top of page

events

Awards Celebration - September 30th, 2017

21 student mentors were nominated by their peers to receive the “U.S. House of Representatives Certificate of Congressional Recognition" signed by Congresswoman Barbara Comstock. Nominations were evaluated and approved by the MCSE committee based on their ability to mentor their students effectively. The mentors who received this award were:

Amanda Chu, 11th grade, Poolsville High School

Andrew Wang, 12th grade, TJHSST

Angela Wu, 11th grade, Wootton High School

Anna Huang, 10th grade, Churchill High School

Anshu Sharma, Freshman, Randolph-Macon College

Anyesha Majumdar, 12th grade, TJHSST

Austin Zhang, 12th grade, McLean High School

Carolina Jin, 11th grade, TJHSST

Christine Sun, 12th grade, McLean High School

Daniel Shen, 11th grade, TJHSST

Divya Kumaran, 11th grade, Woodson High School

Emily Huo, 11th grade, Chantilly High School

Emily Xu, 12th grade, Whitman High School

Eric Lin, 12th grade, TJHSST

Ethan Liu, 12th grade, TJHSST

James Gao, 12th grade, McLean High School

Katie Li, 10th grade, Marshall High School

Kevin Sun, 12th grade, Oakton High School

Patrick Zhang, 10th grade, TJHSST

Robert Chu, 11th grade, South County High School

William Wang, 10th grade, TJHSST

​

​

 

However, there were seven mentors who also demonstrated notable mentoring skills and received honorable mention. The mentors who received honorable mention were:

 

Andrew Chen, 10th grade, Woodson High School

Jennifer Ren, 10th grade, Montgomery Blair High School

Erica Wu, 11th grade, TJHSST

James Xiao, 12th grade, TJHSST

Alex Yang, 11th grade, Basis

Fred Zhang, 11th grade, TJHSST

Alice Zhang, 12th grade, Montgomery Blair High School

Six mentors were chosen to receive the Calvin J. Li Award for exceptional leadership ability. Mentors were chosen based on student nominations, self-reflection, and site managers’ feedback. The awards were presented in three levels with a monetary award.

​

One 1st place Award: Austin Zhang $200

​

Two 2nd place Awards: Anshu Sharma and Daniel Shen $100 each

​

Three 3rd place Awards: Angela Wu, Christine Sun, and Ethan Liu $50 each

Training Session - June 16th, 2018

On June 16th, members of the BranchOut program gathered at Pender Professional Center in Fairfax, VA for a training session. During the session, educators and executives taught the mentors how to succeed in educating and creating relationships with their mentees. 
Nitu Mohan from Madison High School, Kevina Wang, and Lawrence Zhu, both from Oakton High School, introduced Dr. Wu and the program. Next, Dr. Wu gave a speech on the origins of
BranchOut, and explained the program’s mission. Other speakers, such as Ms. Madalene Mielke, the President and CEO of APAICS, Mrs. Ellen Hussain, the Math Department Chair at Oakton High School, Ms. Julia Ross and Ms. Nicolette Pisani, two elementary school teachers, and Mr. Bob Gee, the Former Assistant Secretary of DOE, also spoke at the event. They gave talks pertaining to strategies for teaching students both at the elementary school age and high school age and networking.

 

Program Agenda can be found here.

Picnic - August 5th, 2018

Sunday, August 5th, was the BranchOut end-of-summer celebration picnic at Nottoway Park in Vienna, VA. Around sixty people attended the picnic, and a whopping $349.22 was raised to sustain the program.  The donation will be used to support BranchOut!, which is maintained mostly by the co-founders of the program and a small group of private donors! The event was intended to further promote BranchOut, fundraise, and most of all: a chance for all the mentors form stronger relationships with each other, connect over common interests, and create a BranchOut mentor team. Over the course of the summer, all the mentors were able to connect with each other in one way or another: through weekly meetings, sharing mentoring memories, or even planning the picnic.