School after School
School can be really overwhelming at times. Especially when your trying to make yourself stand out to colleges with sports, community service, and other extra curriculars, while maintaining good grades, and taking a million different mandatory test for individual classes and the ones colleges want (SAT, etc.), all while trying to have some sort of social life. This period in life is really daunting, but millions of people make it out of this chaotic high school life. How do they do it, I have no idea. Though, I have found my own escape from this hectic school life by throwing myself into more work. I know it my sound like I’m a workaholic, but the type of work that eases all my worry from school is actually really fun. My after school program Techbridge gives me work that I enjoy doing, so in a sense it doesn’t really feel like work at all. It’s a mini school I attend that teaches some of the things that I want to learn.
Techbridge is an after school program for girls that allows them to explore the vast engineering field through hands on projects and by visiting actual engineering companies. They want to increase the number of women in the engineering field by informing and having high school girls do some of the things that actual engineers do. It gives me a chance to socialize outside of my grade level, meet executives at company’s like Cisco, and to explore possible college majors relating to the vast field of engineering. Techbridge has given me and many other girls in the program a chance to do group work and hands on projects that school can sometimes lack.
All of the projects that I have done in Techbridge are hands on and relate to a field of engineering. Techbridge has shown me some mechanical engineering by teaching me how to solder a circuit board for a model car and how a computer works by letting me disassemble one. I also made a Tilt-Box that uses a tilt switch to turn the LED light that it is attached to on and off by tilting the box. I was able to use a sort of programming helper system called Scratch, that made programing manageable and much easier than the programing in the Robotics class we had last year at Smash, though both were just as equally fun. Scratch has a basic program already set up, so that you don’t have to write out everything. Techbridge has shown me some of the practical everyday uses of chemical engineering in the common store item, lip balm. I actually got to make lip balm and the best part was that when I was done I got to keep it.
In a way, Techbridge is a lot like Smashcast for me because they both teach me things that cater to my inerest. Both are showing me how to use, understand, and to be apart of the world around me. And when I finish a project I get to keep it forever.
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May 21, 2010 at 7:05 pm | Estefania
Techbridge sounds like an awesome program!
I agree though teenagers (including myself) are getting more and more work. It’s no longer about being the smartest in your class, but also about being the most well rounded and active. Now a days you have to have the grades, the music, the arts, the volunteer work and an breath taking essays to even think about applying to selective colleges. The competition is getting harder and students are working harder to keep up.
This trend of work seems to be increasing exponentially and sooner or later its going to have to stop. Students are getting more stress dumped upon them, causing them to crack and do the unthinkable. Currently the U.S. already has a large teenage suicide rate based on school stress and it is increasing rapidly. It is interesting, yet depressing, to wonder when students will crack and no longer be able to meet college expectations. Will there ever be a day where the bar will be set to and students will break their legs jumping to reach it?