It’s hard to believe, but this week marked the official end of my senior year Independent Study and Mentorship journey. From my decidedly rough first few phone calls contacting local pediatricians for research interviews, to the excitement I felt after reading Dr. Gerlacher’s email where he agreed to be my mentor, and to the stressful yet infinitely rewarding experiences of Research Showcase and Final Presentation Night, this year in ISM has shaped my personal and professional individualism in ways that surpassed anything I could have imagined. On Friday night, crowds gathered through Liberty High School to support ISM as each student presented their own final products and research under their mentors over this year. After the showcase portion in the gymnasium and the mentor recognition in the auditorium, it was time for the individual presentations in the classrooms. This was my opportunity to expand on the processes I went through to create my original work and final product, and I loved getting to share the details of my work under Dr. Gerlacher with my friends and family members. The feeling at the end of the night when my presentation was over and my volunteers were helping me clean up the room was bittersweet, as I was sad that the year of ISM had come to a close, but also so glad that the end of my hard work here at Liberty these past four years had ended on such a high note. With two short weeks left before we walk the stage and begin the next chapters of our lives, I can’t help but feel blessed that I have been surrounded with supportive and selfless individuals who have helped me through my four years of high school and been introduced to programs, like DECA, Youth and Government, and of course, ISM, that have provided me with invaluable opportunities to grow as an individual and future college student. Here’s to a great year in ISM and a memorable high school journey, and to an exciting next four years in sunny San Francisco!
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The most exciting week of the year in ISM is finally here! On the night of Friday, May 19th, Liberty HS ISM will host its annual Final Presentation Night here on campus. At 6:00 pm, all students will be presenting our works in the same set-up style as we had back in January at Research Showcase. After an hour of the booth presentations, everyone will migrate from the gymnasium into the auditorium, where each of the ISM students this year will go up to the front of the stage to give a personal thank-you to their mentors and hand them their official 2017-2018 Mentorship plaques. Following this formal tradition, the individual presentations in separate classrooms throughout the school building will begin. A few weeks ago, each ISM student picked a room to call their own for the night, and I was so lucky to get the first room in the closest hallway to the front of the building! My volunteers will help me set my room up while we are presenting in the auditorium, so I can make my way to my room and start my individual presentation at 8 o’clock sharp. It is hard to believe that the year’s hard work is finally coming together and will be presented as whole at the end of this week, but I am very excited to share my work under Dr. Gerlacher with my friends and family. Something else to look forward to is the Liberty HS Senior Lock-In at Six Flags, beginning at 10 pm after FPN and going all the way until 6:00 the next morning! Besides the excitement that Friday will bring, I will also be attending senior reunions for Borchardt Elementary School and Fowler Middle School, my fourth and last tennis banquet, and the annual Frisco ISD Top Ten Luncheon, where I will be honoring my tennis coach of seven years, Coach Dopson. This week will be a whirlwind of bittersweet reunions and exciting celebrations of the end of my senior year, and I am looking forward to it!
The first two weeks of May always bring the infamous AP weeks that all high school students dread. For my senior year courseload, I took two exams last week and will be taking my last two on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Since Frisco ISD doesn't have midterms or final exams for high school students, AP exams serve as our version of finals. I know that in college, having comprehensive exams at the end of courses will definitely be something that I have to adjust to, so I am thankful that we have AP tests to give us a sense of what full-course exams are like. In addition to AP exams, we had the Frisco Education Foundation scholarship night last week, where scholarship recipient students from all of Frisco ISD came together at the Dr. Pepper stadium to meet our donors and be recognized for our awards. Over 800 seniors from the nine high schools in the district ate dinner with their donors and went up to the stage to be accept their scholarships. It was an exciting night spent with high-achieving individuals and generous donors from the city of Frisco. I was so honored to be the recipient of the Frisco Women's League Endowed Scholarship and the Frisco Education Foundation Merit Scholarship. As AP exams wrap up at the end of this week, I will be devoting my time to Final Presentation Night and then preparing for graduation!
