StuCo: Lessons and Memories For Li

Wen Chi Chen 

What does one get out of working in StuCo?

This is the question people often ask me. When students enter high school, they are given a variety of extracurricular activities to participate in, and most people become part of sports teams, forensics, or drama according to their personal interests and hobbies. Meanwhile, the thought of standing up in front of the entire class (or in the case of the StuCo executive community elections, in front of the whole high school) is nerve-wrecking and makes StuCo all of a sudden unappealing. 

However, as a senior counting down the days till graduation, I find that being part of the Student Council has been the most enriching experience of my high school career. Unlike Junior or Senior class, StuCo is an entirely student-led committee, and that is what makes it such a unique experience. We didn’t have teachers making sure we were following the agenda or helping us get the things we didn’t finish on time done. Instead, we had to make sure that the work was done and that we achieved what we wanted to achieve. This year, StuCo worked on trying out new things and coming up with new ideas, such as having a flashmob to start off CB. We were also really intentional about bonding together as a group because we didn’t just work with people in our own class but with people from all grades—a dream for extroverts, a nightmare for introverts. Amanda Goh, a current StuCo excomm member, gives her thoughts on this year’s StuCo: “What I like about StuCo this year is that we all encourage other! We put our hearts into making the events enjoyable for the student body. Being STUCO's AA has given me the opportunity to work with such wonderful people.”

Yet, regardless of whether you are an introvert or extrovert, being part of StuCo makes you learn how to deal with frustrations and work around things that are out of your control. I often felt frustrated and annoyed. Yet, it was through these annoyances that I learnt lessons about life that classrooms and textbooks will never teach me—and what it’s like to stay up late at night with my excomm members trying to iron out last minute details for the event the next day, even though I had an AP Biology unit test the next day.

Nonetheless, it is these moments when I really learnt endurance; and as Mr. Brewster said during chapel, it’s the hard things that are worth doing. It is through these hard things, you realize how much stronger you are, and the feeling that you’ve done something hard is just beyond incredible.