After weeks of preparation, those participating in Senior Project have finally reached the day their classroom experience ends and a new one begins.
Senior Project is a program for seniors to gain experience and knowledge beyond their traditional classes.

Whether it’s to try something new or gain experiences in a possible career, all participants have their own reason for picking their specific project.

Senior Kelly Maday will work with a doctor at Chicago Chiropractic and Sports Medicine. Because she is an athlete, she wants a better understanding of the common injuries that athletes go through, not only how to heal these injuries but also how to prevent them.

She hopes this project will not only help her, but will also help her teammates and other athletes stay healthy.

“I have seen many injuries in my life, especially in my high school career, and I am very excited to further my knowledge on injury recovery and prevention over the next four weeks,” Maday said.

Unlike some students, Maday found the process of choosing her project rather easy. She is going to be studying Kinesiology at the University of Illinois and hopes to turn her knowledge of the world of medicine into a career.

“I think getting a feel for what it is like to be a doctor gives me something to look forward to and is something I can really learn from,” Maday said.

Rotolo will also take his high school learning experience off campus as he plans to work on the Bridge Initiative. The Bridge Initiative is a nonprofit startup that helps connect people with disabilities to meaningful and longterm employment.

“For the next month I will be conducting research to better enable us to create the most impactful venture and to establish connections in both New York City and Boston. This is so that my coworker, Russell Reed, and I can launch the Bridge Initiative when we go to college next year,” Rotolo said.

Rotolo will be attending NYU and Reed, a senior from San Diego, will be going to Harvard. Both will work at their respective colleges to create an environment to launch the program.

Because he will be studying Entrepreneurship at NYU, Rotolo will be learning the inner workings of how to create a successful business and how to build a business model.

His work with the Bridge Initiative during his Senior Project will give him real world experience, which could lead him to his first startup venture.
Rotolo is extremely excited about his opportunity with the Bridge Initiative.

“I am incredibly passionate about philanthropy, and the Bridge Initiative is a program that I have been intensely working on and is very meaningful to me,” he said.

Ryan Westerberg is also participating in Senior Project. He will be interning at Chicago Toy and Game group (ChiTAG). ChiTAG hosts the Chicago Toy and Game fair every year for Toy inventors and kids.

During his internship, he will be working on the young inventors challenge which gives kids ages from 618 year olds to make a toy, app, or board games and present it to a panel of judges in order to win recognition and achievements.

However currently the judging process is is paper based and takes a lot of time. Westerberg intends on inventing an app or website in order to make the judging process completely digital in order to speed up the process.

Along with that, Westerberg will be working on a video game. He said, “I will be making a video game for ChiTAG that could be linked in their blog or newsletter to add excitement to the event.”

These three, and many other seniors are making their departure to Senior Project this upcoming Monday, April 11. Although their experiences may vary, their goal is the same: to learn something new and have fun doing so.