Talia Schwartz, Senior
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
While many seniors have felt burnt out and noticed a lack of motivation all year, senioritis is now afflicting all seniors as the year is almost over and graduation approaches. The weather is getting warmer, and fun senior activities such as assassin and skip days mark the end of the year. Meanwhile, Quarter 4 for seniors looks different than all other quarters due to Senior Project, which is a unique opportunity for seniors to construct an independent internship of their choice with the goal of career exploration, community service, and academic research.
Ultimately, through Senior Project, administrators hope to provide students with new educational opportunities in an independent environment to prepare them for college, adulthood, the workforce, and life after graduation as a whole. Some examples include working as a teacher’s assistant in an elementary school or interns at a local business. While Senior Project is an optional internship, most seniors opt to participate mainly to stop going to CP1 and Honors level classes. However, seniors must continue going to AP classes until after their AP tests: therefore, students in several AP classes may decide against a Senior Project so they can focus on their exams.
For students in solely standard or honors level classes, Senior Project indicates the end of the school year because they do not need to come back into the building until they present their project on June 2nd, the real last day of school for seniors. As a senior who is not doing a Senior Project due to AP classes, I wonder if this project is an effective use of time for MHS seniors. Are students truly meeting their project requirements, which includes 30 on-site hours and 10 at-home hours per week?
With less instruction and more independent work, are students slacking off and doing the bare minimum with few repercussions? Meanwhile, if MHS ended Senior Project and students were forced to remain in school until June 2nd, would those students maintain their work ethic when most have already committed to college? To answer these questions, I interviewed a few students who chose to participate in the project.
One student claims that she has been working diligently since the start of the project. According to her, “Senior Project has been a great experience for me to go out of my comfort zone and expand my knowledge beyond regular learning in the classroom.” This student is in several AP classes and is splitting her time between starting her project and continuing to prepare for exams in May. However, this student, who is working diligently on her project, in addition to regular academic classes, may be the exception. Another student told me that, “it’s fourth quarter of Senior year. We can do whatever we want.” This student hasn’t been in the school building itself since the start of the quarter and is doing the bare minimum to meet the requirements of his project. He is enjoying the additional free time and less work that comes with the project.
After interviewing several other students, I got mixed opinions on students’ productivity and the benefits of the project. Overall, students who put more effort into their project will get more out of it as a result. Senior Project can be beneficial in teaching students how to be independent and how to self-motivate when they don’t have a teacher to guide them.