Self-Evaluation

The general topic of my Senior Project was to get freshmen to be more involved in non
academic activities. My Research Paper topic was on why should students be able to participate in
non extracurricular activities. I decided on this because many are worried that if a student is part of
an activity then they would be focusing all their attention to their activities that they would start to
forget about their academic work. My mentor-supervised activities were a few events that the
freshman wanted to see. A few of the events I did was Cookies N’ Cram that happens before
students first finals where they come and Link Crew leaders help them study or review their study
packets while we give them cookies as they study. Another event I held was a game night where the
freshman were able to come and play against each other.

My research paper is connect to my activity because I am helping Link Crew make sure that
the freshman are becoming comfortable in their new school space. By doing these activities for them
they get to participate and show school spirit. I did discover some unexpected things during my
research, for instance; EBSCO was not as helpful as they often say it is. Also I lanred some new
methods for finding articles by simply typing some key words into google. My opinion had changed
at first because I had forst started off with showing school spirit but then it had later developed onto
why being involved in non academic activities is hellpedful. Some thought I had at first of the Senior
Project wsa that it would be useless and a waste our time. Although now that we are coming towards
the end of this project I see that the is a reason as to why we do this project because it helps the
seniors take on a responibility and it helps prepare of for the word after we graduate high school.

I spent most of my first semester time dedicated to my research paper. Even though I did fail
it the first times I still decided to find time to work on my paper throughtout the year apart from
workking on getting my hours. So far I have completed about fifty percent of my hours. I had ended
my first semester with a little under than my 10 hours and I went into my second semester to reach
my 10 hours from my first semester. Now I am going into my next ten hours of project to which i
have almost the first two.I tried to use the Senior Project Timeline to meet all of the dealines. But
ocnsidering the fact that I had not passed my research paper the first two times that did give me a
setback because then I had to make time to work on my paper while working on getting my hours.
What I learned about myself throught the Senior Project presentation is that if I actually set mind to it
I can be pretty creative more than I usually am. Because before I would fill out a proposal form I
would make a list of some possible activities and then throw them out to a few peer Link Crew
leaders, to get their feedback onwhich activities we could do.

If I could do my Senior Project over and do things differnyl I would start my hours earlier than
I had befre and also do more than one activity proposal form at once. Because each one has to be
submitted at least 15 days before the event so if I plan a few events ahead of time with Link Crew
and get people to commit to events then I could turn in more than one form that way we can have an
event after next. Instead of planning an event gouing through with it and then waiting to figure out
which event we will do next. I will prepare myself for the Oral Presentation practicing giving my
presentation possibly to my family or to my AVID class before. I would also prepare myslef by going
over what I will be saying and sing notecards for ny things that I do forget to metion during the
presentation. Yes, I did encounter some problems during my Senior Project. Some problems were to
get frehsman to actually come and participate for some events. A solution to getting them to come
out and participate is that some of their teachers would give extra credit if they came out to
participate and we also had candy for prizes.