Q. Freddie Feng: “How do students with band and sports practices after school manage their academics?”

A. Sandee Liu: “Lock your phone !!! It’s an ongoing process that changes depending on assignments, tests, etc., but stay organized and avoid getting distracted.”

Q. Eliana Yang: “How do you figure out what to major in?”

A. Krish Gangal: “Figuring out my major was definitely tough and I changed what I wanted to do like 5 times in high school. I figured it out as I went based on what I found fun, and remember that you’re only like 15-17 so it really isn’t terrible to change your life plans. Also, it’s not like you wasted your time exploring other fields because the information you’ve learned along the way can always be applied to new situations.”

Q. Udyati Tewari: “How do you become more involved with clubs and activities?”

A. Iman Shoukat: “There’s a club masterlist on the IHS website. Find clubs that you like and do a bit of outreach, like looking through social media to find new events.”

A. Yangyang Xia: “Give everything a chance. I think I missed out on some pretty cool opportunities because I judged them too much so I would recommend trying everything out.”

A. Tanvi Goyal: “Talk to upperclassmen about clubs that they’re in or would recommend. Join as many as you can and try to weed them out as you find what you’re interested in.”

Q. Daniel Grigsby: “Who’s the best teacher in your senior year?”

A. Yangyang Xia: “Ms. Hallford. She cares a lot about her students and sometimes she plays music during class. She really makes sure that what we learn has applications outside of the classroom, and she’s also a really funny and engaging teacher.”

Q. Gayatri Iyer: “How does the Change project actually help?”

A. Bijan Bozorg-Chami: “I didn’t find the content particularly helpful, but the research skills you cover will be really helpful for WIP and QUEST in sophomore and senior year respectively. Learning MLA formatting and how to write Source Checks are really important since you’ll need to know how to do them in WIP and QUEST.”

A. Iman Shoukat: “It definitely helped with research skills, but you also learn what to expect from your teachers. You’ll learn about what they’re looking for and understand how they grade, which will help a lot so that you do assignments based on what your teachers expect and not just what you think is ‘right.'”

Q. Zackary Tsui: “Is it hard for freshmen to make it to JV in their first year? Do upperclassmen get priority for sports?”

A. Bijan Bozorg-Chami: “For some sports, you can get into JV as long as you show up to practices and put an effort in but obviously it depends on how competitive the sport is. Priority depends on coaches but every year there are always a lot of really good underclassmen that get on sports teams, and it mainly comes down to skill.”