Morgan Ashley Chang

On this summer afternoon in 2006, I was sitting in the courtyard of WSPA, my dance studio, with the sweat from practice fifteen minutes ago just beginning to cool off. I sat alone with nothing to entertain me but a game of Snake on my cell phone. My mom had left me a message, saying she was running late because of a long line at the bank, so I was forced to wait.

“Morgan! I’m glad you’re still here! I need you to do me a big favor.”

I looked over towards the voice and saw Tina, one of the teachers, and the head of the office at WSPA, running towards me.

“Can you aid for Nene today?”

I immediately said yes. The opportunity to teach was one I had always hoped for and imagined in my mind, yet I always saw the possibility of it happening as near non-existent. The truth was that anyone who was a student teacher had been dancing at the studio since they were five or younger, and had trained at the studio in multiple styles of dance. I, in contrast to these other girls, had only been at the studio for three years, and though I had trained in ballet and jazz at a previous studio, I had only trained at WSPA in the Polynesian and Musical Theatre disciplines. And though in this moment I realized how much my hard work in dancing had paid off with regards to my career at the studio, it wasn’t until I began my WLE experience that I would realize how much my hard work in dancing had contributed to my work ethics in general.

The first of rule of dancing, something I picked up through my experiences as a student: No pain, no gain. It may be thought that this mantra is more commonly associated with traditional sports, but try convincing a dancer who has just applied Icy Hot all over their legs and is now running their blistered feet through cold water that this doesn’t apply to dancing as well.

And just like a dancer unable to nail her center splits, when I tried to come upon a placement, I found myself struggling. The fact that there is such a large population of college students in the Bay Area meant that many companies were not keen on the idea of taking in high school students without cars, a year shy of getting a diploma, and available only once a week. I had left my researching for my 11^th grade WLE to the last minute, and was one of the last people to find a placement. If this wasn’t bad enough, I had to pick a placement off of the school suggested list as well, and work at Personiva, a small start-up company, something I had deemed a last resort.

When my twelfth grade WLE came around, I found that when I did put in the time and effort, the so-called “pain”, I ended up with results that were more advantageous. I had started researching and browsing around in the summer, coming up with a list I felt to be somewhat solid. I left plenty of voicemails, and probably sent over twice that amount of emails. I was happy to find that after having a pretty solid frame for an email, I was able to copy and paste most emails, only needing to change a few paragraphs here and there about why I liked each particular company. Though I was initially worried that it might not seem forward enough, or professional enough to send an email, I was reassured when I received a good number of replies from prospective mentors, many saying that my writing was stronger than other acquaintances ten years my senior.

The proof that my hard work had gained me a leg up on finding my WLE came towards the end of my search, when I had three offers of possible placements. The first was with a child psychologist located in the Stonestown Medical Center Building, who was focusing on extending her practice into private schools. The second was doing some retail work and jewelry production at a couture bridal jewelry shop on Union Street. The last was another jewelry design company, with a woman who worked out of her home. After interviewing with the first two placements, I finally decided to work at the couture bridal jewelry shop, Haute Bride. The pain of going through endless lists for finding a WLE placement was now over, and I had gained a placement I loved. Now it was time to prove myself as a dedicated worker, something I couldn’t have done without my second rule in my mind.

The second rule of dancing is something I picked up both as a student and a teacher: adaptability is what separates the good dancers from the great dancers. There are a many times when last minute incidents occur and things must change. A fellow dancer’s car may break down and you’ll have to know how to fill in for her spot so it’s not evident to the audience that someone is missing. Or maybe you’re thrown into a workshop that is teaching a dance to be performed that afternoon. I can still hear my Musical Theatre teacher Marilou saying, “You are only as good as your ability to accept change.”

These words to live by applied more than ever when I first walked into Personiva, my 11^th grade WLE, along with two of my classmates, Fia and Germain, and had no clue what to do. Not knowing much about the company, I went in there with no expectations. I had never heard of the company before, and therefore had no idea as to what they did, who they did it for, and why they did it. I soon learned that they are an interactive branding company who takes care of interactive marketing advertisements that specialize in allowing users to input their faces into well-recognized TV commercials.

