Applying 10-10-10 Tip

By Nora Sun

The 2nd of WIT’s 11 tips is the rule of 10-10-10. The rule teaches forethought by asking us to consider the consequences of an action 10 minutes, 10 weeks, 10 months (10 years, etc) from now before making the decision. I’ve applied this WIT tip many times throughout my journey building my program, Talaria Summer Institute, and describe some of these crucial moments below—hopefully, this blog can help you better understand how you can apply this useful WIT Tip! 

My journey began in middle school. The lack of intellectual spaces that welcome female students had become apparent to me at a young age, when I was often left out as the only girl on my middle school’s math team, and later dropped out of the team. Initially, I didn’t want to do anything about this. I was introverted and insecure. 

However, I recalled how envious I was of the boys’ camaraderie—I yearned for individuals with whom I could share intellectual discussions regarding ideas in science like that. I knew that if I didn’t try to initiate change, I would continue to be left out in science because I am a girl. In other words, even though sitting back and doing nothing would feel comfortable in 10 minutes, I would regret it 10 months and 10 years from then. 

I started working on science research projects in middle school. Building rigorous research projects was incredibly cognitively demanding, especially because many of my projects were in vastly different areas of science that I had no background in. Here, I used the 10-10-10 rule as motivation—my next 10 minutes, or even my next 10 days of research might be frustrating, but in 10 months, I will understand the topic a lot more deeply and be rewarded with the opportunity to work on more advanced projects.  

I founded Talaria Summer Institute during my freshman year of high school. Talaria Summer Institute is a summer research program during which female high school students work one-on-one with professional researchers to complete a research project during the month of July and present it at a conference.

Whereas I’d previously applied the 10-10-10 rule to drive me to found an organization, I now used it to turn down partnerships. We’ve received many offers to help us expand. I’ve always been very excited to watch Talaria grow, ambitious for it to reach hundreds of students when it only reached dozens, and thousands now that it reaches hundreds. However, accepting an expansion we don’t have the capacity to maintain may feel exciting for 10 minutes, but in 10 months, it may lead to a new chapter collapsing or mentees failing out of the program, and we would always rather a 100% success rate with 10 mentees than a 10% success rate with 100 mentees. 

Right now, Talaria Summer Institute is finally preparing to launch its first residential chapter in partnership with a university. I’m super excited to join the WIT community after winning the Do WIT Podcast giveaway, and I look forward to attending WIT hangouts and learning more useful tips as a WIT community member!