04th May2012

GEMS Program attracts Lane girls to field of science

By Claudia Maj

Step aside boys, the girls are coming through! That is, in math, science, and technology of course.

The GEMS program (Girls’ Electronic Mentoring in Science, Engineering, and Math) was first introduced to Lane while assistant principal Dr. Dignam and science teacher Mr. Kopak were interviewing science teachers for the 2011-2012 school year. Throughout every interview they had asked the teacher whether or not they would sponsor and help with the club.

One of the interviewed teachers, Ms. Finchum, was a mentor/tutor for the club while she was a student at UIC. She and Dr. Dignam discussed the start of GEMS here at Lane.

Now the girls meet for GEMS the first Monday of every month to explore their interests in math, science and technology. The meetings take place in room 305 after school.

“We started this club to get girls excited to be in a field that is mostly male dominated,” Dignam said.

The girls have gone on field trips together and they work on experiments to build interest in topics brought up in the club. They also receive news about possible internships and scholarships in the math and science fields.

A common event that takes place during the meetings is having a guest speaker visit.

Most visitors that come to the club have been women who have excelled in careers in math, science, and technology.

“I have heard about many women taking the lead in scientific jobs but I never had the chance to meet any,” club member Anastasiya Sapatynska, Div. 467 said, “ I want to be an anesthesiologist nurse so I was really excited to hear that one was going to visit us, and I loved how much she enjoyed her job.”

Statistically it is shown that there are still less women working in the math and science field. According to an article published November 4. 2011 in the New York Times, women only make up 17 to 18 percent of those who have a bachelor’s degree in engineering and computer science. Just over 40 percent of bachelor degrees in the physical sciences and math are earned by women.

“Young girls and women may have all the skills needed to be top-notch engineers or scientists, but if they fall victim to believing in stereotypes, they may not think they will be successful,” Project coordinator Sarah Shirk at UIC said.

President of the club Jacqueline Hardin, Div. 474, does not let stereotypical views stop her from continuing her education in science.

“One thing I know is that I want an occupation in the field of science, and that is mainly why I am in GEMS, it helps me figure out what I like and dislike,” Hardin said.

As president, Hardin helps the adult club sponsors. She also informs the other members about upcoming news and meetings and welcomes the guest speakers.

The Google office will be visiting Lane March 26. during ninth period, where they will be talking about careers in computer science.

The club currently has an open enrollment, which means any girl can still join the club by signing up to the club’s contact list via the Lane Tech website.

The main goal of the club is to keep girls’ hopes and spirits up so they will not give up in preparing their dream jobs. GEMS is raising ‘Girl Power’ to its highest.

 

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04th May2012

Teaching styles keep students engaged in classroom

By Nicole Perez

Falling asleep during class, being able to listen to music, never turning in homework, and having partnered tests. These are some of the things that the stereotypical “favorite” teacher allows. For some students, “easy” teachers are better teachers. Students at Lane have a different perspective.

Many students at Lane have a favorite teacher. Some of those teachers give very little homework; some are really laid back in class. Juliette Rosado, Div. 366, has a favorite teacher based on how that teacher makes hard work fun.

“I love Ms. Radlein because she makes class funny, even when what we have to learn is hard,” said Rosado.

While some other trigonometry teachers do not check homework or give easy tests, Radlein checks homework every day.

“[It’s] for a good reason because it is really hard learning the material without homework,” Rosado said.

Other students like Rosado feel the same about actually learning the material. Grace Tamayo, Div. 358, has never had Ms. Radz (as her students like to call her) as a teacher, but she was Tamayo’s volleyball coach freshman year. Tamayo would go into Radlein’s class during her lunch period just to visit, and would see how she related with her students on a whole different level.

“She would try to make math easy to understand, and as interesting as she could. Not only that, but she always cared about her students,” said Tamayo.

She admits that whenever she has any sort of problem, Radlein would be the first adult that she would talk to about it.

Jake Domsky’s, Div. 375, favorite teacher is Mrs. Applequist, who teaches Early World History. They take a lot of notes in her class, but even so, he admitted the class was not overly challenging and that she is a really relaxed teacher. While history is infamous for being long and boring, Applequist has done simulations of how it would have been to go to school under a cruel leader by teaching almost the whole period like a legalist ruler. Domsky was thankful that she only did that for one day. Another student in her class thought it was pretty cool of her to risk embarrassing herself in front of the whole class.

