This past week the seniors presented their senior projects. Unlike previous years where senior needed a senior project to graduate, this year it was optional. If a student was in North’s Biomed program, senior project was not optional. If a senior chose to do the project they receive a cord to wear at graduation and also receive a metal if they had a mentor.

With all the things that came with doing or not doing the project, many seniors felt mixed feelings about this. Some liked the idea of it being optional, while others thought a senior project is sort of important.

Like mentioned earlier, Biomed students did not have the option to not do senior projects. Skyler Barnes, a current Biomed student at North shared her thoughts about this. “I feel that it really shouldn’t be required in general because the amount of stress is adds. We take a lot of AP and honor classes every single year, junior and senior year are really stressful. Senior year especially since you’re preparing for college and you’re having to turn in a project that you have to spend 60 hours and plus on. I’m really glad that it was made optional for students outside of Biomed because its very unnecessary to add that amount of stress and pressure when you should be able to enjoy your senior year, I think it should be optional for Biomed students as well.”

Other Biomed students also agreed with Skyler. Hugo Alavarez was one of them. He also shared his opinion about the situation, “If I had the willingness to chose it or not I wouldn’t have done it. For admin to say its optional but fail a student in advocacy for not doing it adds stress to all seniors. For Biomed seniors I feel we have more stress since we take additional classes for healthcare certifications. We’re also mainly focusing on college stuff and having a project with certain requirements, 30 hours a mentor, and other things like that causes unnecessary stress for us.”

Not all Biomed students felt the same way, Joel Reyes expressed a different feeling about the optional choice. “I feel like when you sign up for the program you’re expecting more of a course load and expecting more of a challenge, so making it required for Biomed students you sort of sign up for it in a way. I also think it should be required for all seniors at North. This is just a small project compared to some stuff we’ll do in college so its good prep work.”

Many of the seniors who weren’t apart of the Biomed program didn’t do the projects but some did. Demonika Mendoza was one of the seniors who chose to do the project, although she didn’t have too. She shared what made her do the senior project. “My step mom was the main reason why I chose to do my senior project on medical cannabis. She has really bad epilepsy and when she was living here in Kansas, she couldn’t get medical cannabis since we aren’t medical or recreational. Her anti seizures medications weren’t working for her the way medical cannabis did, so she moved to a place who had medical cannabis.”

Pauline Devora was also apart of the seniors who chose to do the project, she shared why she chose to do it, “I wanted the cord and metal but also I feel like its apart of your senior year. I kind of wanted the full experience because I think we’re one of the first years who got to do regular senior year activities compared to last year.”

Many of the seniors who did the project but weren’t required too mainly did it for the metal and cord. That wasn’t the only reason why seniors chose to do it, others also had their personal reasons on to why they chose their certain topics and did the project.

Gallery • 14 Photos