The senior project has been at Perry since the original class of seniors in 2010, but some seniors are wondering if it is worth keeping around for the future. The project is a worth three hundred points that you earn towards the end of the school year, but on top of it all you still have a final you have to do. It is such an unnecessary thing that seniors have to do.  

The project is a visual representation of how you got to where you are today using photos and videos along with music and a theme to capture your life. You have to create a theme and try to keep it throughout your whole video. The problem with that is most people find it really difficult to find 75 photos and one ten second long video that fits the theme of the video. It is not a hard project, just time consuming and a lot of seniors have other things going on.

The stress of the senior project can cause some seniors anxiety because this could make or break if we graduate as the presentation is worth three hundred points. Also most seniors have other priorities they need to tend to like work or applying to college, and if they are joining the military they have to focus on the requirements to join. For those that are not going that route and are moving away from the state they are in currently living in they have to focus on their own situation.

However these senior project don’t apply to all seniors. They only applies to on level senior english classes, dual english does a similar project but it’s not quite the same. Dual english does social awareness projects or better known as SAPs. AP english classes are doing other similar types of projects as well. AP literature, based off of AP english teachers Kimberly Rygiel and Rhonda Duering’s websites, are doing presentations on popular culture through literary critical lenses that the students have learned over the year, these presentations last for around eight to  ten minutes based on the rubric.

The senior project does have some pros, it allows the teachers to see if the students are able to follow directions, as well as allowing the students to share a more personal connection with their classmates because at the moment a lot of people do not even know who person they are sitting next to everyday is from. You can also show your family and friends at your graduation party, but most students do not want to sit through an eight minute long video.

After students present their final products to the class they think it is time to relax and wait to graduate but, that is not the case. After doing the project they have to dive back into the books and get ready to take a final, which adds more stress to the students because if you did not do so well on your project and it lowered your grade you are now relying on this final so you can walk during graduation. The students have family traveling from all over the United States to see them put this milestone behind them, there needs to be no finals for seniors or  a stop to the tradition of a senior project.