By Sophie Chiang ‘23
The months and months of quarantine we all faced consisted of a lot of Netflix, food binges, and unnecessary all-nighters. For a lot of us, there was simply just not enough to do. However, a few St. Markers used this sudden abundance of time to accomplish things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
With the rise of racial unrest, Darius Wagner ’23 felt a fierce obligation to contribute to the Black Lives Matter movement. He immediately sprang into action, deciding that he needed to make his voice heard. An organization called Educators for Justice reached out to him to be the student speaker for a protest. Darius and the protestors marched as one from downtown Brooklyn, across the Brooklyn bridge, all the way to city hall. “I made my voice heard because complacency wasn’t a choice,” Wagner stated. His powerful speech stirred many, and every step he took in the protest was a step for the Black Lives Matter movement.
For Bryan Chiang ’23, the pandemic led him and his family to spend the summer in Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the world’s leaders in the manufacturing of semiconductors, and Bryan took advantage of this to take up an internship at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. During his time there, he learned how to make a healable semiconductor that can repair itself upon contact with another semiconductor. Semiconductors are materials that only conduct electricity some of the time. This makes it an excellent component for diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, and other electronic devices. It has many applications in the real world, including producing electronic skin. Bryan felt very fulfilled after this once-in-a-lifetime experience, saying, “if it weren’t for quarantine, I wouldn’t have been in Taiwan, and I wouldn’t have been able to collaborate with the professor to work on this project. I now have much more interest and confidence in the field of technology.”
For many non-native English speakers, affording English language education is not an option. However, not knowing English, in today’s increasingly Global community, closes doors for many. Christine Ling ’23 decided that she would give as many people as she could the opportunity to learn the language. She started a program to teach English to local kids aged 7-8 who wouldn’t have this opportunity otherwise, holding weekly Zoom sessions with them. Christine admits that the kids were very loud and challenging to work with, saying, “it was very challenging to control a group of kids over zoom, but it was a good challenge that I learned a lot from. I learned leadership skills, patience, and how to be creative, since teaching over Zoom isn’t always the easiest. I had to come up with a series of games such as dictionary and bingo in order to engage them.” All in all, Christine was glad that she got to accomplish something like this, saying that it was fulfilling to see these kids’ growth over the 8 weeks that they worked together.
Fiona Tran ‘23 also took the opportunity to connect English learners to teaching centers. During quarantine, she joined as an intern at an educational consulting company her friend had introduced her to. After she joined in mid-July, her job was to sit down with her partners to find quality teaching centers in Hanoi, Vietnam. When there were clients, Fiona personally consulted them on their English learning path to maximize their financial situation and to help them find a teaching center that fits their needs.
Quarantine was the last thing that we all would want. However, our St. Markers show that good things can come from bad situations, and that it can lead us to accomplish things we never thought possible. Do you have a silver lining story you would like to share with the community. . .. . . ?