Everyone knows about the infamous Graduation project that has been occurring at Seneca Valley School District for years now, but will these new changes affect the way the senior class thinks of them?

I sat down with a senior named Danielle and asked her a few questions regarding her stance on the senior project graduation requirement. When asked if she would describe the senior project process as “hard” her response was that it would be better described as time consuming. The project itself takes focus and hard work to complete and without a good foundation to the project itself, you might struggle a bit.

I also asked Danielle if she was given the chance to decide the fate of the project what she would decide and her answer was to get rid of it. She claimed that it was “too much time to put into something irrelevant to what they major in.” Aside from her opinions she expressed, she did say that she had every intention of completing the project over the summer but did not end up doing it. The waiting game has added to her frustration.

From the project proposals on October 19 to the first time the time cards and logs are due on January 4. Then on to the second time cards and logs on the February 22 to the senior board registration which goes from February 27 to march 6. April 5 is when the portfolios are due and then finally senior board are on May 12. It’s a lot of time put into fulfilling each checkpoint.

I also had the opportunity to sit down with Mrs. Schuster, one of the Graduation Project coordinators.

Mrs. Schuster took me through the new changes they have made to the Graduation project in the past year or so that better benefit the students and their graduation experience. For example, they added five pathways which are essentially just more options in categories. One growing popular pathway is job shadowing that now has allowed more students to create a project more centered around their future career and aspirations.

They have also made a change to the board presentations which evolved from an eight to ten-minute speech on the project to a short introduction of the project followed by an interview styled question and answer section. The boards are more interactive to give the students more of an opportunity to let their hard work shine.

Danielle’s advice to anyone completing the project in years to come is to pick something that isn’t going to take you too long to finish. You’re on a time limit and it should not be wasted.

Mrs. Schuster’s advice to the people involved with the Graduation project this year and years to come is to do something that you truly want to do, something that means something to you. Make this requirement as enjoyable as you can.