Next year it will be mandatory, but this year only a small number of seniors had to do it. It is the senior project. Many students know about and some dread it, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.
An assignment currently given to students their senior year if they don’t have enough AP credits, senior projects start at the beginning of the year and end the first two weeks of April with a presentation before judges.
“I did my senior project over firefighting,” senior Zach McWilliams said. “The presentation was actually easier than I thought it would be. The judges had a lot of questions and most people went over the desired time.”
Seniors signed up by completing a portfolio and handing it in to their senior project support teacher, or Chris Mayfield, the associate principal for seniors.
“The hardest part was the portfolio without a doubt,” senior Zach Wilkins said. “You had to have each document in there in order to get a presentation time and there was so much to do. It’s a lot of work and it takes time.”
Each presentation has to be a minimum of eight minutes long, making some students who aren’t used to public speaking, nervous.
“The time factor wasn’t a problem, once you got talking, the time flew and you were unaware of it,” McWilliams said.
Administrators say the point of senior project is to motivate students to step outside their comfort zone, and in the process they will hopefully learn something from it.
“From a presentation standpoint, the students did a fantastic job. The feedback that I’ve gotten from judges is that students did an outstanding job, and they were really impressed with the quality, and really enjoyed the presentation time,” assistant principal Chris Mayfield said. “As far as senior projects as a whole, I thought this was a good, strong year. Some students did some really big projects, and had some really meaningful projects that they were a part of.”
Regardless of the student, most would agree something was learned.
“Patience is what I’ve taken from this project. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true,” Wilkins said. “It taught me that it takes time, and a lot of dedication to get things right sometimes.”
