Spotlight on Clubs
By: Audrey Petrus
Fountain Inn High School offers lots of clubs for people to join that may help their future pathway, to be involved in the school, or to get to know people with the same hobbies. Caroline Proctor, Lauren Dasilva, and Nolynn Carter who are freshmen will tell us how their first year in these clubs have been and what they do.
Student council is a very well known club at the school, they get over a hundred student applications each year and Carter, one of the students who got in, talked about what they usually do.
“Mainly just about creating a better school for everyone and we help behind the scenes of fundraising and events like making posters and just spreading the word about new things that involve the school,” Carter said.
Proctor talked about how great of a club Robotics is, especially if you want to do some kind of career that involves engineering.
“In the future I wanna do something engineer wise and I enjoy the projects we do in robotics.”
DaSilva, who is in DECA, mentioned how the club can give lots of leadership skills based on what the club is about.
“We just started but it's mainly about business, finance, and future career pathways,” DaSilva said.
Amber Long, who is a first year StuCo advisor, explained how the club helps impact the school and make it a better place for everyone.
“Our heart is for building school community and spirit. We want everyone to feel like they belong in the FIHS community. This work includes pep rallies, homecoming events, spirit week, and more!” Long said.
Carter's application process was different from the other two clubs.
“The writing portion was pretty easy but the video part was a bit harder because you obviously had to be professional but also show how you really wanna be in this club and what it involves,” Carter said.
In robotics, Procter talked about why she had wanted to join robotics and what it has to offer.
“In the future I wanna do something engineer wise and I enjoy the projects we do in robotics,” Procter said.
Each club can help with future pathways, and student council helps with all kinds of careers.
“You can get so many pathways especially since you create such good relationships with the teachers and students, I feel like it just gives you such good leadership skills,” Carter said.
Proctor said how robotics really does contribute if you're wanting to do something with engineering. “You can go into many different pathways in engineering, especially electricity wise but it really depends on the course.”
In DECA they teach you a lot about different pathways and leadership. “You can get all kinds of careers but you get a lot of leadership skills so probably careers with leadership.”
Dasliva said.
In StuCo applications there are qualities teachers do look for to help the school be a safe place for all students.
“When we select StuCo members, we look for students who are passionate about building our school culture. We want students with a variety of skill sets and from different groups on campus so that we can represent and lead our whole student body. I think we are looking for leaders with school spirit who want to spread that school spirit throughout our student body. We need students who maintain integrity, work hard, have hearts for serving our school, and are creative,” Long said.
Rob Sheffiled, the robotics advisor for FIHS since 2022, explained how the competitive competitions usually work.
“We are assigned 10 qualifying matches. A computer algorithm selects our alliance partners and opponents (FIRST Robotics Competition is 3 robots vs. 3 robots). We then transition to a double elimination bracket. The #1 robot selects its first alliance partner. It could be the #2 robots, but it could also be any robot in the competition. If you are deselected, you have the ability to decline the offer, but you can then only be an alliance captain,” Sheffield said.
An alliance captain is the team who is choosing the alliance for their own team. An alliance is where three robots are able to work together in order to complete the competitive task at hand. The tasks that the robots have to complete differ year to year, allowing the teams t
o refine their robots throughout the season.
“If you are ranked outside of the top 8, there is a good chance you wouldn't be an alliance captain. The next highest ranked robot after the first selection (either #2 or #3 robot) then picks its alliance partner. We go all the way to alliance 8 selecting their first alliance partner. Once we have 8 alliances, we start back by having the #8 alliances select their third and final alliance member. The "snake draft" continues until the #1 alliance selects its third partner. There are now 24 robots that will compete to be the winner of the competition,” Sheffield said.
Clubs are a major part of high school since they give students opportunities to branch out and meet new people! So make sure to check all the clubs and extracurricular that your school offers!
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