The Student Government Association (SGA) hosted the yearly Freshman Friday, Aug. 26. Freshman Friday is an event exclusively for freshmen, both new and returning, that gives them a chance to gain insight on their future years in high school and meet new people.
The event kicked off in the gym with SGA co-presidents junior Anya Pinto and senior Wenshi Chen introducing the new principal, Ms. Melissa Becerra, and all of the SGA officers. The current class presidents senior Mudit Marwaha, junior Meghan Renaud and freshman Jake Zeng offered the freshmen advice on how to survive freshman year and gave them a preview of the great clubs, teachers and events on campus.
The invited freshmen were excited for this event. Liam Garcia, an incoming freshman, said he was “excited to meet new people apart from the people I met at Freshman 101.”
The student volunteers gave the new freshmen a tour of the campus and then insight on how high school would be for the next four years. Maxim Kochkin, a junior student volunteer, explained, “I, personally, would have loved to have student tour guides as a freshman because they give me actual information without sugarcoating it.” The student volunteers even spoke to students about their past classes and offered tips on how to succeed in them. Another student volunteer, junior Austin Klein, said, “My favorite part of touring was talking to the students about the teachers I’ve had and how they have prepared me for AP exams and standardized tests.”
The event came to an end with fun games (like a rock paper scissors competition and name games) to get the new students to interact with each other. Felipe Schrappe, a new freshman, said the event as a whole was fun. “I learned a lot; my favorite part was learning about where my classes were and seeing some of my teachers briefly,” he said.
Freshman Friday took a lot of planning and organization from SGA. Co-President Anya Pinto stated, “Planning went really well because Wenshi and I were on the same page for almost everything and were always willing to compromise. We planned a lot of it with Mr. Laureano and Mrs. Carbone and the rest of the SGA officers. I wish I had this experience during freshman year because our freshman mixer was online and it would have been nice, being new to the school, to get a tour of the campus and meet people before the first day of school.”
As a whole, the event was a success and the freshmen gained a better understanding of what their next four years at Heritage will be like.