I am currently writing this from the Orange County Airport on a Sunday, waiting for my flight back to Dallas to conclude my trip, and in sunny southern California that had started on Wednesday. DECA ICDC in Anaheim has been an unforgettable experience filled with friends, competition, and Disney! My partner, Shivani, and I went through competition briefing and testing before entering into our competitive event on Friday. We put together our brainpower and completed the roleplay to the best of our ability. This year in DECA has taught me invaluable information within my competitive cluster, hospitality and tourism, and has made me a more professional individual. I could not be more grateful for the connections, knowledge, and memories that my three years in DECA have provided me with. In other news, AP exam weeks are right around the corner, and I will have to kick my studying into gear when I get back home. Following AP week will be Final Presentation Night, the culmination of my year in ISM. With all these big events coming and going, one of the most exciting has been my recent commitment to attend the University of California, Berkeley for the next four years!!! I am beyond excited to become a golden bear and live and learn in California. Before we know it, we will be heading off to college and paving the paths for our futures. I can't think of a better place for me to embark on this journey than Cal, and I am so honored to be able to call myself a member of the Berkeley Class of 2021! Although my family did not go out of town on vacation this week, this spring break has still managed to be the most memorable one of my high school experience. While I enjoyed being able to simply relax and not think about school or work, I also took this week off as an opportunity to make memories with family and my friends, both old and new. Throughout the break, I took a few trips to explore different neighborhoods in Dallas with friends, met new people, and spent quality time with my family. Some of the highlights of my break were getting to discover the hidden gem of Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff, as well as taking the DART for the first time through Klyde Warren Park and Deep Ellum. Getting to explore the diverse sights and sounds that Dallas has to offer was definitely an adventure, and my day trips with friends this break made me fall in love with the city even more. Yesterday, I had the unique opportunity to help my friend Victoria shoot pictures for the website of her new clothing company. For me, this break was my chance to undertake as many exciting new experiences like this one as I could. The idea has finally settled in that I will be graduating high school in three short months, and I now understand the importance of making the most of this time. Balancing time for schoolwork and ISM as well as time for family and friends is the key to having a great senior year, and I will definitely keep this in mind as I finish off my last year of high school!
This past weekend was filled with anxiety, last-minute studying, excitement, bittersweetness, and pure joy. The rollercoaster of emotions I underwent was a direct result of my experiences at the DECA state conference in San Antonio, a trip that I had been highly anticipating ever since the district competition had ended back in January. All the DECA state qualifiers from across the district met up early Thursday morning to board charter buses to San Antonio, to begin the five hour drive to our hotel on Riverwalk. This state competition in particular meant the most to me personally, because out of all three DECA state conferences I have participated in, this one had the potential to qualify me and my partner, Shivani, for the International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, California. Being able to explore the amazing city of Anaheim with my friends and meet talented and ambitious individuals from across the world at ICDC would be the trip of a lifetime. The pressure of doing well in our event started to build as we attended the Texas DECA Opening Ceremony on Thursday night and crammed in some last-minute studying before our event time early the next morning. Shivani and I made the walk across the street from the hotel to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and waited anxiously outside the competition room at 8:00 am. The good thing about having such an early competition time was that we had the rest of the day to explore the Riverwalk and everything that San Antonio had to offer! By 9:30 am, we were changed out of our business professional clothing, ready to make the most of the rest of our trip. We ate delicious food at restaurants on the Riverwalk, took a boat tour of the San Antonio river, and made new friends from schools across the state. That night was a Texas DECA casino night, where the over four thousand state competitors were given a chance to meet each other and form new friendships. It was a great time, and reminded me of my love for the social aspect of conferences like this one. Saturday was our last day in San Antonio, and it started off early with the Awards Ceremony and Closing Session. This was by far the most nerve-wracking two hours of my entire trip, and I’m sure that all the other DECA members in the ballroom felt the same way. As I sat there waiting for results, I realized that winning my event would mean more than a trophy and bragging rights- it would mean my third ICDC experience, a trip to Anaheim, and an amazing way to close off my last year of high school. The moment came when Shivani and I heard our names called by the emcee. Walking up to the front of the ballroom was surreal, and those few minutes on the stage made the hours of preparation and studying worth it. The other girls that we roomed with on the trip qualified for Internationals as well, and that made everything that much more exciting. Overall, this weekend was one of the best I’ve had this year without a doubt. DECA ICDC in April will be a time of growth of my knowledge in business, an opportunity to network with students across the globe, and a trip that will be one of the shining highlights of my senior year. I spent this week preparing for the tests and competitions