Usually seniors dread having to compete their senior project, a requirement for graduation. These projects are mandatory, and it causes students to resist the need to do them, making the process of the project agonizing, boring and pointless. This is the exact opposite of what senior projects are supposed to do. Students, mentors and coordinators have lost sight of what these projects are supposed to be – fun, enriching and valuable to senior’s educational and personal pursuits. The school should change this process as soon as possible.

Learning is supposed to be an experience, not a list of check boxes to fill out. The senior project needs to be reinvigorated to create interest for students to understand the value of the educational experience. Currently, the senior project handbook is a list of steps needed to pass the project to graduate. This list is full of minimum requirements, specifications and little room for creative licensing. Some students are denied the ability to pursue a project they feel a passion for because it doesn’t correctly meet the requirements of the list. This usually de-motivates seniors for this requirement.

In all reality, problems rarely arise from a misstep on a checklist. More creative licensing on the senior project would prepare seniors for the issues of today’s global society. Anguish in the Middle East will not be solved by double checking a list, but by careful mediation and discussion. The cure to cancer does not lie in a form, but in trial and error and experimentation.

The senior project in its current form does not adhere to the challenges of the 21st century, and is therefore practically null. Some more conventional opponents argue that the current form of Senior Project teaches professionalism and proper articulation of thought. While this is true in the context of a traditional, standardized school setting, this does not help students explore the content literacy of the real world.
Senior project should be altered. There is nothing wrong with the idea of a senior project because it’s a good thing, but the approach of it has become an issue. In order to engage and excite students there needs to be an alteration of senior project policies. It is essential that there is more of a creative freedom with the project, and approved some other way than a checklist.