The Senior Project English elective is an independent course designed to challenge motivated students in their pursuit of intellectual and meaningful growth. This course will provide students myriad opportunities to find new interests or hone current ones. Students interested in this elective must apply for course consideration. The application consists of a personal profile and project objective, both of which afford the candidate an opportunity to provide evidence of past and current autonomous projects. Proposals will be reviewed by the English department. Upon acceptance, candidates will submit a bibliography and year-long curriculum plan.

2013 Senior Projects

Rossi Anastopoulo

Sports in Black and White

A Study of the Civil Rights Movement Through Sports

sportsinblackandwhite.com

Arthur Ashe once said, “My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.” For years, black athletes were judged not by their abilities on the field or the court, but rather the color of their skin. This discrimination extended to all aspects of American society, existing even still today. By using the nation’s obsession with sports as a platform, civil rights activists and athletes were able to radically change the role of African Americans in society, and move toward achieving racial equality. 

Rebecca Howell

My Year as a Director

Alexa Weeks

Opera for the Ages

When I heard about the senior project opportunity, I immediately began to assess what really makes me passionate and how I could implement that into a yearlong study. I knew it had to be opera, but how could I make that into a project? Simple, this year I will interview six opera singers in the opera world today. Some will have already had their careers, some will be in the business presently, and some will be in college or grad school, vying for their own place on a stage somewhere. Through these interviews I will learn what it actually takes to become an opera singer as well as some personal information on technique that I can apply to my own studies. I myself have been studying classical vocal training for 6 years, and the knowledge I garner from these professionals will only help catapult me into a greater immersion of knowledge. The last and most vital component of my project is to give back what I learn. I have started a program entitled, “Opera for the Ages,” where I travel to various schools in the Charleston area and sing a couple of classical songs or arias from operas. I then explain to them the importance of having classical music in everyone’s lives. I give a history of opera as well. This makes my project threefold: I learn from the professionals, and I teach the children. I can’t wait to see where the rest of this year will take me!

 Eleanor Byars

Body Revolution

Read my blog: www.projectbodyrevolution. wordpress.com

In a recent study done by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, researchers found that only 4% of women think that they are beautiful. Many girls in these modern times have a very askew sense of body image, and it’s hard to prevent this with the current running advertisements and the necessity for the “perfect skinny body.” With my senior project, Project: Body Revolution, I plan to research how the media affects body image in young girls and the extreme consequences such as eating disorders. I feel that this is such a pressing issue, because it affects so many adolescents in the modern age. Girls aged younger and younger are beginning develop self degrading body image, and I strongly believe that this is due to the role models these girls are looking up to, the paper clip thin models in the magazines they read, and the various degrading ads they see on television. Hopefully, I will draw some attention to these issues, and help people realize that what society may perceive as ‘beautiful’ is not true, and in many cases unhealthy, dangerous, or completely impossible. Since I do have the wonderful opportunity to go to an all girls school, I feel that issues concerning body image and self esteem among young girls are grave and need to be properly addressed. Throughout the year, I plan on trying to get involved with all grades throughout the school to discuss these issues, host events on campus to spread awareness, and create a final documentary to demonstrate my findings. I am looking forward to a great year!

Alexandra des Francs

Women in Leadership: Affecting Positive Change in South Carolina

Read my blog: http://alexandradesfrancs. wordpress.com/

Woman constitute 52% of the population while only claiming 17% of top positions of power. As a senior at Ashley Hall, I am interested in finding out what motivated and inspired the 17% that are the leaders in their fields. I'm equally as interested in what obstacles prevent more women from claiming their voice.

Jennet Robinson Alterman, founder and director of the Center for Women, is mentoring me through this project. Through a series of interviews with business, government and community woman leaders, I am investigating what their successes have in common and what obstacles they had to overcome. I hope to take what I learn from these women, and apply that to my own life, as I leave Ashley Hall to become a successful female myself.

Morgan Schweers

My Life as a "Mini Med Student"

morganschweers.blogspot.com

When I was ten years old, after listening to a couple of men discuss their hectic lives in the medical field, I thought one day I might want to be a doctor. Recently, this vague thought has been solidified into an ambitious goal. This journey all started with my internship with an OB/GYN that I completed at the end of my junior year.

My first internship was incredible. I worked for about forty hours in total, helping with tubules, C-sections, normal deliveries, rockets, and ablations. Next, I started my Roper Scrubs Student Program, which I am still participating in, where I have seen another C-section, done nurses’ charting, cleaned up spilt urinals and sanitized dirty rooms, watched a circumcision and watched a person die. In addition to this program, I have interned with a neurosurgeon where I have seen two different three-hour long surgeries, one, which was on a person’s neck, and the other, which was focused on a person’s middle back. I have interned with a transplant surgeon where I have seen a gallbladder removal and an attempt of a liver transplant on a cancer patient. Moreover, I have worked with a Pathologist where I have seen placenta and ovary sectioning. Lastly, as the main focus of my senior project, “My Life as a Mini Med Student,” I am an intern at a rat lab at MUSC where I examine the behaviors of rats before and after strokes in hopes of finding a healthier and more efficient way for successful stroke rehabilitation.

All of these experiences have helped me to figure out what I like and don’t like. I now know that I don’t like pathology because there isn’t enough interaction with people, the patients. I am an outgoing and social individual, but I am also compassionate, always trying to look for opportunities to get involved in the community and help others. To me, this ambitious goal, this career is more than a moneymaking job; it’s a full-time lifestyle. This is because this is career where I can make a difference.

See more from the 2012 Senior Projects