Hoping to gain necessary credits for graduation, seniors presented their senior projects to panels of teachers on November 5 and 25.
The panels were assigned by career counselor Michael Darcy
According to science teacher Kristi Ansert, senior projects are “a culmination of the high school experience for seniors.”
Senior projects give seniors the ability to reflect on their high school career.
“Classes, teachers, coaches, job shadows and mentorships,” Ansert said. “Senior projects help them organize what they’ve learned about themselves and what they might want to get from that to help them move forward post-high school.”
Senior projects require teachers to assess seniors on their projects.
“We observe the presentation and have follow-up questions and if there is anything that was not presented in the project by the student,” Ansert said, “we try to draw [that] out from them in the question and answer session.”
Ansert said that the teachers aim to “uplift” the things the students accomplished and give guidance if the students’ presentations were “lacking” in any areas so that they can give recommendations “about how they can improve to do it again.”
“We’re not looking for areas to take points off. In fact, we try to promote the higher grade whenever possible by doing the Q&A,” Ansert said.
Ansert offers some relevant advice to seniors.
“Do not procrastinate. Do a run through of your presentation once or twice timed. You are always a little bit more nervous when you’re doing it in front of people like teachers,” Ansert said.
According to Darcy, he is “responsible for scheduling and verifying that students sign up,” as well as “entering the scores at the end and verifying job shadows.”
Darcy makes the Excel spreadsheet that teachers use to put in the scores.
Darcy also interviews students that transferred and didn’t have as much time to work on their projects.
“I have to take out certain students who may not be presenting or set up an exit interview because students that are transferring late into their high school career do not have time to do all the pathway stuff,” Darcy said.
Darcy believes that senior projects are not something that should be stressed too much about.
“There is no right or wrong. It’s only that we want to know more about you,” Darcy said.
According to senior Jack Richter, to prepare for the presentation, he put together a template for his slideshow.
Practicing in front of people also prepared Richter.
“The best way to prepare is to get a good idea of what I am going to say ahead of time, go through it in your head,” Richter said, “and then demonstrate it in front of other people.”
According to alumna Emily Ulrich, the teachers judging her project were “very encouraging.”