College applications, senior ball, the culminating exhibition — a senior’s year in a nutshell. The stress factor for each varies for every individual, but for me, the C.E. topped my list.
My experience with the C.E. was neither good nor bad. It was stressful — more stressful than I had hoped it would be. I was hoping for a no-hassle completion, with hours accumulated every day or so and a meeting with my mentor every week or two. Unfortunately, my idea didn’t play out as I had hoped.
Fate intervened, along with some disgruntled teachers, and my project was left in the wake of fury. My mentor, being an education writer for The Herald, was forced to work endless days reporting on the Marysville teacher strike, leaving me to accumulate hours in various creative ways.
To accumulate 45 hours may not seem like a lot to the adults who created the C.E.; the decision has no effect on them. But for a senior who is applying for college, taking honors and an Advanced Placement class and is involved throughout the school and the community, it is an overload. Personally, I have felt overwhelmed most of this semester with schoolwork alone.
My graduation fate looming over my head wasn’t helping. That’s not to say it wasn’t interesting and informative, it was just a lot to work on. My friend said to me the other day, "We need to form a C.E. support group." "My name is (insert name) and I am having problems with C.E.," we would say.
C.E. wasn’t that bad, though. It was even fun at times, but it was very time consuming. Time is something most seniors do not have. Many students in the same boat as me, with challenging class schedules and extracurricular activities or sports, felt overwhelmed and frustrated with the C.E.
Mary Horton, an honors and AP student, taught a social studies class at North Middle School for a week for her C.E. To complete her C.E., she had to miss a week-plus of calculus because she had to teach during the school day.
"I missed five days of calculus and three days of AP biology because of my C.E. and because of (missed classes) my grade went down because I haven’t been able to be there." Mary, like most seniors who have heavy class and extracurricular schedules, was beleaguered with work. This overload, at least for me, was largely due to the extra requirements packed into the project, such as a reflective letter, annotated bibliographies and a scholarly paper summary, which students I spoke to all said were pointless.
Despite the lack of time and the "pointless" requirements, a lot seniors I talked to enjoyed or were thankful for their C.E. experience. Some were grateful for the opportunity to explore a profession they were interested in.
Alyshia Smith coached the seventh-grade softball team at Evergreen Middle School. "I knew I wanted to be a teacher but wasn’t sure what grade I wanted to teach, but after coaching seventh grade I found out I wanted to teach middle school, which will help me when I get to college because you have to declare what grade level you want to teach at."
For the lucky, the C.E. is rewarding. For the unlucky, you come out of it with only an experience, and not much more, and a pass, so you can walk across the commencement stage with your contemporaries.
Having four people who "listen to you for 30 minutes and decide if you graduate" is a lot to hold over the head of a senior who is also trying to "get that $10,000 for college" through scholarships and keep up in their other classes while getting the minimum amount of sleep to function properly.
Still, C.E. wasn’t all that bad. Even with my qualms about the stress, hours and "pointless" requirements, there were a few highlights to my C.E. experience.
I was able to watch a Silvertips hockey game from the press box thanks to Nick Patterson, a Herald sportswriter, and my mentor. I also was able to sit in on the William Greene trial with Jim Haley, the Herald’s courts reporter, and watch the defense question witnesses. These experiences are ones that I wouldn’t have been able to have had it not been for the C.E.
I wouldn’t have learned that "sports journalism is the second best job in the world," (which it truly seems to be) next to playing a sport professionally. And I wouldn’t have learned how to use your own connections to get the story and information you need.
Overall, I saw and accomplished the point of the C.E. I learned about a career choice that I was interested in. I learned that maybe I don’t want to be a journalist, or maybe I still do. I’m not really sure; I’m just a kid who changes her mind about what I want to be just about every day.
C.E. did, however, shed some light on how I am going to pursue my ideal career. I learned that I will have to start at the bottom like everyone else, and that my ambitious self will not go straight to National Geographic right after college, but it’s nice to dream.
For all of the times I said "C.E. sucks," I meant it. But I am glad I was able to have all of the experiences through the project and am thankful for what I learned from it.
Katie Dutton is a senior at Everett High School and is a reporter for her school’s student newspaper, The Kodak. Writing this article was her project for her culminating exhibition.
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