The power button on the computer turns luminescent as he sits up straight, pulls his blazer tighter over his shoulders and takes a sharp breath. 

“Hello everyone, welcome back to Day as a Professional”

Though this introduction remains consistent, it takes Coppell High School senior Gautam Rao to computer labs, hospitals and space all through his computer screen. 

Starting his channel “Day As a Professional” (DAAP) in December of last year, Rao interviews various sources about their experience in their current career path in order to provide his audience with the most accurate information about that specific field. 

“My channel is a place of learning where you can grow [and] find information you want to,” Rao said. “Most importantly I think it’s a place which hopefully gives you insight into what you want to do.”

Rao connects with his sources online and does an ample amount of research to find the best person to represent the field of interest. 

“LinkedIn is a very powerful resource, it allows you to connect with [people] you can build rapport with,” Rao said. “It doesn’t work every time, there’s a lot of hits and a lot of misses. I would say LinkedIn is probably my greatest resource.”

Rao recently hit 1,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, and it continues to grow everyday. 

“[His subscriber count is] really an awesome thing; it’s a milestone,” Rao’s father Rohit Rao said. “Gradually, he built up that followership, which is really awesome, awesome, awesome.”

Gautam has grown his channel with little to no marketing. According to Gautam, all of his promotion has been through texting in group chats and word of mouth. In the future, Gautam plans on changing up the style of the video interviews to diverge from Zoom.  

“I think that once he becomes more professional in his work and is able to interview in person, it will help boost his credibility,” CHS senior Pranav Swarna said.

Although Gautam’s target audience is primarily high schoolers, he thinks everyone can benefit from the information his channel offers. 

“The audience, in particular, I would say middle school or high school[ers], and high school kids who really don’t know where they want to go [or] what they want to do,” Gautam said. “It can also be seen in college as well because there’s a lot of switching majors in college, and [a viewer might] see one of my videos and change your major.” 

Gautam has also reaped the benefits from the creation of his own channel, finalizing his career choice after high school. 

“After talking to some engineers, it helped me find that I had an interest in engineering, electrical engineering [and] computer engineering to be specific, and it really helped me do [things to help me go towards that goal],” Gautam said. 

Gautam’s future goals are to grow his YouTube channel and improve the quality of his setting. However, he is grateful for the experiences he has had so far.

“Once you dream about things and you make it in your mind, things fall into place to start working towards it and get to [more] milestone[s],” Mr. Rao said. “So the first thing is to start to dream. To dream a good dream.”

Follow Sreeja (@sreejamudumby) and @CHSCampusNews on Twitter.