study. 优蜜视频 Apprenticeship Mentor Stan Kong, who is the Head of Product Design at Pasadena City College and a Graduate Industrial Design program faculty member at Art Center College of Design, thought he was going to be a graphic designer until he just happened to take an industrial design class. Opening yourself up to new opportunities and possibilities can really help you find your niche.

While you are still in school, get a well-rounded education and learn from a variety of disciplines. For example, using statistics and other mathematical functions to evaluate data is necessary across a variety of careers. Though much of my job is writing and executing an overall strategy, I spend a bit of time each week looking at web, email, and social media analytics to evaluate our marketing efforts and revise our strategy as needed.

Challenge yourself.

Work on difficult and varied research, which will help you develop critical thinking skills. Keep learning new things, as the landscape in any field will continuously shift. Get experience in a wide variety of areas. It will help guide you toward 鈥� or away from 鈥� a particular field by seeing it applied hands-on, and the lessons you learn can often be applied to almost any other discipline.

Read. A lot.

I鈥檓 not saying you have to read everything, or even that you have to read in a particular genre. I encourage you to vary your reading and include something that truly challenges you once in a while, but the most important part of this tip is that you learn new things and experience others鈥� ideas. I read everything from books to blogs to journals to magazines on topics ranging from pure entertainment to giftedness to business to education to personal success. I鈥檒l admit that I don鈥檛 typically enjoy a few particular genres, so I generally stay away from those unless something really strikes me. And that鈥檚 okay. You don鈥檛 have to read everything. Just read.

Go beyond the job.

I know I鈥檝e said this quite a bit by now, but I can鈥檛 stress it enough: No matter what you decided to do, keep learning. Remember, you probably won鈥檛 stay in the career you choose forever, especially if you are a gifted person with many different talents and interests. These skills will help ensure that you can transition to another option if you so choose. You might just end up on another, unexpected but much more fulfilling path, like one that leads you to spread the word about the unique needs of gifted children.

What skills do you think are most important in preparing for a variety of careers?

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