What is Sophomore Inspire Week + What I did for it
Sophomore Inspire Week is a week where all the sophomores go off campus for a few days to do community service. The group I was in chose to partner with Juniper to design a play space for their new location. To do this we interviewed teachers, parents, and students. We also researched playgrounds, and worked with the Junipers Principal Katie, Junipers Elective Coordinator Andy, a gardens team, and a landscaper. Then we drew out a layout for the play space and resourced materials for it onto a master budget sheet.
Pictures from the Week
Here Jazzy, August, John, Sam, and I are talking about a design for the obstacle course.
Here Copper and I are interviewing the 2&3 graders while Jazzy and Sam take notes.
This is the rough- in progress- design for the large play space which was my groups final product coming out of Sophomore Inspire Week.
Presentations of Play Space Designs
Reflection on Sophomore Inspire Week
My biggest takeaway from this experience was finding my “niches” within it. One of my niches was my love for working with kids; which I already knew but was reaffirmed with I led a focus group with the 2nd and 3rd graders. Another was the research process. I found that I enjoyed looking at surveys and interviewing all parties involved, then analyzing. Also, I found that I was good with abstract ideas, public speaking, communication with professionals, collaboration, independence(not counting the independence of having money), and the pure aspect of just getting projects done. Furthermore, I also learned that you are more likely to get donations if you are very direct and specific when talking to businesses. Those were my biggest takeaways. I think that I utilized and grew skills I was already learning in school more than gained new skills. I used collaboration by working with my group and the board. I used public speaking by speaking to focus groups, the school assembly, professionals, and my group. I used professionalism through conversing with all the professionals. I also used creativity and imagination to come up with ideas for the play space. Not only, though, did I use these skills and others I grew in them. Moreover, while I was using these skills I was very grateful for Animas preparing me for the use of them. I did not struggle with time management during the week. I felt that I was good at working hard then know when I should take a break without getting behind. I think one reason I did well with this was that we were all doing the same thing but with specific tasks within it that I was able to just sit down and do. As well as I had lots of people to collaborate with. This (and the fact that I am not a procrastinator) allowed me to manage my time well. There were a few things that YouScience told me that related to the week and some that did not. For example, YouScience told me that I was good with abstract ideas more than solidly putting them down with detail. This was very evident throughout the week as I was good at brainstorming, having plans, and ideas but not laying them out with details. With that said, YouScience told me I would be a good therapist (with several career suggestions in that field) however I felt “at home” on sophomore inspire week, researching, working with adults and kids, putting a product together, the independence. etc; I don’t see how that relates to anything I did and loved during sophomore inspire week. Dear future sophomores, When I chose my sophomore to inspire week I was not completely sold on it. You might not be either when you chose yours and that is fine!I picked mine because I knew that I had skills relating to it and I had an interest in becoming a teacher (mine had to do with a school). When picking you should try and do something you won’t die from lack in interest in but also look at the skills needed for the tasks and choose more on that than the subject of it. You will normally find that they will line up with things you have never tried or thought of and things you might end up loving. I struggled to pick because I wanted to just stick with my interest, but I thought why? I know that's my interest because that's what I’ve done but this time in life is about trying new things not getting glued down to one path with no exits. So don’t be afraid to try something new! Learning you hate something is just as or more important than learning you love it. So try something new and build on and learn new skills! Good luck! Best Wishes, Alaina Wray
P.S. Have fun. It’s not meant to be a strenuous daunting task.