Emmanuel Martinez from East House
- What ideas do you have for your senior project and why?
E: I was thinking of doing librarian or police enforcement.
Librarian is my first choice and police officer is my second. I’m currently
doing community service at my local library already so that would work for the
library. But I’m also interested in becoming a police officer when I’m older.
Me: The only thing I would say about Librarian is that
you’ve already been doing it for who knows how long. Research would be
particularly difficult. I don’t think there would be a lot of research on
specifically being a librarian or anything of the sort. The whole point of
senior topic from my experience is becoming an expert. If you are already an
expert, it becomes dull and boring.
Police enforcement honestly may be just as hard but it’ll be
easier to get everything done. Getting into a police enforcement program as
early as you possibly can for smooth transition. Research is almost totally up
in the air and limitless because it seems like you don’t really know much about
it. This could actually also set as to whether or not you would really like to
do this as a career. I know a lot of people who did their senior topic on their
“dream” job and realized it was a total bust and that’s good too. Better to
know now then later.
- What do you plan to do for your summer mentorship 10-hour mentorship experience?
He sort of already answered this in his first question with
volunteering at his local library. For police enforcement, I told him he should
talk to Joey Luna (Firefighting) since I do believe the process into getting
firefighting and police enforcement is about the same from what I hear. And to
start as early as physically possible on police enforcement since it’ll get
difficult later on in the year.
- What do you hope to see or expect to see in watching the 2013 2-hour presentations?
E: Honestly, not to be offensive or anything but the
mistakes that the presenters make. If I have the rubric in front of me, I’ll
try and figure out the mistakes. And also of course who did well in their
presentation.
Me: That’s good. Mistakes rarely happen because of lack of
presentation skills. They usually happen due to a major hole in their senior
project. Whether it is mentorship or independent components or something
in-between and it will show in their 2-hour presentation. If you want, I highly
doubt that the teachers would mind you going up to them after the presentation
and asking what grade they got and why. If they don’t have it finalized, ask
for an impression. Things like that could give you an upper hand on what the
whole year is looking for.
- What questions do you have that I can answer about senior year or the senior topic?
E: At this point in time, not really no.
Me: Alright, that’s cool. The only thing I would recommend
to you is to start everything as early as physically possible. If you can
finish it in one day, do it. Don’t wait until the last minute to do everything.
It will snowball. And even if you think you have it under control, and you have
a month to do it, other stuff will come and add to it and become a huge mess at
the end of the year. I got the same advice as a junior and I really wish I
followed it better. Don’t procrastinate. Ask questions. ASK MILLIONS OF
QUESTIONS. Stay on top of things. And keep your sanity, because it needs to
last nine months man.