However, because Personiva was a start-up company, our mentors Art & Yogesh were often busy and as a result unable to spend more time with us. This meant that a majority of the time, we would have a quick conference with them at the beginning and end of the day to check on progress, but spend most of our time there just working with each other. This meant that it was time for my training in the art adaptability to kick in. If we weren’t able to get out of the dependency stage, we wouldn’t have been able to work independently, without the hovering of our mentors.

Being able to adapt also played a key role in my WLE time done at Haute Bride, as it helped me gain more responsibility in my duties at the shop I began with the small tasks, such as keeping the retail storefront clean, and cleaning the jewelry. Yet every week I would come back and I would have a new assignment that would require just a little bit more skill. I grew into jobs that gave me much more responsibility, because I had shown I was able to grow as a worker. In no time I was able to be part of the jewelry production, and was actually able to have my pieces sent out to stores which bought wholesale from our company. It was a great feeling to know that my work was thought of highly enough, and I was trusted enough to actually have the items I produced be shipped out into what I considered “the real world”.

The third rule of dancing is something I learned through teaching the little girls in my class: there is always more than one way to accomplish something. While at Personiva, most of our work was a lot of research and brainstorming, or de-bugging current projects. It was our task to find out what wasn’t appealing about an ad, or what struggles users might be having with it. There was many a time that it took us more than one try to reach our goal.

One of our first days at Personiva, we were told to find a way to spread word about an ad that allowed users to theoretically become part of the Super Bowl by uploading their pictures. We thought the easiest way would be to make accounts various websites and post a topic with a link directed towards the Personiva site. Within an hour, we checked back to see if our postings had gotten any hits, only to see that other message board readers had taken us for spammers. When we discovered a way to make our postings seem less unscripted, the site counter started to show that there was more traffic coming in, and we felt all the more successful knowing we had played a part.

The fourth rule of dancing that applies to all performers is: smile no matter what. When I applied this idea to my WLE work, I used it as I worked on my presentations for my final projects. My 11^th grade WLE project (which I completed with the help of Fia and Germain) was a proposal in the form of a powerpoint that we were hypothetically presenting to Levi’s as an idea to gain more customers. We came up with a reward system that included banners, and interactive online fashion shows which would draw in more customers. To further the spread of the Levi’s name, we also had our proposal include codes that could be placed on networking sites that are so frequently used by nearly everyone in today’s society. I recall being so worried up until the presentation was over with, and faking my way through my nervousness by putting on my best assertive voice. I kept reminding myself that I was placing myself in the role of an actual business worker, and that this was a real presentation. I would not go into a real board meeting timid and unsure, so there was no reason to treat this exhibition any differently.

When my WLE project came creeping up this year, I was the slightest bit more prepared. I created a hypothetical plan, where I thought up a project where I would hypothetically rent out the place that Haute Bride now operates out of and run a business of my own. I thought up the company Brownie Points, where I would have a café of gourmet brownies. There were two components to my project, a visual aspect, and a business aspect. The visual aspect was displayed on a posterboard, where I laid out my ideas for how I would renovate the space to fit my company better. This included lighting, furniture, and paint choices. The business aspect, which was easily the more difficult of parts, was in the form of an actual first-year business plan that would be presented while trying to get a loan or other support. Though the presentation for this project was only to fellow students, I still found myself nervous about the presentation. However, this time I knew I was more prepared, smiled my way through it, and made it through unscathed.

As I look back, I see that my love of dancing has prepared me for my WLEs, which has in turn prepared me to be a part of the work force, and therefore, a contributing member of society. As a dance teacher, I have had to start examining things through a business lens, instead of my usual tendency to only see the creative sides of things. With this thinking, I was able to excel further in my work than I could have if I had only been a one trick pony, or only had a creative side. And my final rule that I’ve learned, is that everything: dance, work, and life, is all about balance.