that are rapidly approaching! With this week being the end of the fourth six weeks, my teachers have been assigning the last major grade tests and essays to wrap up the grading period. On top of preparations for my core classes, my ISM speech is on Tuesday. I have been preparing for this upcoming speech for the past few days, and hopefully I’ll be able to effectively present my research and original work thus far in the year under Dr. Gerlacher. Something else exciting that is coming up is a trip to the DECA State Conference in San Antonio on Thursday and Friday. I am really looking forward to getting to compete against talented individuals in different business events, meet new people from across the state, and explore the Riverwalk with friends. I will definitely be spending time in these next few days studying with my DECA partner, Shivani, so we are as prepared as possible at the competition. This weekend is a three-day weekend, which has thankfully given me the opportunity to be able to do my homework and spend time catching up with friends. I cannot wait to share my original work with my classmates on Tuesday! After I give my speech, I will officially be done with the fourth six weeks of my senior year. I am looking forward to my speech and I am very excited for my upcoming trip to San Antonio on Thursday! I have come to the conclusion that high school is a true testament to how well a person can balance their responsibilities. These past few years of my life have been filled with experiments in the different amounts of time that I can devote to different priorities in my life. Simply stated, being able to make time for homework, a job, a social life, and simple downtime to relax is a feat that is not easily accomplished. Oftentimes, certain things have to be compromised in order to focus your efforts on other tasks. Time and time again, I have found myself struggling in one aspect due to the sacrifices I’ve had to make to prioritize other responsibilities. Reflecting back on my senior year so far, I have definitely felt the pressure of wanting to fulfill all the different things I devote myself to amongst the craziness of high school. These upcoming few weeks in particular will test my balancing abilities. In ISM, there is a 15-minute speech rapidly approaching, in which I will present my original work process and pediatric urgent care center business plan. This week will also be filled with major grade tests in my physics, calculus, literature, and economics classes, which will of course require a healthy amount of studying and preparation for. Something to definitely look forward to is my trip to San Antonio in two weeks for the DECA State Conference! I am so excited to be able to explore the city with fellow DECA members and participate in competitive business events with my partner, Shivani. The rest of this month will require a valiant effort on my part in terms of prioritizing and getting things done to the best of my abilities. Hopefully my balancing act pays off!
February is officially here, and I am getting back into the rhythm of senior year after the crazy past few weeks of the DECA district competition, Research Showcase, and my weekend in Austin for Youth and Government State conference. This week, I focused my time on ISM final product brainstorming, projects in AP Art, and homework in my core classes. With the instrumental guidance of Dr. Gerlacher, I have locked down an idea for my final product that will incorporate both pediatrics and the business aspect of healthcare into one project. I worked on creating a product proposal for ISM that explains the purpose of my product and sets a timeline for the steps I need to take to make sure everything is completed and finalized by Final Presentation Night in May. We have our 20-minute ISM original work speeches coming up quickly in the next two weeks, which I need to begin preparing for! Public speaking is definitely a daunting task for me, but I know that my experiences in ISM practicing and honing in on interpersonal speaking skills through the various speech opportunities will benefit me immensely in college and beyond. This month is off to a productive start, and I am determined to make the most of it by devoting time to my classes, from Art Drawing to Physics 2, and to my ISM-related endeavors. Happy February! With January coming to a close, I can honestly say the first month of 2017 has been one crazy rollercoaster of twists, turns, invaluable experiences, and amazing memories. This last week of January in particular has been action-packed from beginning to end! On Tuesday, I met with my mentor Dr. Gerlacher to develop and plan a final product idea, where he provided me with instrumental help in coming up with a feasible yet challenging proposal that I am excited to begin working on. Then, bright and early on Thursday morning, I headed off to Austin with about thirty other Liberty HS students for the 70th annual Texas Youth and Government State Conference. This conference would be held at the Texas State Capitol and is essentially a mock youth government. Throughout the process, I served as one of seven governor’s cabinet members, where I was able to move from the House of Representatives and the Senate floors to push representatives and senators to vote on bills in certain ways that would align with the youth governor’s views. Watch this video to see a short interview I did on my duties on the Governor's Cabinet! Things I love about conferences like this one are the opportunities they present for self-growth, enlightening experiences, and new friendships. I was able to meet ambitious and accomplished individuals from across the state and I had to push myself out of my comfort zone to be able to take on the tasks that came with serving as a member of the Governor’s Cabinet. My four days in Austin for my last Youth and Government state conference not only taught me more about the legislative process, but also about professionalism and public speaking tactics, skills that will benefit me in ISM, college, and beyond. With the excitement that January’s events have provided me with, I can’t wait to see what February will bring. |
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