Dimitrios

I hope to support my mentees by giving them the confidence to begin their journeys with their impact projects, as with my own I had a lot of anxiety in putting my voice on the Internet. I was able to overcome this fear, not just through sheer force but also through additional strategies I used that I believe can help my mentees when they struggle to put their ideas into action. I love talking through things with other people and I feel like I would be a great listener for my mentees, giving advice and feedback on their plans while also suggesting my own that can intersect with theirs.

I believe that listening to and supporting others are two of my skills that I have well developed; I love conversing with others to have deep, thought out conversations on any and all topics, and I believe this can translate well when talking through ideas for impact projects and making plans for the future. I am ambitious, which I think is a trait that I can pass on to my mentees through helping with their impact projects, as I can help them look for the next best steps if they feel ready enough with their base project. I have tutored in school for years in a variety of subjects, from Spanish to Physics, and I can use my experience in working with many different young adults, from 8th to 11th grades, to work well with and adapt to the mindsets of a variety of possible mentees.

I love skywatching/stargazing with my telescope at night, a hobby of mine from when I was very little with my first Smithsonian museum telescope. I usually go out every night if the weather permits to look for anything cool in the sky, taking pictures of the moon, tracking the brightest stars in their paths across the sky, and looking up the databases for the objects I am less familiar with when I observe them. Another hobby of mine is building little machines and "gadgets" (useful or not) with whatever I see lying around me: sometimes, I'm just bored and I find, for example, a couple of rubber bands, popsicle sticks, and corks to make a catapult; and other times I quickly craft something useful when I find I'm missing something, like when I was missing a leg strap for a soccer game on the Nintendo Switch and so I made one of my own with a velcro strap and carboard. Other times, I take this hobby farther than just little crafts, such as how I am planning on creating my own solar cells to hook up to my drone for a longer flight time than just 20 minutes.