“She was really scary; we weren’t allowed to even look at her. She didn’t laugh or anything, it was pretty awesome. What made it even weirder was that she was like 7 months pregnant,” said Kyle Olvera, Div. 261, who is also in Applequist’s Early World History class.

Usually students are the ones performing skits. This time the teacher put one on to help their students. Francisco Moreno, Div. 273, is a senior who is struggling with senioritis, but one of his teachers puts his condition to rest.

“Mr. O’Neil never wakes anyone up from sleeping, but then again no one ever sleeps in his class,” said Moreno who put a twist on the stereotypical perfect teacher.

Moreno enjoys O’ Neil’s class because it is the perfect mixture of interactive teaching and a relaxed setting to learn in. A few other students who do not like the teachers they have for English have actually requested to transfer into O’Neil’s class.

Yousra Jouglaf, Div. 269, takes Law with Ms. Sebesteyen. While Law can seem overwhelming because of its several “what if” situations, Sebesteyen has a way of leading the question into a group discussion. Not all teachers allow these types of debates because they have the potential to get out of hand.

“Ms. S helps us by using real life examples, and her humor actually helps a lot, but to me, the fact that we have an open discussion kind of class is just awesome because most teachers just don’t let us learn that way,” said Jouglaf.

Sometimes, a teacher’s method for teaching is not everything. Personality is a big factor for Andre Garcia, Div. 276.

“The best kind of teachers are the ones who feel like they never grew up and want to be best friends with you,” said Garcia.

Not everyone has a teacher that they love. Many students say they do not like any of their teachers because they give busy work. While the definition of an “awesome teacher” varies, it is clear that an awesome teacher is not always just the one who allows sleeping or texting in class. Who can make a student feel like they are learning important information, while making the class interesting are favories too.

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04th May2012

Lane junior starts clothing company, Bear Bodies

By Kevin Morales

Many would think that running a company of their own might be too much to handle. But Mykee Hugh, Div. 377, has accepted the challenge and opened up his own business.

In early Feb. of this year, Hugh launched his very own online clothing company, Bear Bodies. Bear Bodies offers uniquely designed clothing at a fair price to young customers.

The name of his business, Bear Bodies, has a significant meaning to him. Hugh goes by the nickname “The Bear.”

“I always ate a lot,” Hugh said, “and I got a sign from my uncle that said, ‘Don’t feed the bear!’”

As a result, Hugh decided to incorporate the nickname into his enterprise.

Running a company is a first for Hugh. He has had some experience in the business field while working in different positions at various companies, the highest being store manager. Having his own company was something Hugh always wanted.

“My lifetime goal has been to have my own business. Once I had the ability to start [a business]…I went with it,” Hugh said.

Hugh says that he was inspired to follow the example of the graphic clothing store Threadless. Like Bear Bodies, Threadless started off as an online company. Over time, Threadless gained more business and popularity to the point where the owner had enough income to purchase a storefront.

“I’m hoping [Bear Bodies] becomes like Threadless. They’re my idols!” said Hugh.

In order to get everything up and running, Hugh had to go through a lengthy process before he could officially open for business. Some of the tasks involved in the process included acquiring copyrights for the company’s name and logo as well as registering the company to collect and pay taxes.

Of course, a company needs funds in order to get started and Hugh did not look very far to find some.

“It’s all self-funded,” he said.

Bear Bodies offers shirts that sport unique looks that Hugh designs with the help of customers and his panel. His panel is a group of close friends that help him organize the business or draw up new designs. He also gets additional help with publicity from supporters or previous customers.

The clothing is made for both guys and girls although, at times, some clothing may be exclusive to a gender. Hugh explained that the clothing circulates around an animalistic theme. Currently Bear Bodies only offers t-shirts. But Hugh plans on offering other types of apparel such as hats and hoodies with the Bear Bodies theme. T-shirts can be ordered off of his website: bearbodies.tumblr.com.

Hugh has the clothing made at a printing company. He sends in his chosen designs to print on the t-shirts and has them shipped to his home in bundles of 20 to 25 pieces. To store the new pieces, Hugh went to the extent of purchasing a new dresser to hold his entire inventory.

Hugh admits that running his own company is a lot of work.

“It’s a learning experience,” he said. “Once you start, it’s something completely different from what you imagined.”

