From May 11-29, seniors spent time exploring personal interests through their May Project. Whether building a miniature model of their house or teaching drums in Pakistan, the project gave seniors time away from schoolwork and served as a fun way to mark the end of their time at U-High.
Anaya Douglas and Zoe Alphonse studied street art in Chicago, London and Paris. Anaya and Zoe saw graffiti as a manifestation of their shared passion for DEI, social work and art.
Anaya said, “We’re looking at it through the lens of social movements and how street art and graffiti in those areas have impacted what change people want to see, and exactly how they express that through public art.”
They documented the project on TikTok at @Zanayatakeseurope.
James Hubbard prepared for the Chicago Open, a large chess tournament over Memorial Day weekend. He was excited to play over-the-board chess, as he’s recently only had time for online chess. James said, “I figured it’d be nice for my May Project, now that I have free time, free from robotics and school, to actually try to take some time to study the game of chess, and try and go redeem myself at the open.”
Aran Malhotra worked at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet with Team Stradale, a motorsport organization, because he hopes to pursue a career in motorsport and race engineering.
Aran said, “I’m getting the same skills that I would hope to use further in my career, like looking at engine performance, looking at driver data and overall, how can we make the car and driver combination faster on track.”
Isolde LaCroix-Birdthistle built a miniature model of her house. She has always had an interest in art and miniature creations and thought this was the perfect project to engage with that passion. When coming up with an idea that fit all her interests, she said, “If I have to make something from scratch, I would want to make my house because it would be cool to also have when I’m older, if we moved out.”
Danyal Shah led an eight-day drumming workshop at a school in Karachi, Pakistan. He was inspired to continue serving the
community after a previous service project there.
He said, “I thought it’d be really cool if I could start this program and teach [the music teacher] the fundamentals as well, along with the class, so then he can also continue that, and then they can incorporate drum set as part of their curriculum.”
Luka Vegna-Spofford learned to maintain and ride a motorcycle while at the same time trying to be more in touch with himself and build upon skills he learned in his classes and extracurricular activities.
Luka said, “It was really the idea of, how can I leverage my skills that I’ve learned in physics class, running my robotics team, already working as a mechanic to make this project feasible.”
Mulan Wu and Rachel Xiang painted portraits of architecture in Chicago and Taiwan to compare the influences shaping each place. Beyond curiosity about the cultural comparison, they were motivated by their interest in art. “Rachel, does a lot of art herself,” Mulan said. “And also, I took my art credit this year at Lab and I thought it would be a good time for me to put what I’ve learned into action.”
Evelyn Halbach was an intern with the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, helping plan their 20th annual weekend-long retreat, where Girl Scouts are paired with business professionals from Chicago who become their mentors.
Evelyn, who has been a Girl Scout for eight years, said, “The greatest lesson I’ve ever learned from Girl Scouts is determination and independence, and I just owe so much to the Girl Scouts organization, so I wanted to give back to them in a way.”
