Students Share Activity Ideas Planned for Upcoming Break
By Shravya Sathi
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
“I can’t wait for this summer,” said Riley Caruso, a junior at AHS, who hopes to spend the summer with loved ones. “With the vaccine rolling out and the cases decreasing, we can finally get out and do more things with friends and family– safely, of course.”
After a long wait and the loss of summer 2020, this vacation is especially exciting for us all. With the year coming to an end, students have begun planning their summer by partaking in a wide variety of unique experiences from camp counseling, to internships, to international trips.
Tatum Shaw
For senior Tatum Shaw, this summer will consist of working at Faz’s Hooptown Camp where she will be coaching children in basketball and playing games with them. “The camp is so fun to be a part of and I love hanging with the kids and giving them guidance. I look forward to it every year,” she said.
The Hooptown experience is not new for her. She has been attending Hooptown since a young age and when she got old enough to be a coach, she couldn’t wait to apply to the position. Other than working at Hooptown for seven weeks, Shaw hopes to “hang out with friends and family, go to the beach, hike, and [play] in some basketball tournaments.”
Hanna Saad
Junior Hanna Saad hopes to attend welding school this summer. “I want to do specifically fabrication welding at [Lawrence Technical High School],” he said. Welding is one of his hobbies and it is his safety net for a future job.
In addition to welding school, Saad will be biking a lot with his friends. He has a goal of hitting 1,000 riding miles over the summer.
Hanna Saad, a junior, is practicing welding with an exhaust pipe at his gas station.
Tomas Loureiro
Similarly, senior Tomas Loureiro will be working for the Andover Youth Services (AYS). “At the youth center, I help run programs that include basketball, workouts, boys group, and more,” he said, adding that this year, many of the programs that will most likely run are outdoor trips and adventures.
As a child, Loureiro spent a lot of his time at the center, and received the opportunity to work there at the start of this school year. Therefore, this will be his first time working over the summer at AYS.
“COVID will likely make it more difficult to do certain activities as it has over the fall and winter, but either way, it’ll still be a lot of fun,” he said.
Shohini Lala
Some students are taking on academic and enrichment experiences this summer. Junior Shohini Lala hopes to take a physics class through a local community college.
She would like to major in a biology-related field and hopes to take this class to help build a good academic foundation before she enters college. “I didn’t get the chance to take it through the school and with everything online it is easier to [get this opportunity],” she said. “We are so close to normalcy. I’m positive that this summer will be amazing!”
Saima Rahman
Junior Saima Rahman hopes to be working at Shawsheen School with the Bridge preschoolers. “It’s a really great learning experience and the kids at Shawsheen are amazing,” she said, adding that Bridge is a half-day school where they teach, play, and work on skills with the children.
Her mother has been working at Shawsheen for several years and Rahman has been able to get to know the school and the teachers there. Many of them encouraged her to apply for a summer job at Shawsheen. She was supposed to start working last year, but due to COVID, there was no summer school.
Sadhana Venkatesh
Junior Sadhana Venkatesh has two unique experiences planned out this summer. She will be teaching violin to children and adults and will be conducting a personal project on education. She will be continuing to teach Indian classical violin to children and adults, as she continues her own training in this art. She has been learning for the past seven years, and started assisting and taking classes a year back. All the online teaching “[has] really helped [her] to understand perspective and how to communicate better and how to allow [her] intentions to come across well,” she said.
Inspired by this year’s learning and teaching, Venkatesh wants to start a personal project on education. “With the pandemic, it’s become really apparent to me, and to many other people, that grades have been our biggest motivators in learning,” she said as she talked about her own learning experiences.
Venkatesh remembers that she used to be very excited to learn, and definitely lost that after middle school. She hopes to reverse that by understanding why children get demotivated to learn and also hopes to bring this to a greater level and fix a bigger issue. “I really want to see if this can be taken anywhere and see if there is any reform that could happen with this,” she said.
A screenshot of Venkatesh’s performance recording. She was performing for the virtual recital at Chinmaya Mission named “Thyagaraja Aradhana.”
Pritha Yalakkishettar
Junior Pritha Yalakkishettar will be helping out with the COVID vaccine this summer and hopes to continue this job through the next school year. She will be working at one of the Greater Lawrence Family Health Care Centers, which is an organization her mother works with. This is the first time Yalakkishettar will be working. “I would be registering patients coming in for the COVID-19 vaccination,” she said.
In addition to working at the clinic, Yalakkishettar would like to spend much of her time with friends and family. “I hope I get to hang out with my friends a lot more,” she said. “We have many activities planned like paint nights, pool parties, picnics, a day in Boston, etc. We’ve written them all out and are determined and excited to do them. Since COVID ruined any and all 2020 summer plans to do with everyone, we’re hoping the things we do this summer will make up for that.”
