Dear future and current National Honor Society members,
Scholarship, service, leadership and character. As cliché as they are, they define you as National Honor Society members. Here are some tips and tricks to take advantage of your membership to help you grow as a member of the Pine View community and take the skills you acquire with you to whichever school you choose to attend.
Get your volunteer hours done as soon as possible! You do not want to be on probation. Fact: Kids on probation wear “jorts.” Don’t be one of those kids. In all seriousness, getting involved in NHS activities throughout the year is one of the best ways to be engaged on campus. Getting points is extremely easy as long as you make an effort to be involved with clubs. Any class or club fundraiser you volunteer for on or off campus can earn you points, giving you the perfect excuse to get involved in memorable events like Variety Show, the Pine View Fair, Mr. and Miss Pine View and Pinnacle.
Participate in Scholars for Scholars! Learning how to effectively tutor an individual is a useful and interesting skill to add to your list of achievements. You can choose to tutor kids of any age from grade 2 to 12 and teach them the tricks to thriving at Pine View by showing and instilling proper study habits in them.
Be a teacher’s assistant (TA). Teachers at Pine View have some of the best stories and give great life advice. Interacting with them outside of their classroom setting can also give you a much different view of them than what you would get by being taught by them in class. Teachers are much more lax when you are no longer their student, but instead a TA. You can bro-out with Mr. Goebel, gossip with Mrs. Shannon about various shenanigans, or get to know Dr. Ors better in order to build a more intimate relationship so that she’ll be more inclined to write you one of her ten coveted letters of recommendation. Conversing with Pine View alumni like Mrs. Krejnik, Mr. Nezelek and Dr. Skipper and learning about Pine View ways of life is something that I found awesome to experience. Did you know that Pine View students voted to be the Pine View Pythons over being the Pine View Peregrines (Falcons)?
Volunteer during summers for on-campus tours and get early parking and locker selection. This is the biggest perk of being in NHS. In years past, guidance has informally looked to provide volunteers to lead on campus tours and help with locker registration. In return for volunteering over the summer, you are rewarded with either early locker selection or early parking selection. Nothing beats pulling straight into your parking spot or having a top locker. Be sure to look to NHS for this summer opportunity by pestering Mrs. McLaughlin as summer approaches. Experience in leading campus tours is something colleges look for in prospective guides and it is always nice for middle schoolers to see a familiar face among the towering high school students of Pine View. Zach Blashinsky has a particularly unique approach in which he describes, “I like scoping out what the incoming freshman class is about, and like to be a sort of mentor to the new freshman.” What a guy.
As a Pine view lifer, I’ve seen many changes within Pine View. The TA class was eliminated and study hall was incorporated. These changes make it difficult to experience the Pine View experience that I witnessed students have a decade ago. Nonetheless, by taking part in these tips and tricks, you’ll build lasting bonds with teachers, build valuable life skills, and finesse that clutch parking and locker selection helping you abridge the gap that has arisen to get an authentic Pine View experience.
Network and be involved on campus. The people here are bound for big things.
Joe Uthuppan, Class of 2016
NHS President 2015-2016