BGHS prepares Students for the Future

A key value of Bowling Green High School is to help students be prepared to reach their full potential after they graduate high school. Whether students want to attend college, enroll in the military, or begin working a well paying job after high school, BGHS has programs that help students achieve those goals. A number of these programs give students the opportunity to collaborate with local colleges, most commonly Western Kentucky University (WKU) and Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College (SKYCTC). These collaborations give students at BGHS advantages that their peers at other schools likely don’t have. 

Two years ago, BGHS started the Private Lesson Academy. The Private Lesson Academy gives students in the band who wish to audition for All-District and All-State band the opportunity to take lessons from professors and graduate students at WKU. These lessons occur once a week leading up to All-District band auditions and are entirely free to the students. 

The average band student does not have access to private lessons because they tend to be expensive, especially if the teacher is a university professor. As a result, the lessons being free for students allows them to take lessons and have an advantage that the majority of young musicians don’t have access to--individual assistance with their instrument’s repertoire. Having this one-on-one help with your music from a teacher who has experience in your instrument gives participants an advantage over competitors, because it helps them improve faster on the instrument. 

Senior flute player, Shaelin Carter, notes, “I get a lot further in my music a lot quicker, getting comments from a professional.” Specifically, Shaelin believes her lessons helped her get better at “sustaining long notes and keeping them in tune.”

The only instruction the majority of band students receive on their instrument is from their band director. Most do not specialize in every band instrument and have to teach around 100 students at the same time. The success of the Private Lesson Academy, and the advantage it provides students at BGHS and BGJHS, is reflected by the record number of students that were accepted into All-District band last school year. They competed against other musicians who did not have the same opportunity, and in the end, BGHS dominated many of the sections of the All-District band. 

WKU also benefits from this collaboration because it exposes the professors to talented young musicians they may want to recruit to play in the band, orchestra, or marching band at WKU. Recruitment of students to the colleges being collaborated with is a common theme in how the university benefits from the All-District and All-State programs. 

Another program working with WKU at BGHS is the Science National Honor Society (SNHS). Some students in the club participate in research with the Crawford Hydrology Lab at WKU, relating to caves. 

One of the students, Leah Groves, says that her participation in the research has given her “skills such as organization and proper communication,” which she believes are skills that are “valuable for any type of work.” Leah has been participating in the research since she was in fifth grade and has continued through SNHS. 

Through this collaboration, WKU exposes students to a research topic that is struggling to find people who are interested--cave research. There are concerns that as the current generation of cave researchers retire, there won’t be a new generation of researchers to replace them. Therefore, this collaboration acts as an outreach program to get young people interested in cave research, so that a new generation of cave researchers can be created. 

Leah was one of three of the students who presented their research at the National Science Conference, the Kentucky Junior Academy of Science (KJAS) and the American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS). In addition to giving students the opportunity to present their research, these conferences also take students college visits to top research base universities. For example, attendees of AJAS have the opportunity to visit George Washington University and talk directly to the professors about their research.

 Most students don’t have the opportunity to present their research until graduate school, so the students involved in this will be ahead of their peers in the future. This is especially important because having the skills to effectively present their research is crucial for researchers, as most present their research at conferences in order to gain support for it and argue its importance. Oftentimes, the funding of research is dependent on how popular or important it is to other people. Therefore, students learning how to present their research early on in their science careers could greatly benefit in the future.

Leah, who plans on pursuing a career in “STEM” in the future, notes this advantage of the research program: “Right now it is giving me experience and it allows a small insight on what to expect after I graduate.” She also believes her involvement in research will give her “experience for future projects.”

These two programs are only two of numerous programs at BGHS that offer students opportunities to work directly with colleges and prepare themselves for the future, such as the Medical Arts Academy and the Industrial Maintenance Program through SKYCTC. Participation in both of these programs can land students well-paying jobs immediately after they graduate. Furthermore, the Industrial Maintenance Program gives students the opportunity to become paid apprentices while they are still in high school, giving them the experience and connections they need to work in that field after they graduate. 

Each of these programs set students up for success after they graduate high school by providing students with the experience they need for the future. The band’s private lesson academy gives students the opportunity to get lessons from professionals who play their instruments and SNHS introduces students who want to pursue STEM careers to research opportunities. As these programs continue to support students in their endeavors, they will continue to thrive and grow. 

-Kathryn Harris

 Feature Writer