High school is a new chapter in every adolescent’s life, and it can be terrifying. Especially if you do not know anyone or if you are going through some mental issues. I was in the same predicament as some of you and looking back, it would’ve been nice to get some friendly advice from someone my age. My podcast can hopefully help high school students make the best of their four years or look back on them with a smile on their face.
As a high school senior, I both worry about and look forward to what many describe as the best years of their lives: college. This podcast is a speed round Q&A where I discuss high school life and my expectations for college while my mentor talks about her college experience.
My podcast is part of a series where I, an upperclassman, will give high school advice to underclassmen.
This is a trailer for a podcast episode that will tackle the appropriation of Black hair in America. Kim Kardashian, a woman of major influence, appropriated Black hair when she wore box braids and called them “boxer braids.” I found it so offensive that I wanted to explore it and open up a conversation about it. I wanted to dismantle the cultural significance that was being ignored— and potentially lost. This podcast was my chance to be truthful about what matters to me: the intersection of hair and my identity.
What was once the largest landfill in the world before closing in 2001 happens to be within my hometown and community of Staten Island. Since then, the landscape has been engineered to become the largest park in New York City. This landfill has greatly affected the health of those in my community. By conducting research to better understand the effects of the landfill on the climate and public health, I realized how my interests can merge and benefit public knowledge of this space. To have my voice heard beyond what can be accomplished in a social media post, I decided to write a script and assemble audio to create a podcast. Through this podcast, others can learn about benefits and concerns relating to the parks department-led engineering project.
It is currently 2020—57 years after Sylvia Plath’s death in 1963—and yet she is still one of the most widely discussed writers today. Plath is now stereotyped as the quintessence for the depressed teenage girl because she wrote poems about heartbreak and depression and died by suicide after hearing that her husband was unfaithful. But in reality, Plath was, and is, one of the few writers who was able to transform her dark emotions into beauty. And as one of the forefront writers of her conservative generation, she was also most definitely a feminist.
This podcast is an adventure in interpersonal relationships. I asked my mother to share three songs she associated with herself. Meanwhile, I compiled my own three-song playlist of tunes that I associated with her. The intent behind this piece was to demonstrate how women perceive themselves versus how other women perceive them. It’s a reminder that there’s strength within each of us that we ourselves cannot always see.
I decided to focus on bringing awareness to mental health, which is a topic that means a lot to me. I want to bring voice to those who have felt silenced. My work is titled “Begin at the Beginning” because sometimes that is what we have to do. It was also the title of a favorite childhood book of mine.
When creating this piece, I wanted to embrace a little piece of cultural diversity in the U.S., but also show that historically, diversity hasn’t been welcome here. The piece is a reminder that just because we get along better now, there are still societal problems that aren’t solved.
Something that has always plagued me about female characters is whether they offer an accurate representation of women or are just “[women] written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that [these] kind of [women] exist and might kiss them” (Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn). This idea is something I tried to explore in my multimedia presentation.
This is a video inspired by an excerpt from my memoir piece. I wanted to create it for the same reason anyone wants to be a writer—to tell a story. More specifically, I want to tell my story. But as the video blossoms into something magical, I realized that in telling my story, I am also telling the stories of many Asian-Americans. This is how to be Asian-American.
Prosody has been almost 18 years in the making, the antithesis of the saying, “Write what you know.” I don’t know much about the developmental disorder that both my sister and dad have, but I’ve grown up understanding that the topic of disabilities have been painted in black-and-white for years. The multilayered stigmas that surround it have impacted two of the most important people in my life. Going into this podcast, I wanted to help myself (and others) relate to the experiences of those on the autism spectrum, as well as give voice to those with disabilities and stories that should be heard.
