Student Reflections and Guest Posts

Reflections on a Difficult Week and Our Commitments for the Road Ahead

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Dear Athenian Community Members:

Athenian began in 1965 as a school that was fully integrated and coeducational when parts of this country still had segregated schools. Though countless battles in service of equality have been fought and won, the prevalence of stories like those of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery remind us that brutality against Black Americans endures.

Athenian was a safe haven during those early years of extreme uncertainty and national violence, but it must be more than a safe haven now. It must rise to the challenge of training us to be leaders of the equity and justice we champion within our school.

Our COVID-19 response served as solid evidence of our ability to pivot quickly in the face of urgency. We recognize that the anti-racism work we have intended to do within our own community is overdue. To this end, we as a school will recommit to DEIC (diversity, equity, inclusion, cultural competence) with the urgency these issues deserve. The following steps will be our start:

  1. All faculty and staff will read White Fragility as professional development this summer.
  2. Key members of faculty and staff will participate in and support both student-facing and staff/faculty-facing affinity and DEIC work.
  3. We will create virtual affinity spaces to be held outside of the school year, beginning this summer.
  4. The administrative team will do professional development with consultants who specialize in issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and cultural competence. They will work to improve our systems.
  5. The school will mindfully plan and gear more events toward affinity groups throughout the year, while also framing the DEIC events calendar at Athenian to begin with an acknowledgment of our diversity in the fall, build towards inclusion week in both divisions in January, and culminate in a cultural competency seminar at the end of the school term.

I want to assure you all that Athenian stands with you in solidarity with justice and peace. 

With great respect,

Eric F. Niles

Head of School

The Athenian School

Sarvodaya: “The World We Wish to See”

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By Mark Friedman, Round Square Coordinator and Community Service Director

We are having a wonderful time at the Round Square International Conference in Madhya Pradesh, India hosted by The Emerald Heights International School. Morgan G. ’22, Chris C. ’21, and Nathan M. ’21 are doing a great job of reaching out and are making lots of new connections.

We started our trip in Mumbai. We visited the Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Rabajai Clock Tower; markets; Dhobi Ghat, the world’s largest outdoor laundry; and Dharavi, the world’s third-largest slum. We also got to spend time with Harnoor, a former exchange student to Athenian who flew down from Delhi to meet us.

The conference theme is Sarvodaya, which means “the world we wish to see.” The Emerald Heights International School describes Sarvodaya as follows:

“The theme of the conference is Sarvodaya-The world we wish to see. Sarvodaya is a Sanskrit word meaning progress for all. The word is a combination of two terms: ‘Sarva’ meaning one and all and ‘Uday’ meaning welfare or uplift. Combined the word signifies ‘Universal Uplift’. Very appropriately the conference is scheduled in the week when the world celebrates the Mahatma’s [Gandhi’s] 150th Birth Anniversary and the week that follows is dedicated to non-violence and peace. This is in keeping with our school’s philosophy.”

Conference Facebook page

The keynote speakers at the conference have been a diverse lot. We heard from Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi on the 150thanniversary of Gandhi’s birth. Other keynote speakers include a member of parliament who worked with the United Nations for 30 years, an Indian performance artist from LA, and a robot.

Every evening includes an hour-long cultural performance from conference delegates. Weather willing, this is followed by an outdoor dinner buffet with a huge spread of food and outstanding dance performances. Each evening has a special theme and is truly spectacular.

  • Mandu, an ancient fort city
  • Delegation from Chanderbala Modi Academy
  • Maheshwar
  • Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi
  • A robot named Sophia was a keynote speaker
  • Students performed beautiful dances
  • Drinks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel with Harnoor

We have met the folks from Chanderbala Modi Academy, the school that is hosting us after the conference. The conference delegates are the ones who are hosting our students and they seem very excited to host.

The monsoon season refuses to end, so we have had a couple of rainstorms, some with intense wind. We are having a great time and we look forward to spending time at the Chanderbala Modi Academy!

Senior Story: Overcoming Shyness

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Last year, seniors started delivering Senior Speeches at Morning Meeting. This Senior Speech is by Julie Qian ’20 and was delivered in early September.

Julie Qian ’20

A few days ago, my friend and I were talking and he asked me, “What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you?” I could easily respond because there has been this one mortifying memory that’s haunted me for the longest time.

