Student Voice: Execution of Senior project

By Maryam Shabir
Staff Writer| Pacific Times

Senior project deadlines are coming up for seniors, but the question remains whether or not senior project is being executed the right way at Np3 High School.

Senior project, a capstone, is a civic engagement project that every twelfth grader at Np3 high has to complete in order to graduate. All the seniors have heard a lot from senior advisory teachers on pursuing our passions and civic engagement through senior project. However, how is “senior project” helping us pursue those passions?

While the original idea of senior project was to promote individual passions and civic engagement, ironically it is taking away from the quality of both. Personally, I love to volunteer and I think being involved in the community is vital. However, senior project makes my involvement feel artificial and inauthentic. As much as I would like to be doing my service learning for the betterment of society, it feels coerced. Every action I take for my project feels like I am doing it for the boards in April. When I think of senior project I don’t think of helping others, I think of an obstacle to hurdle through in order to get to the finish line, graduation. I think civic engagement is necessary, but the way senior project is implemented has genuinely taken away the passion I initially had for my topic. Senior project has sucked the passion out and made me feel like a selfish being who only cares about passing.

Wanting to help others should not feel like a burden, it should be something that genuinely comes from the heart. When giving and kindness is forced it inversely turns into resentment. The same resentment that many seniors are carrying on their shoulders, especially with deadlines coming up. Mandating community service and senior project will make high schoolers repulsive of optional volunteering later on in life.

Moreover, graduation should not be held hostage for those who don’t do well on senior project. While threatening graduate does motivates students, it creates mediocrity among students who are content with just passing. There should be well thought out adjustments made by teachers and administration to make sure that the long term positives of senior project outweigh the negatives.

Senior project should be executed correctly or be executed from graduation requirements.