PROJECT NEED:
As students of a dual enrollment program, we are constantly reminded of the future in regard to career planning and college classes. However, the work of academics in the classwork does not leave enough time for many students to feel prepared for the future. Overall, these feelings of stress and concerns of doubt create overwhelming amounts of worry. According to a student survey conducted by our team, 50% of students feel unprepared for college, 70% have not applied to any scholarships, and 60% are unaware of the resources available to them or unsure if there are any. This feeling of uncertainty reaches not just our school but to many others in our community which is why we plan on making these resources well known and easy to access. We will do this by...
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Link To Our Project Planner:
Link To Budget
Process, Including Events:
Team Planning
As per tradition, we started our project planning by recruiting members during our school's club rush and began our weekly meetings at lunch on Wednesdays. It was really exciting to see new members join us. We began by hosting a brainstorming meeting with doughnuts, fruit snacks, and juice to start thinking about what we wanted, it really enabled all of our girls to think about some of the specific issues in our community that needed to be addressed. Ultimately, among the clutter of ideas on the whiteboard, we decided to focus on college readiness. Throughout our meetings, work was divided between activity planning, ASB paperwork, and community outreach. Each member pours in time to create flyers for each of our events as well as others directly reaching out to potential speakers through emails in order to have these events of ours. Each member of our team is outspoken and not afraid of voicing their opinions!
Round table discussion meeting
We had this meeting to kick-start our brainstorming of what we want our project to be focused on this year. Students who were interested in joining were encouraged to come and talk about some of the issues we face as a community. All students were able to be in a relaxed environment with doughnuts and drinks in order to create a plan of action about what our project goal was. We wrote all of our ideas on the whiteboard and started narrowing them down one by one by seeing what connected to each other and what was possible!
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College and Career Readiness panel: Panel with the STARS
The first workshop Girls SOAR High has hosted was the College and Career Readiness Panel, speakers from different backgrounds that all graduated from SOAR High School. Many participants asked questions and the meeting was facilitated by our officers who read responses. The main points taken away from the conversation with the panelists were focusing on resume building and presenting oneself in a professional manner to allow room for more occupational and academic opportunities. Topics regarding racial and gender discrimination were mentioned as all of the panelists have shared their experiences and the expectation of them in specific environments. It allowed a conversation about how marginalized students are expected to perform if they want to be considered for opportunities alongside providing a comfortable space for students to release their worries about discrimination in career settings through mental wellness coping skills
"It was really amazing to see these successful people come from the same background of us, it gives me a lot of hope." - Michelle Medina |
Inspire creativity with Art professorsSOAR High School’s Student Activity Days are used to give students a day at school that allows them to socialize and relax as there are breaks from classes. Girls SOAR High hosted a room alongside a partnering SOAR club, the Mental Health Awareness Club painting and creating different art pieces. All the materials were provided to the students and they were able to make creations through the time they had allotted in their schedules. This coincides with the promotion of mental wellness and destressing oneself in our project.
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The importance of voting workshopAVC Political Science Professor, John Vento presented the importance of voting and one's voice in their community. This kicked off another portion of “The Future is Ours Project”. It focused on how to effectively impact one's community, and advocacy on a more local level is seen to be the most accessible and effective. Also promoting the idea of voter registration and preregistration to further amplify that everyone’s voice matters especially regarding the younger social demographics. This proved to be a very effective and engaging event for students! Many interesting topics such as how our environment affects our politics were brought up!
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Lancaster city election process workshopFurthering our project to help amplify student's voices we invited the Lancaster City Clerk to answer questions and present to SOAR students and Girls SOAR High the importance of voting and any political initiatives that are taking place within our community. We really got to know more about our local community, specifically, the more unknown things about our city council.
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The Future is Ours: College & Career readiness Expo
Our main event was hosted online and was called The Future is Ours: College and Career Readiness Expo. We had a great amount of support from faculty, speakers, and the student community. We were able to bring in speakers from UCLA to touch on the experience, and admissions process, and provide different perspectives on how they went about their educational journey. We then had a wellness break from a local nonprofit organization that allowed students to participate in physical wellness activities, coping skills such as tapping, and different methods of self-soothing. Alongside the wellness activities we put links for voter registration and preregistration for those who were interested with a brief description as to why student voices matter. After the wellness break we had a SOAR teacher and alumni present their transition from where they began to where they are now, answering questions alongside providing input regarding college and career readiness. The Expo ended off a raffle and another wellness activity presented by our partnering club, Mental Health Awareness Club.
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Mental health paper craft activityWith college and highs school finals around the corner Girls SOAR High used a meeting time for students to come in and enjoy snacks and create their own origami character and greeting cards. We printed out templates and just provided a space to create anything they pleased with the materials given. This allowed students to destress during school hours and having fun with friends while also prioritizing their mental health through cognitive stimulation such as crafting.
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Empowering women in stem workshop
Our most recent workshop was to encourage non male students and scholars to pursue STEM related fields if they are interested. Professor Harper was able to bring her experience of being a woman in a male dominated work environment and how it effected her well being, while also presenting how to overcome societal barriers and continuing to improve one’s self even with odds stacked against them. The students included their input and questions regarding college and career readiness in a STEM related field and she answered them to allow an environment of support and suggestions for possible future paths. Many students found this workshop incredibly helpful as she interacted with the students and presented her experience in a very understandable way
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Civic Engagement:
This is a subject that needs to be talking about with our students way more to reduce the stress they have about college and how they compare to other students when applying to colleges. This topic is important not just for our school but for ALL other high schools in our community and even nation wide! We have been extremely aware of this and have strived to make all of our workshops accessible to more than just students at our school by adopting a virtual environment. We've collaborated with different non profit organizations in order to make our project reach more people within our community by providing the right resources for academic and career success.