This story took place three years ago, when I was a new 9th grader at Athenian and let me tell you, I was painfully shy. You can ask any senior right now what they thought of me at that time, and they would tell you that I was either really quiet or that they didn’t know who I was because I was so quiet. Besides this, I joined the Athenian swim team even though I was incredibly nervous to go into a sport without knowing a single person.

The swim team has a wonderful long-standing tradition where we have a specific chant at the first home meet of the year. A 9th grader is selected to help perform part of the chant, and for some reason even though I was a quiet little thing, I was chosen to do so. I was really nervous, which only made things go downhill because I completely butchered the chant. I’m in front of my team, the other team, a second swim team, a ton of parents, and some students watching the meet when I just mess up the chant. I thought about this event for quite a few days after.

Me speaking to you right now shows how different I am as a senior now. I’m not sure if it’s clear to you all, but I’m not really super nervous speaking right here. This change isn’t that I used to be shy and now I’m no longer shy, but rather that I’m confident in who I am and the kind of person I want to be. Math classrooms forced me to accept that I’m going to be wrong a lot—honestly, maybe the majority of the time—and it doesn’t matter if the entire class hears me give a wrong answer. In lit classrooms, I was forced to present my ideas even if I thought they weren’t worth hearing. I held more responsibilities running clubs and helping as an ambassador or working on The Pillar newspaper.

This time you have here at Athenian is the perfect time to find your confidence and your growth, in whatever avenue you choose to do so.

To those of you who are really confident, you have the opportunity to be the one to reach out to others in your grade. I hope you haven’t judged shy people to be someone who isn’t worth knowing because some of them turn out to be the wittiest, kindest, and most wonderful people. You’re missing out.

I’m Julie Qian and that’s my senior story.

Traveling to Colombia and Coming Back “A Whole New Person”

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by Lev Dufaux ’23

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts that highlight Athenian’s Pillars, the foundational values that we share with all Round Square schools. This installment is a speech about International and Multicultural Understanding delivered by 8th grader Lev at Morning Meeting to the Middle School.

We had hiked for about an hour or so, the air thinning more and more with each step up the mountain. Our conversations began to slow as we rose over 9,000 feet. Once we neared the top, gasps and yells of excitement broke out of our airless lungs. Our dewed faces lifted when we saw a big blue-green gleaming lagoon cradled by a bowl of jungle, like a potion being brewed in a witch’s pot. Last year, I went to Colombia for a Round Square conference that Athenian annually takes part in, along with three other Athenian Middle School students.

The Round Square trip was an opportunity to bond with people all around the globe, immerse myself in a culture very different from American culture, and develop leadership skills that will help me and others create a better home for everyone. South America was new to me, and I had no idea what to expect. Colombia led me through a whole other culture; it almost felt like a new world. Like a hug and kiss whenever you meet someone, or the smell of exotic food that lingers through the air. When I explored Colombia, I experienced new flavors, new landscapes, a new language, and a very loving community. Dancing was a very big part of my trip there. We had dance competitions to our favorite Reggaetón songs, laughing at how terrible we were at Cumbia. We tried all kinds of new wild Colombian flavors, my personal favorite being hot chocolate and cheese, which melts on your tongue like cotton candy. I met all kinds of new people, not just American and Colombian, but also Chilean, Peruvian, Mexican, Brazilian, Canadian, British, Argentinian, and Danish people.

One moment that changed who I am today was when we did a service project in a small school in the mountains. At the school, we created murals, made a new playground, took care of the children, and made the school a more enjoyable place. When we sat there in the worn down schoolhouse, I realized that the kids were not super young, but closer to my age. Later, our guides told us that they were so small because they didn’t have easy access to food. Keeping these children in mind keeps me grateful for my community, and it compels me to help others. Knowing that I made these children’s lives a little better keeps me focused on leading because it changed not only their lives but mine as well. I became inspired to stand up and lead, and I now feel comfortable sharing my opinions.

Never have I gone on a trip to a foreign place and come back as a whole new person. I met so many new people that I still talk to this day, and more often than not I find myself thinking about all the great experiences I had with all kinds of wonderful people. I miss the smell of freshly made ajiaco soup pouring out of small restaurants and the taste of homemade arepa that gives you a reason to step out of bed in the mornings. I miss the warm hugs and kisses when you meet someone. I miss my good friends that I made that I still talk to today. I haven’t forgotten about Colombia one bit, and still keep a part of it on my wrist every day, a bracelet the color of the Colombian flag. Special thanks to Esteban and Cynthia for organizing and supervising the trip, and to Kyle P., Kate L., and Maddie G. for coming along with me.