Regardless of what may happen, Hugh remains optimistic about his company. He believes that anyone can try to pursue their goals at any time, even if it is as early as high school.

“If high school students have a goal and they expand on it, they can really make it into something,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, you dust yourself off, evaluate what happened, and maybe try again later…you have to cross your fingers and wish for the best.”

 

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04th May2012

Intimidation, fear of rejection keep students from applying to top colleges

By Airis Cervantes

As acceptance letters come through the mail and students faces glow with excitement, no person would ever guess that there is a doubt in their mind. Recieving acceptance letter after acceptance letter only questions some students to ponder on the “what if.” What if I hadnt been so lazy? What if I had applied to my dream school? What if I had the chance of attending there?

Some seniors at Lane contemplate what schools they would be deciding between if they had applied to their dream school. They regret not having the confidence to apply to more competitive schools, afraid they would be rejected and their hopes crushed in the process.

Having gotten accepted to all the schools she applied to Amanda Sturgill, Div. 271 wishes she would have applied to University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sturgill was not told by family or friends that she would not get into UW-Madison, but she discouraged herself from applying when she compared herself to other students at Lane.

“Richard Tran Div. 280, went out for the biggest schools! He has something to write about and I don’t,” said Strugill.

Tran is devoted to his community organization, has volunteered in a foreign country, all while maintaing an exceptional GPA and participating in extracurricular activities.

“How can I compete with that?” said Sturgill.

Sturgill does not consider herself “amazing” and says that she has not had difficulties in her life.

Sturgill also admits that she did not apply to any of the California schools that she initially wanted to attend.

“ My mom told me she didn’t think I would get in,” said Sturgill.

However Sturgill’s friend tried to convince her to apply to California schools, but the fear of rejection and senioritis kicked in.

Nancy Miguel, Div. 271 also regrets not applying to Stanford, the school of her dreams.

“I had the individual ability to rise above, but I didn’t take the risk. That’s going to be one of my high school regrets,” said Miguel.

Miguel has not recieved responses from all the schools she has applied to, but she expects to get accepted into all of them. Miguel agrees that when you start comparing yourself to other people it brings down your confidence.

“I discouraged myself. I didn’t think I was what they were looking for. I considered myself average,” said Miguel.

Even if Miguel had applied and been accepted to Stanford, her financial state would be questionable. Not knowing how much money a school was going to give her made her realize that maybe it was not worth applying.

“It’s heartbreaking to think you could’ve gone somewhere, but you cant. It’s defeating,” said Miguel.

Psychotherapist F. Diane Barth believes that the first step to take is to accept those feelings and understand that they are reasonable even if they are not accurate. Many students take college rejection letters personally even though for 50 American colleges they reject more than they accept.

“It’s like all those late nights, all those after school activities that I was in, it wasn’t enough to get in. It hurts,” said Graciela Ascencio, Div. 262.

Ascencio has also been accepted to all the schools she has applied to and now realizes that she should have applied to her reach school, Marquette University.

“If you didn’t get at least one rejection letter, it means you didn’t apply to high enough schools and that you were selling yourself short,” said Ascencio.

Although her family encouraged her, Ascencio thought the college application process was very stressful and she discouraged herself when she compared herself to other students.

“It made me feel like if they are so intelligent and they’re only applying to UIC and safety schools, then why would I be encouraged to apply to really far out schools?” said Ascencio.

“I knew a lot of smart kids that got rejected, so I was like, why should I waste my time?” said Jakub Ogara, Div. 264.

According to Ogara, students should set college standards, therefore he, “accepted rejection before it even happened”. For Ogara its not about the grades, but it’s about doing better than other people.

Patricia Mota, Div. 283 has also been accepted to all the colleges she has applied to thus far but regrets not applying to some of her top colleges.

“I would’ve applied to Boston College but I was too afraid of getting rejected,” said Mota.

Mota does not think that she could have handled a rejection letter, it would’ve hurt her ego.

“I dont like other people saying I’m incompetent or I’m not good enough,” said Mota

Rejection letters can leave a mark on a person’s ego, but according to F. Diane Barth, rejection can lead to creativity, personal strength and a growing capacity for problem solving. Closed doors can open many unexpected opportunities. They can take us places where we didn’t even know we wanted to go and in the end we end up exactly where we want to be.

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