The in and outs of Ella Walker's senior year

By Cielo McClendon

If you thought being in high school was easy, it’s not, especially being a senior. One of the students at Freedom High School, Ella Walker, has a lot on her plate dealing with being involved in after-school activities, college prep and applications, and her aspirations. 

Her pros and cons about being involved:
   Ella’s pros about being involved in school include making new friends, building leadership and social skills, and helping her grow as a person. It’s always good to make new friends especially when sharing the same interests.You get to spend time with others doing what you all love. Who wouldn’t want that? Ella also loves being a part of Freedom’s very own dance team. She loves that she gets to “dance with her girls outside of the studio without competition and straight fun.” Other than all the positives about being involved, there are some negatives. Ella says she has trouble with “having to be responsible and keeping up with time.”

Her biggest challenges at Freedom:
   Even though Ella is an A+ student and very involved, she has faced challenges here at Freedom. Managing time is one of Ella’s biggest challenges. With clubs, work, school, and college prep, time management has fought against Ella. Another challenge of hers is keeping up with being an Honors student. Honors classes are much harder than regular courses. Much more work on top of everything else can add constant stress and hard times. Luckily for Ella, she’s managing it very well. 

Her roles in clubs:
   Ella is the president of the engineering club. She organizes, makes, and/or plans activities for the club She is one of the four captains on the dance team, which performs at pep rallies. She is also a part of the club Combating Crohns and Colitis. They fundraise for bowel diseases and donated $1600 to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and also donated $400 to other programs. All together they donated around $2000.  

Her college aspirations:
   Ella hopes to go to a four-year college to major in civil engineering with a minor in architectural studies. Civil engineering is when an individual either  designs, constructs, and maintains outdoor structures for civil use. If Ella does not pursue civil engineering, she will take up architectural studies. Architectural studies is the art and science of engineering and designing buildings and large structures (these structures complement the science and art behind buildings and require artistic/mathematical knowledge). Both jobs are related and take excellent brain power to be successful. Other than her careers, Ella wants to stay involved in college whether it’s a dance team or a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) -related club.
   All in all, Ella Walker is a good example of a student who despite the challenges can excell with a busy student schedule. 

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