Bringing Environmentalism Back to Athenian

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By Karen Hinh ’19 and Vikrant Goel ’19
 
This is the third in a series of blog posts that highlight Athenian’s Pillars, the foundational values that we share with all Round Square schools. This installment is a speech about environmentalism delivered by Karen and Vikrant at Morning Meeting to the Upper School. The students rightly point out that the School’s focus on Environmentalism was “on pause” during our recent construction projects and they are leading the cause to recenter this pillar in the life of the School. 
 

Karen: Hello Athenian! We are presenting to you the Environmental Pillar at Athenian. Let’s be honest. It was, still is, one of the more forgotten pillars these past couple of years with all the change that’s been happening on campus, but we’re here to bring it back.

Vikrant: As someone who has always been interested in environmental issues, Athenian’s environmental stewardship pillar was one of the things that I felt passionately about from the very beginning of high school. It created an awareness in me about the importance of my personal responsibility, and the impact that I could make as an individual. It also encouraged me to choose working with an organization called Go Green Initiative for my community service project for junior and senior year, where I worked within my local community of Pleasanton to create awareness regarding a new recycling ordinance by going door to door to local businesses, talking to residents and students at public events, working with a team to conduct waste audits for the City of Pleasanton, and convincing the City School Board to comply with local recycling policy.

Karen: My inspiration comes from the science classes in elementary and middle school where I researched the effects of overfishing on the ocean, the benefits of renewable energy, air pollution in Beijing, etc. Raise your hands if you’ve had a class where you learned something similar. Yeah, right? So we’ve all had those little nuggets of knowledge along the way. But for me, the more news articles I read, the more videos I watched on YouTube about how food waste is the dumbest problem in the world, and the more I educated I got, the more invested in environmentalism I became. Fortunately, Athenian has given me a chance to see the lack of environmental education on campus these past couple of years, and that has only motivated me to do more for this campus to bring it back to the Green Ribbon school it was.

We need to care about the environment because it’s our home. We are the ones who have to live with the consequences of how we treat it, and the fact of the matter is that we haven’t been treating this planet very well in the past century with the era of fossil fuels and single-use plastic. Certainly not with a government that pulled out of the 2016 Paris Climate agreement, and that is now pushing for more coal jobs and less environmental regulation.

Vikrant: Last fall, I had the opportunity to write an article for my Journalism class, where I chose to write about the importance of instilling a culture of sustainability in schools, focusing on Athenian for my research. I was surprised to find that despite the fact that environmental stewardship is a core value of our school, we lost our focus, particularly during the construction on campus. For example, the majority of us didn’t even know that all of the compost and recycling was being hauled directly to the landfill, which was key during a time when we used disposable plates, cups, and cutlery. [Note that the School maintained separated waste disposal during the majority of construction, but there were several months when all waste was being redirected to the landfill. Because of the Environmental Science classes’ efforts, the School quickly restored our waste disposal last year and students increased the education on campus about proper waste sorting.] As a result, I really felt that change was urgently needed, and we did make some headway in the second semester last year, though I hope we can keep this momentum going in the coming year.

Karen: That’s why I started the Environmental Action Club. That’s why my friends and I are working on rebuilding the garden at Athenian with the club and a sophomore community service group. That’s why I won’t shut up about you tossing your food in the landfill bin, because it’s these small things that reflect how we choose to treat our planet and the future that we are all going to have to live with.

Thank you! Remember to come join us at the march next Saturday, and check your emails for more details. [This speech was delivered in September and a large cohort of Athenians attended the Climate March in San Francisco.]

Education for Democracy: Real Change Is Messy—and Worth It

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By Rosie Corr ’19 and Josh Tnoe ’19

This is the second in a series of blog posts that highlight Athenian’s Pillars, the foundational values that we share with all Round Square schools. This second installment is a speech about democracy delivered by Rosie and Josh at Morning Meeting to the Upper School.

Josh: When we hear democracy, a lot of us think about our government, and all of the positives and negatives that come with it. But democracy is a lot more than the body that governs. It is the people—the community. To me, democracy means being involved in the community instead of being complacent. It means being outwardly focused on the community around you, and working to make sure your voice is heard and that changes are made where they are due. It means not taking no for an answer, and fighting for what is right and what you deserve.

