Describe your role in the Student Council. What does it mean to you?
My role in the Student Council is the president, and it means a lot to me. It means to have the opportunity to represent the wonderful students here at GWUOHS and basically try to look for activities and events and other initiatives to help the student body overall and just look out for what is the best thing we can do for other students and overall try to have a positive impact in our school.
What inspired you to run for the Student Council and how did you become interested in your role?
What inspired me to join the Student Council was this big drive that I wanted to have to help other students in our wonderful community. I know this is an online school, and I really wanted to help create an atmosphere in which everybody can feel welcome, in which everybody can feel they belong to a community, even if it’s online. Because we are a beautiful community, and students should know that. Students should know that they are not alone and there are people representing them and wanting them to have the best time they can have while they’re in high school. So, I really wanted to be involved with that and bring new creative ideas to the school in general and also to the Student Council so that everybody can be a bit more in touch.
Can you briefly summarize the events and activities that you have organized so far? What are your personal goals for the upcoming semester?
We have organized some events so far, like the Halloween week in which we organized some events and some Padlet activities. Aside from that, we also hosted a movie night and well, we created the program of Student and Teacher of the Month this year. So, these activities have been really helpful, and I think have brought our community together.
But my personal goals for the following semester is to organize activities that bring more students together, activities that interest students more. For example, we are organizing events for the juniors and the seniors. Hopefully for other grades, we will organize them as well. But these events are like open forums in which students will have the opportunity to join and just talk about what they’re interested in, what their concerns are regarding their grade and preparing for college. So, hopefully this event is helpful for students, as we’re organizing other type of events for next semester as well. Some for the new year and some for Valentine’s Day. You’ll know more eventually.
How do you plan to collaborate with one another to achieve your common goals?
I believe we are a great team, and we know how we work together, so it will be no problem. We have organized events together, and each of us takes some role. So, working together on independent tasks, we can create a bigger project and one that is more time efficient and has a better output. So, my personal goals to work with the other members of the Student Council is basically just remaining to have good communication with all of them, listen to all their goals and plans, what they want to do and what we can do and just work together toward common goals to have the best initiatives, the best activities that we can have as the Student Council.
How do you plan to foster school spirit in an online environment?
I believe that with the events we have planned and the events we are planning to host in the future, we can foster a school spirit in our online environment because if people join, they can get to know each other, they can talk to each other and they can feel as if they belong to the same environment. Furthermore, we have the idea of hosting a school spirit week. So, in that one, we will basically just reinforce the ideas of a same online community. And overall, with all the events, we try to do that. As well with social media, we want to open the Instagram accounts, and we are working on that. And if we can, we will open other social media platforms and that way we can get students to know each other and feel more involved.
How do you believe that your involvement in the Student Council will contribute to your own personal growth and development?
Well, I will admit it, I have learned a lot since I became president, and I have learned lots of leadership skills. I have always had this passion about leadership, but with this experience, I have really put it into practice, and I have learned lots of teamwork, communication and strategy thinking skills. Since I’m the head of the Student Council, I need to organize myself. I need to organize my own mind and try to bring all of our ideas into reality, try to sketch out the plan and just the steps needed to get there. Those are skills I will definitely use in the future. Also, the compassion, getting into touch with others, that has given me such a special sense of empathy and communication. Having the opportunity to represent students, it has been wonderful, and I am really thankful for that. And I believe this is something I will remember for the rest of my life, and it has really contributed to my personal growth.
How do you think your role in the Student Council will prepare you for future roles that you might take on later?
Okay, well, as I had already mentioned, this leadership role I have will prepare me for the future leadership roles I will have. Or if not leadership, the skills I have acquired will help me to have effective communication whenever I need to work on teams again. It will help me have empathy and try to understand different perspectives when I meet different people and basically just being open to listen to different ideas, different perspectives, different opinions, and still managing to bring something creative and something innovative to our work. Because that is basically what the Student Council does. What we do is just listen to our ideas and try to bring something together. So, we’re all different. What we need to do is just keep listening to each other and manage to create something together that everyone will benefit from and, well, not just us, the whole student body. So, that will be really helpful in the future for me as well.
What are your personal top priorities for the school? How do you plan on working toward them in your role in the Student Council?
My personal top priorities for the school would be, as I have mentioned before, to try to bring the community together. And that will be by hosting events and also by trying to represent the true interests of the student body. That is why we are so interested in handing out forms and surveys to ask how we’re doing and what the students want, what the students are interested in and what they need. So also, it is hard sometimes to be in an online school and that is why one of my top priorities would be to make sure the students don’t feel alone. For this reason, they will be really helpful to have study groups and grade programs like I had mentioned, the junior and senior ones. But also trying to find some representation with the other grades would be great and we have ideas for it. So, with my role as the president, I want to make sure these things happen and just plan everything right, have the right ideas and have the right conviction to take them to reality. So, I’ll make sure we do that.
Share a fun fact about your time at the Student Council.
Well, it is more an interesting fact, but I remembered it, and it was so great, you know? All four of us come from very different parts of the world, and I find it awesome. I live in Texas, but I spend lots of time in Mexico. And the traveling is something I share with Tamara (vice president), who lives in the States and also lives in Slovakia. I know that at least Tamara, Shivani (secretary) and I know more than one language. And I don’t know about Nik (public relations director), but Nik lives in the Washington, D.C. area. And it is great because we can share about the climate and, you know, the weather. It is really interesting, and I find it very fun.
