Life lessons: Senior projects prepare grads for future challenges

By GREG JORDAN

When I was in high school long, long ago, we had to do essays. I and my classmates regarded those with dread because the idea of writing anything longer than a page was frightening. Words didn’t come easy to any of us. Putting down even a basic sentence was a labor of agony. Worse, the dreaded words “proofread” and “edit” hung over us like black clouds.

I had a slightly easier time writing essays because I was already showing some aptitude for words — far more for writing than for math — but it was still a trial. Getting down the required two pages was often painful.

Little did I know that those early efforts were low calorie compared to what awaited me in journalism school and in college. When I attended Marshall University in the early 1980s, I had professors who dropped stories by a full letter grade for every mistake. I still don’t know how I managed to graduate.

Years later I had to flex those writing skills again at Concord University when I decided to try a teaching career. I was a less than stellar student at Marshall, so when I transferred my credits to Concord, the resulting grade point average was insufficient. I had to crank out as many “As” as possible if I wanted to succeed.

Fortunately, years of composing stories for the Daily Telegraph had prepared me for writing essays. At Concord, everybody writes essays. In those hallowed halls, a short essay is four pages, and the standard essay has 10 pages. One time I ended up with a 30-page essay detailing each section of Jonathan Swift’s classic novel “Gulliver’s Travels.” Believe me, Gulliver’s trip across the world didn’t stop at Lilliput!

When I was teaching English at a high school in Henry County, Va., I told my students about Concord’s essay requirements. The news was greeted with utter horror. Some of those kids thought a text message was a long essay. Anything beyond two pages was cruel and inhuman. They were appalled when I told them that they could use only one Internet source; and in many institutions, Wikipedia is not an option.

Their reactions were even worse when I told them that you couldn’t get out of exams requiring essay questions. It didn’t matter if you had an “A” average; Thou Shalt Take That Final Exam.

Fortunately, high schools are now preparing seniors for the rigors colleges and universities will offer. At least in Mercer County, seniors at Bluefield, Montcalm, PikeView and Princeton high schools must complete a senior project if they want to graduate.

The project includes an essay, record keeping, and a product that can be almost anything you can imagine. One senior in Princeton, Cameron Mallory, did his project on unexplained phenomena such as Stonehenge and the Bermuda Triangle. Another, Tyler Faulkner, tackled the topic of sleep disorders.

Diane Akers took on the task of studying the many ideas of Leonardo DaVinci. DaVinci explored the concept of armored vehicles that we now call tanks, and the idea of powered aircraft. True, his airplanes called for manual labor, but ideas such as using flaps to control airspeed are used today. Akers tried making a model of DaVinci’s helicopter; frankly, the screw shaped item looks more like a propeller for a bass boat. She determined that a full-sized one likely wouldn’t work. It’s not symmetrical enough, so it probably wouldn’t have gotten airborne.

Doing projects like these give high school seniors a big advantage when they get to college or embark on other training. They learn skills such as organization and time management. What’s even better, they learn how to do all this themselves without a parent or teacher constantly reminding them that deadlines must be met.

Once you’re in college, you’re expected to handle deadlines yourself. Your professors will advise you, but you still have to make the final decisions and do the actual work. You will also be expected to handle several essays or other projects at once. It wasn’t unusual for me to do three or more essays at the same time, each with a different deadline. In each case, a deadline is a deadline. If the essay isn’t submitted on time, it won’t be accepted. You don’t get another day or even another hour.

Senior projects do prepare high school graduates for the hustle and stress of higher education, and they will also help them when it’s time to start a career. They learn organization, time management and research techniques. One senior even remarked that he had “learned how to learn,” and that’s a skill you can use for the rest of your life.

Greg Jordan is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at gjordan@bdtonline.com.

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