Ben Granat ’19, Rosie Corr ’19, and Josh Tnoe ’19 worked together on a Democracy in Action class project about Town Meeting at Athenian

Rosie: There are plenty of opportunities for formal democracy on this campus—Town Meeting, our renamed Forum meeting, class or club leader elections, and so much more. But some of the most powerful change is made when you don’t take the beaten path. Real change is made by passionate individuals who aren’t afraid to take a stance and get their hands dirty. There is often a misconception around Athenian that it is possible to make democracy a quick and easy process, something that can happen in an hour, from idea to implementation. And when that doesn’t happen, we feel discouraged and disenfranchised. But that is real education for democracy.

Josh: Learning that democracy isn’t easy is the first step. It is difficult, and it is messy, but for those willing to really fight for what they believe in, it can actually have a substantial impact on the school you and your friends attend, giving you real change without the backtracking and empty promises.

Rosie: It’s also why Democracy in Action is one of the most challenging, yet most interesting and rewarding courses you’ll ever take. And that is why I am so proud to be part of a school that embraces education for democracy and lets the students speak truth to power; without our voices, Athenian couldn’t really be Athenian. Thank you.

Community Service: A Practice in Kindness, Activism, and Self-Awareness

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By Izzy Millet ’19 and Jennifer Salako ’19
This is the first in a series of blog posts that highlight Athenian’s Pillars, the foundational values that we share with all Round Square schools. This first installment is a speech about community service delivered by Izzy and Jennifer at Morning Meeting to the Upper School.

Izzy: One of the first things I want to emphasize about community service is that it is a service, and while it will certainly benefit you as you go through the different stages of community service at Athenian, your first priority should always be those you work in service of. It’s intended to be a sacrifice of your free time, a donation of your skills and effort, and a commitment to helping others. It is not always convenient, or easy, or even fun. But if you dedicate yourself to the work, even if it is just for one hour a week, it will be an enriching and life-changing experience and one that is full of lessons to learn if you keep an open mind.

Jennifer: When most people think about community service, they usually think “oh, this is just another thing I have to do to graduate. A few days at St. Anthony’s or Glide, and I’m done.” But I want to remind you that it can be more than that. There is a reason why Community Service is a part of the Athenian experience, let alone, a Round Square pillar. When you pick your project, pick something that you feel passionate about, something that you believe aligns with your interests. If you enjoy playing an instrument, you could give free lessons to younger kids in your area. If you do martial arts, then you could organize a self-defense workshop. There are tons and tons of projects and ideas you can take on, and they do not have to be boring.

 

Izzy: One of the things that I’ve always loved to do is to work with kids, and when I was designing my community service project for my junior year, I decided to work with Jewish Family and Community Services. I was able to start tutoring with an Afghan refugee family who had arrived in the United States only a few weeks earlier. During the rest of the summer and through my junior year at Athenian, I biked to Concord every weekend to work with the three boys on their English conversation skills, school work, and to spend time with the family. I’ve had the pleasure of handling this project off to Micah ’20 and Avrah ’19, and I am hopeful that it has the potential to stay in the Athenian community for years to come.

 

Jennifer: In the future, I hope to pursue a career in medicine and possibly establish a teaching hospital outside the US, so I decided to volunteer at the Sand Creek Kaiser Permanente. I have been a volunteer since January 2017 year and the experiences I’ve had as well as the people I’ve met are a part of the job that I appreciate the most. Never before did I imagine that I would be able to have such a deep conversation with a deaf woman I helped out at the pharmacy. I never thought that the impact I could make on someone’s life could be so huge and I take that experience to work with me every day. I think I’ve learned more about the place I’ve grown up in for the past 17 years in the last 6 months because of this job, and I am so happy I chose to do it.

 

Izzy: One of the reasons I think community service is a pillar of Athenian, and one that we pursue so actively, is because of where we stand as a school. This is a college prep private school. We just completed a multi-million dollar campus reconstruction, and virtually 100% of students graduate with the option of attending college. Because of the countless privileges we are provided by virtue of attending Athenian, it is so important that we continue to be aware that there are many people, in the Bay Area, in California, and across the world, who are not granted these same privileges. Community service allows us to practice kindness, activism, and self-awareness.

 

Jennifer: Another reason why I believe Athenian includes this pillar as part of its foundation, is because community service is not something you can learn in school. It’s something you have to experience firsthand in the real world, and it’s a space for you to reflect on what you know, or what you thought you knew. Giving back to the community and appreciating that which it has provided you is something many often take for granted. Understanding how you want to give back is another step in understanding yourself and what you stand for. It’s the part of you that Athenian wants you to recognize can make an impact not just as an average student, but as a global citizen.

