Junior Aditi Soin discusses Peer Counseling Club’s plans for end of the year seminar.
Every year, Peer Counseling Club holds a seminar addressing social and mental health issues important to students. Last year, the seminar focused on academic stress and time management while this year’s end of the year seminar will focus on giving advice to next year’s incoming students and dispelling stress-related myths about MVHS. Junior Aditi Soin, Peer Counseling Club’s Director of Seminars for the 2014-2015 school year, talks to El Estoque about the club’s plans for this year’s seminar and its importance to new students.
El Estoque: When will the seminar be?
Junior Aditi Soin: We don’t have a finalized date yet, but we’re aiming for the end of May, possibly right after AP testing, so we have that free time.
EE: What is the seminar’s purpose?
Soin: We’re reaching out to students in eighth grade coming into MVHS from Lawson [Middle School] and Kennedy [Middle School] and because we want to bust myths and false ideas of MVHS.
EE: How does this year’s seminar compare to last year’s?
Soin: I think that it is going to be similar because the way that it was set up last year was that we would have a credible source speak. Last year, it was on mental stress, so we had someone who’s good at mental health speak, and we would have students give their opinions, so [this year] we’re going to have teachers and counselors, and we’re going to invite students who have been through freshman year and sophomore year to speak.
EE: Who is the club planning to invite to speak at the seminar?
Soin: We’re going to have some students and some faculty. We’re going to include student counselors and [Student Advocate Richard] Prinz.
EE: How have the officers been planning the seminar?
Soin: We have a few meetings and a Google doc. Basically, the way we plan seminars is by adding our own creativity to the plan, so it’s pretty simple. We just put down whatever ideas and just cut, and we time [the events] and make [the plan] work.
EE: Why is it important for students to go to the seminar?
Soin: I think that this seminar is really important to new students in particular because when I was a freshman, I had no ideas about what MVHS was like. I was like, “What’s going on?”
[You can lose] half of your freshman year just figuring out how the school works, which could affect your performance inside and out of class. Getting them prepared well before they enter is a very big thing.But even though the jump from middle school to high school doesn’t seem like a big jump, it is and the transition can also be really tough.
