Afternoon Tea with Nikolai Ortiz
Nikolai is a full time Junior in his third year at the OHS and is based in Padre Island, Texas. You may know him as the Board Chair of Communications and Outreach in student government, or as the leader of this year’s Competitive Entrepreneurship Club. Nikolai sits down with Pixel Journal to share his diverse experiences and stories from OHS and his outside pursuits.
Mentoring is one of Nikolai’s passions, reflected both through the OHS community and in his hometown. At OHS, Nikolai is the leader and founder of the Competitive Entrepreneurship Club. Last year, he was part of MIT’s Young Entrepreneurs Program, Launch X. “Creating a business in four months was really stressful for the whole team, but it actually turned out to be so much fun,” Nikolai recalls. As a part of last year’s Launch X, Nikolai and his team created Connecting Tomorrow, a social media management company that helps small businesses reach Hispanic and Latino audiences. Connecting Tomorrow trains and hires Guatemalan University students in social media management to meet the needs of these small businesses and to help the students in paying for higher education. It’s a win-win; small businesses reach a much wider range of audiences, and university students have the opportunity to make money to support themselves. “The whole process was a memorable experience for sure.” Nikolai says with a smile.
Because the president of OHS’s Launch X club left for college last year, Nikolai had the opportunity to take over the club this year. Nikolai wants to use his prior experience to help Pixels learn to create their own problem-solving startup companies. The club helps students launch their own companies and teach them the method of pitching their businesses to entrepreneurship competitions, investors, and mentors in the industry. Nikolai worked to create and develop the club’s curriculum, and he individually helps lead each team of students towards their goals. “In the fall semester, students are guided on how to create their own businesses and how to write their applications for different entrepreneurship competitions, such as the Diamond Challenge and the Blue Ocean Competition,” Nikolai explains, “Then, our plan for the Spring semester is to help students turn their business models into real companies and teach them how to pitch their businesses to get scholarships, funding, and brand deals.” Competing plays a large role in the club, but Nikolai does not want the only takeaway from the club to be competitive experience. “I want the OHS students create real, practical startup companies, and it’s fulfilling for me to help them turn their ideas into tangible businesses and become young CEOs and co-founders.”
Being a club leader is far from a smooth ride, though. Because this was his first year running the club, Nikolai has used trial and error to navigate the effective methods of how to lead. “There is definitely a learning curve in terms of learning how to teach and guide students,” he tells me, “I am super passionate about entrepreneurship and business, so I’m learning how to help students effectively take away from their experiences and help them avoid the mistakes that I made last year.” For Nikolai, competitive entrepreneurship helps develop his leadership, communication skills, and grit. He has learned to communicate effectively and to stay organized. Some days are more challenging than others, “Especially when it’s one a.m. and I’m lowkey panicking about organizing presentation slides,” but it is ultimately the goal of helping students create effective businesses that keeps him going.
Nikolai also takes his passion for mentoring outside OHS and teaches kids at his local middle school. He tells me, “I’ve done science fairs since kindergarten, and now I get to pass on that experience and teach younger kids how to compete and present at science fairs. I get them excited about science, and it’s a really rewarding experience.”
In addition to his leadership roles both in and outside OHS, Nikolai does competitive hip hop dance. “This actually started as a need to fulfill OHS PE credit.” Nikolai says with a laugh, “But now I have really developed a passion for it.” He has been dancing since his freshman year and competes at various international dance competitions in the state of Texas. Dance was something he had never tried before, and “[He] had to adjust to learning a new skill in a new environment, as well as learn to transition from mainly academic work to something that gave [him] more creative freedom.” Right now, dance serves as an outlet for him to just have fun. (And, most importantly, to learn to dance to Nicki Minaj.)
Of course, balancing all his extracurriculars with a full OHS workload is challenging. Time management and efficiency, while also caring for his mental health are some of Nikolai’s main obstacles. However, through his experiences and the skills he has learned through entrepreneurship, mentoring, and dance, he is learning to meet and combat the difficulties that arise. “OHS can definitely be a struggle, but I know it is preparing me well for college and beyond. I have an amazing support system from family and friends, and I am so grateful for them and for OHS for providing resources and support.”
Last year, Nikolai saw how many students like him were personally affected by OHS’s course load and wanted to create a solution to help them. Thus, through student government’s Board of Communications and Outreach, he created the OHS Survival Guide: a collection of advice from former students to help incoming students mentally prepare for their upcoming classes and get detailed advice from their peers. Last year was a test run of the Survival Guide, where Nikolai and the Board of Communications conducted surveys from former students of the freshman and sophomore core classes, Methodology of Science – Biology (MSB), and History and Philosophy of Science (HSC). “We basically asked, ‘If you could go back to the beginning of the year, what would you tell yourself?’ And then compiled the results into lectures for next year’s incoming students.” Nikolai explains. This year, he and the Board of Communications are planning to expand The Survival Guide to include more classes and make a website to compile students’ suggestions onto a more cohesive platform to reach and help more students.
For fun, Nikolai does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, filmmaking, and loves to travel. I ask him how often he gets bruises and pulled ligaments in Jiu Jitsu, and he replies, “Oh, almost every class. And one time I almost lost my pants in the process too.” We both burst out laughing. Exploring and experiencing new places is also one of his favorite things to do. “One of my favorite travel experiences was going to VidCon 2019 as a video creator,” he tells me. (VidCon is YouTube’s annual video and tech conference, held in Southern California.) “The goal was to have as much fun as I could. I met a bunch of creators my age and we pretty much became best friends for the weekend. We got to dye random strangers’ hair purple, meet Dora the Explorer […] I loved that trip because it was entirely spontaneous,” he continues, “And I really felt like my most authentic self.”
After high school, Nikolai’s dream is to attend Oxford University to study economics and management, continue growing his business, and hopefully go on many more spontaneous trips. I thank him for sitting down with me and wish him good luck in everything in the future. “It’s been a pleasure,” he replies, “and I’m excited for what the future holds.”