Athenian Students’ Innovative Projects

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by Kate Oxley ’20
Originally published in the March 2018 edition of The Pillar, Athenian’s student newspaper

A scalable bionic heart. A bio-digester to make methane from compost. A mobile refrigeration unit with electronic generation for third world countries. A prosthetic limb that simulates a ball and joint socket. What do all of these have in common? They can all change the world, they all took hundreds of hours to develop, and they were all made by students while at The Athenian School.

Classes such as Applied Science, CADFab, and Engineering enable students to pursue personal projects while receiving class credit for their efforts. Many students rise to the opportunity and exceed all class expectations in their projects for more than just a good grade. These students can spend hundreds of hours in a semester on their project, but what drives them to do and learn so much in such a short period of time?

“I think individual passion should lead students through the learning process,” Dave Otten, teacher of Athenian’s new Science and Engineering class, said. “It should be the thing that keeps them going when they get stuck. When doing projects, it should help determine what they need to learn.”

One former student who thrived in project-oriented classes is Baxter Eldridge ’13. In high school, he claimed he had a tendency to work on “way too many projects at any given time” in and out of class. One of these projects was a scalable 3D printed bionic heart.

“There are these ventricle assistive devices, which were a super recent medical device when I worked on it,” Eldridge said. “They work like a motor, but the rotor in the motor is a turbine, think a jet turbine, so it pulls fluid through it as it runs…. There was this popular science article about these two doctors who were trying to use two of these ventricle assistive devices to make a complete artificial heart. The reason that’s currently somewhat challenging is that while these devices work quite well, they do damage blood cells. So, while one patient can handle the damage to blood cells caused by one of these devices, if you use two you damage too many blood cells to use as a long-term heart. My idea was to take the concept of the ventricle assistive device and the premise you eventually get to make it a complete heart, and focus on trying to make the device so you can tailor its output depending on the size of its patient… The goal of my project was that you could choose, let’s say three motors, then 3D print the size of the auger so the optimum running speed of the motor pumped out the optimum amount of fluid for the patient.”

Projects like these are one of many reasons that The Athenian School is developing a more project-based curriculum for the coming year. Whereas in some classes students currently find interest in the topics presented to them in class, Eldridge pushes Athenian teachers to tailor their curriculum to take cues from students’ passions, and to teach students how to deconstruct their ideas into smaller, quantitative milestones.

“Rather than telling students to produce this report, then this report, and this little thing, when you’re not really excited about each milestone, it’d be better to [build milestones where] you’ll be able to say ‘ok, now this is a real thing, I’m holding it in my hand,’” Eldridge said. “The school could [work on] taking ideas from understanding students’ goals and visions, then helping them see how to break those down into distinct and satiating milestones.”

Rock Williams ’17 and Ryan Keller ’17 were another pair of students who took project-based learning to a new level in their Applied Science class.

“I worked with Ryan on a ball-and-socket motor, which we’d originally planned on purchasing online for a robotic arm,” Williams said. “For all the joints of the fingers where all the phalanges meet the metacarpals, all of those have the range of motion of a ball-and-socket. Because of this, we thought it’d be easier to use a ball-and-socket motor, rather than a set of multiple motors.”

Upon looking for a ball-and-socket motor, the pair discovered that it did not exist. Rather than moving on to a new project, they “decided to delve deeper into how [they] could counter this problem, and into the possible future applications of a ball-and-socket motor,” marking the beginning of a school-year long project to create a ball-and-socket motor for a functional prosthetic limb. Williams hopes more people can work on projects they are passionate about, however, he has some concern about the visibility of such projects.

“I think it’s difficult because, at least with the old Makers Studio, it’s a little hidden, like its own little world,” Williams said. “I think Eugene, Lori, and Dave do a really great job of getting projects going and getting them completed, but as a whole school, I don’t think the Makers Studio is completely integrated. It’s kind of like an isolated event.”

Another way to participate in these projects is through the entrepreneurship program. Laura Victorino, teacher of the entrepreneurship G period class, hopes to bridge the gap between business, technology, and social justice issues, however, she fears that false assumptions about entrepreneurship could discourage student participation.

