by Jeremy Cu, Grade 12 Martin Luther

Genshin Impact is an open-world adventure game packed with lots of places, items, puzzles, music, collectibles, and characters to explore and experience. It is developed by a game development company, miHoYo, which has a lot of experience in making RPGs (Role-playing games) such as Honkai Impact and Guns GirlZ. With this experience, they were able to make Genshin Impact into a popular online game with around 50 million people playing it as of the present.

by Allaine Tan

The discussion on how our education system needs reform from its outdated and traditional ways is not a new one. In 1995, Robert Sternberg opened the dialogue on how schools stifle creativity by encouraging conformity. In his book “Defying the Crowd”, he reveals that “gifted” children oftentimes struggle with producing new and insightful ideas because of how schools prioritize the ability to memorize and analyze material over original thinking. In 2008, Tony Wagner names gaps in the educational system in his book “The Global Achievement Gap”, saying:

“However, it has become increasingly clear to me that even in these “good” schools, students are simply not learning the skills that matter most for the twenty-first century. Our system of public education—our curricula, teaching methods, and the tests we require students to take—were created in a different century for the needs of another era.”

by Fritz Co, Grade 12 Hudson Taylor

The web of silk cables and wires we live on is world-encompassing, and we may all well be the insects that can never escape it. For better or worse, society expects us to project our best image of ourselves online, and these impressions and pictures will be sent like little vibrations on the web to our family, friends, and future employers. You and I need the internet to communicate, avail of government services and attend school and, as time goes on, there won’t need to be essays like this one for there won’t be living memory of life without the internet. The question for many then is how much has changed and, more importantly, was it all for better or worse? The answer is difficult to reduce to a simple yes-or-no, good-or-bad answer. In reality, technology has given people the freedom to communicate instantly, the equal opportunity to be heard, and a greater capacity to achieve their goals.