By Lauren Shin, Staff Writer
With the end of the year quickly approaching, students prepare themselves for their next step, whether it be going off to college or taking on the role as a responsible upperclassman. One such group looking into the future is the 8th graders who will join high school as freshmen in the upcoming school year.
To allow these middle schoolers to get a taste for the much anticipated activities of high school, River Hill High School invited 8th grade students from Clarksville Middle School, Lime Kiln Middle School and Folly Quarter Middle School to come see what types of sports, clubs and fine arts our school has to offer.
On June 6th from 9:45am to 11:15am, Hawks gathered to show these rising freshmen the endless possibilities and achievements they will be able explore here at River Hill. The event started off full of excitement as POMS, the STEP team and Blueroom Breakdance gave astonishing performances that demonstrated what a Pep Rally is like.
Brianna Crooks, an incoming freshman from Clarksville Middle School, exclaims that she “signed up for NEHS, Best Buddies, and Photo Club.” She also visited “Basketball and Cross Country, which I’m looking forward to.” She even saw her older sister, a junior at River Hill, give a speech as a Hawk on the Rise officer.
The students were then broken up into groups, rotating between the auditorium, main gym and auxiliary gym.
In the main gym, each registered club had two representatives present information about their club and draw interest among middle school students. On display were over 50 clubs, each covering different interests and appealing to different types of students.
Shreeya Chand, the Co-founder and Co-president of her club, Women in STEM, was one of the many students representing their clubs. She had prepared a tri-fold consisting of images from previous meetings and events and the club’s mission statement, along with some self-produced stickers to hand out to the middle school students.
Shreeya expresses that “We just want[ed] to share who we are, what we do as a club. We hope to get some of these 8th graders interested and excited about our club and excited about high school in general.”
“Most of our events throughout the year are speaker events, such as inviting women in STEM as guest speakers, and a lot of other helpful lessons that I think can be learned from. For example, at our last meeting, we had a guest speaker share advice on how to find your path after high school and in the professional world in a STEM-based field,” she shares.
Ishaan Busireddy, a Sophomore representing the clubs TedX and Model UN, comments, “I think this is a really great experience for students to get a snapshot of what is available at our school, which will help them ease into becoming high schoolers.”
He goes on to suggest that “TedX and Model UN are pretty easy commitments and suit people from a lot of different interests. For TedX, we’ve now had two official student events with over a hundred attendees. For Model UN, we’ve been competing and holding meetings and we’re hoping to have some at Ivy League schools or Georgetown or Johns Hopkins. It’s a great club for people interested in international relations, government, politics, and public speaking.”
Ishaan and Shreeya, like many other club representatives, collected contact information from the interested students to reach out to them once the upcoming school year begins.
Tatiana Spooner, an 8th grader from Folly Quarter Middle School states that “It was so nice to see the various clubs and activities that are offered at this school; it helped me get an idea of what I want to do next year.” She shares that she signed up for a lot of clubs she was interested in.
In the auxiliary gym, 8th graders were able to see the variety of sports teams River Hill fosters. From Girls Softball to Allied Soccer, River Hill offers a wide range of sports that are sure to cater many interests.
Rising freshman Angie Brooks from Lime Kiln shares that she “enjoyed seeing all the different types of clubs and sports,” and that she hopes to try out for the freshman Volleyball team.
At the same time, other students enjoyed some more performances by talented Hawks from Choir, Theatre, Guitar, Percussion and the Senior Dance Company.
At the end of the day, both the rising freshmen and current River Hill community strongly felt that this event gave students the much needed opportunity to not only explore their interests and gain a stronger sense of belonging as high schoolers, but also to appreciate River Hill’s diversity and impacts on the community.
Victoria Yao, a current River Hill freshman who guided the middle schoolers on their tour, agrees that “[the event] was very beneficial for the 8th graders because they got to see some of the things they will be seeing next year and get an idea of what their high school social life is going to look like. I enjoyed seeing them at our school too.”