Light and Salt Academy is a non-profit organization that helps tutor refugee students in various topics. I have been a tutor since the beginning of freshman year, and I mainly tutor fourth and fifth graders in math. Depending on what topic you are tutoring for, there are different platforms you use to teach. For example, for math, we follow the Khan Academy curriculum. We use Khan Academy because we aren't only trying to help with homework, but we are also trying to get the students caught up to their grade level. I volunteer in group sessions, which are twice a week for 2 hours each, with about five kids in each session. Tutoring is a great way to put yourself out there, meet new people, and help others. It's super rewarding to see a student's confidence and skill growth over time, and it's nice to get to know them on a personal level. If you are interested in becoming a tutor, click here to visit their website. It's a great opportunity!
This year, I also joined the Massachusetts Academy Community Service Club (MACS). MACS is a club that holds events known as STEM Saturdays. During STEM Saturdays, we create activities to introduce kids to the STEM world. Most of the kids that come to these events are between the ages of 7 to 12, which makes it super exciting because we are able to help introduce them to the sciences at a young age. In the past, we have done activities ranging from creating elephant toothpaste to creating DNA out of toothpicks and candy.
Student council has shaped me into the person I am today. I ran many events as a freshman in my sending school, Tahanto's, regular council, and then decided to run for secretary because of my love for it. Being on the executive board sophomore year taught me so much about leadership and adapting to constant roadblocks. Generally, StuCo plans school-wide events such as spirit weeks, pep rallies, and orientation. Through StuCo, I have gone to many conferences and have built life-long bonds. Because of my passion for this club, I even decided to run for the regional Student Council board, and I am now a delegate. The regional student council board plans a fall, winter, and spring conference for all of the student councils in the central district. There are four districts in the Massachusetts of Association Student Councils (MASC), South Eastern (MASC), North Eastern (MASC), Central District (MASC), and Western (MASC). We are a part of the central district. If you are interested in learning more about Student Council and the different regions, click here to visit the MASC website!
Girls Who Code is a non-profit summer program for high school girls to learn the basics of coding. Their mission is to promote the idea of women in STEM, and they even have many influential women come in to talk to the students and show them that anything is possible. There are two options for the summer program: the 6-week self-paced program and the 2-week proctored program. I participated in the self-paced program because it allowed me to integrate it into my schedule easily, and it allowed me to dig deeper into topics as I set my time frame. The five courses I went through were Beginner HTML & CSS, Beginner JavaScript, Web Design for Social Good, Intro to Cybersecurity, and Cryptography. Click here to visit their website, and apply for their next summer program!
I am currently a member of my local library's Teen Advisory Board. As part of the teen advisory board, we meet on the last Sunday of every month to plan library events. One thing I love about the Teen Advisory Board is that we don't only organize events like book talks, but we also put together things like tie-dye day so that the whole community can be involved. I come from a very small town where everyone knows each other, so having community events where we can all help each other out and bond is a great feeling. Click here to see what activities we have coming up.
Being on the Varsity Math Team has allowed me to look at various problems and experiment with many methods. I am also able to reach outside of my comfort zone and challenge myself by applying the math I have learned to higher-level problems. Math team lets you explore problems you don’t usually get to delve into and enables you to collaborate with those around you to break down the problems. Since I was on the Russian School of Mathematics Math Olympiad team, I have participated and placed 16th nationally in Math Kangaroo. I also received the bronze, silver, and gold awards for MOEMS (Mathematical Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools).