The Pennsylvania Department of Education recently connected with Upper Merion High School senior Barrington Richards, who provided insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic shaped his senior year and his future plans. Read his perspective:
I have got to say the COVID-19 virus had made things much more interesting for my senior year with the Chief Science Officers. Many things were hard to juggle and navigate through having to be somewhat sandwiched between hard deadlines in my high school's curriculum, and having to draft and finalize my STEM club's action plan within the Chief Science Officers. My STEM club's action plan or project involved interviewing STEM Oriented Professionals via Zoom in order to inform the students at our school of the possible career pathways, and other opportunities STEM brings for their future.
I believe that the Chief Science Officer organization had and still has a huge hand in both my time management and communication skills. It was really tough to allocate time to certain things when I had so many tasks on my plate at one time. When it came to time involving myself with the Chief Science Officer's, I had to take into consideration my future plans to attend Thaddeus Stevens, a technical college, which would prepare me for the following two years in landing a job with Computer and Networking Administration.
This year, as a senior, was much better as opposed to last year's graduating class due to my community being pretty prepared for the issues COVID-19 would bring for virtual students and general education. With these new selected applications and technologies, which were catered to help me as a student, I had the ability to network and learn from many different resources at my disposal; which I am very grateful for. I will also say I could not see this year going any other way. It had its positives and negatives, but I grew as both a student and an individual in adapting to the trials and tribulations this school year has thrown at me.