“One of the things that disappoints me is that people associate the word ‘entrepreneurship’ with too narrow a set of ideas. People think it’s all about being the next Facebook or Tesla, and while those are very high profile entrepreneurial ventures, to me entrepreneurship is a much broader thing which involves making social change or solving health problems, or environmental problems, or education problems. I think you can bring an entrepreneurial attitude and toolset to all the important problems we have, not just entertainment or transportation or finance… Entrepreneurial thinking is one of the most valuable things you can learn to take to almost anything you do.”

Athenian will be opening the new Carter Innovation Studio in the fall of 2018, a significant upgrade from our current tucked-away Maker Studio. The Carter Innovation Studio will stand at the entrance to our campus and will be an integrated hub of learning for all of our students to work on projects. Athenian believes in hands-on education where students can work on real-life projects that have meaning to them. We can’t wait to see what our students will create in this new space. Learn more about the future of project-based innovative learning at Athenian.

New Athenian Sports Team Formed: Sports Credit for Women’s Lacrosse

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by Kate Kocins ’19
 

As of the 2017-18 school year, a girls lacrosse PE class will take place during the winter sports season.

Students Mimo U. ’19 and Sam C. ’19 planned the addition of the sport over the previous school year.

Both girls played lacrosse before coming to Athenian, and have since stopped playing because of the lack of a team at school.

They were inspired to take their idea of having a lacrosse team at Athenian and put it into action because of the fact that there were fewer girl sports at Athenian, due to the loss of the softball team.

It was important to them and others that there were more opportunities for girls to play sports.

“When I applied to Athenian they said there was probably going to be a team by my freshman year because there was another group of people trying to get a team started, but when I came there still wasn’t a team,” Mimo said. “I tried out other sports but in the end, I really wanted to have a sport at the school that I was good at and experienced in.”

This year the sport will just be held as a PE for a trial year, but with regular sports credits and after-school practices. If it goes well, there will most likely be a team next year that will compete against other schools.

Director of Athletics, Darek Cliff, said the goal of the PE class this year is to “wage the commitment and dedication” of the team for next year.

“Head Royce has a team that’s pretty new, Lick Wilmerding has a team as well, and there’s definitely a lot of private schools in San Francisco that have teams,” Mimo said. “There might be club teams during that season to play, but we’re not sure exactly which season we will be playing in yet.”

In the school’s past, some sports teams, including football, have been attempted to be added by students, but this is the first successful one in a while.

“It was really hard [to get the team started] because a lot of the efforts had to be lead by Sam and I [sic],” Mimo said. “It’s really amazing that they gave us the PE, but it was really hard to get and took a lot of work.”

Teams like softball have been canceled and re-added multiple times, but none have been added for the first time in the school’s recent history. Cliff explained that because softball is in the BCL East division, the games were closer to campus and with schools in our division.

“Lacrosse is part of the BCL West division, so most games would be across the bridge, which gives a geological disadvantage,” Cliff said.

All skill levels are welcome to participate, and the team will not be participating in the league with other teams until next year.

BlendEd Seismic Studies Class Shakes Up Learning

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by Katie Furlong ’18

This fall, I took a class called Seismic Studies & Earthquake Engineering. The class was a BlendEd class, so it was composed of students from Athenian, Marin Academy, Lick-Wilmerding, Urban, and College Prep. The main benefits of BlendEd classes are that they allow students to work independently and perfect time management skills, as well as meet and work with students and teachers from other Bay Area independent schools. The majority of the class was based online, but there were also a few dates where we met in person, either to have an in-class lesson or to participate in a discussion with engineers who work to design earthquake-proof structures.

Our final project for the class was to build a three-foot tower out of just balsa wood and glue that we would test on the shake table at UC Berkeley. This project was intended to help wrap up everything we had learned about the structural integrity required of buildings needed to survive an earthquake.

We first tested our towers with two earthquakes that are programmed into the shake table: the 1995 Kobe earthquake (Magnitude 6.9) and the 1994 Northridge earthquake (Magnitude 6.7). My tower survived the replications of both the Kobe earthquake and the Northridge earthquake.

After, we were able to design our own earthquakes to test our buildings by changing the amplitude and frequency of the seismic waves. While I was subjecting my building to an earthquake of my own design, I saw weeks of hard work shatter right in front of my eyes. Despite the demise of my tower, I thought this project was a great way to put into action everything we had learned in the class and it made it more memorable than just taking a test to finish off a semester of hard work. I can certainly say that it was one of the best demonstrations of Athenian’s commitment to hands-on and experiential education that I’ve experienced throughout my four years here.