On any given day at UPrep, our students help plan a student-led conference, compete in Mock Trial, or drive a robot in one of our two Makerspaces. Our Pumas explore their passions and their purpose through these co-curricular activities. With the support of adults who serve as coaches, students not only learn about the topic at hand, they discover how to lead their way. Below, three students share their co-curricular experiences, including what they’ve learned about leadership. 

Sonya C., 11th grade

Student Leader for Student Organized Consent Conference in Seattle

I was one of seven student leaders of the second annual Student Organized Consent Conference in Seattle (SOCCS) on March 8. My various roles included moderating the sexual assault survivors panel with Sophie W. (11th grade), creating and running the How to Engage in Healthy Conflict workshop with Markus K. (11th grade), and setting up a decompression space with the Mental Health Advisory Board.

SOCCS is about more than consent. It’s about survivors, communication, and being an empathetic and authentic human. The workshop came from my own experience of being in arguments with my friends, my boyfriend, and with my family and recognizing that I could have handled these situations better. I found a New York Times article about four phrases to use when arguing, which I used to jumpstart my research. I wanted participants to learn more about being empathetic. Sometimes people are so worried about their own feelings, which is important, but all relationships go two ways. Empathy is about being open to listening to someone with intent and recognizing how they feel and realizing your actions affect them.

As teenagers, our minds are still developing and it’s easy to let our emotions grow and grow and then they consume us and others. Recognizing emotions is valid, but we can’t let them get so out of control that we let relationships fall apart. I put a heart patch on my SOCCS sweatshirt sleeve to symbolize wearing my heart on my sleeve. SOCCS, including the workshop I co-led, is about being open with others, which lets others be open about their experiences.

Through my SOCCS role, I’ve become more confident and calmer in big situations like speaking in front of many people. Before I co-led the survivor panel, I was nervous. But once I got up there, I trusted myself. It’s also made me more comfortable talking about difficult things. Being a leader is about being ready to step up to a challenge, even if it’s unfamiliar. It’s also about being willing to learn as well as communicating with others. I tried to do all these things as a SOCCS student leader. 

Aslan M., 11th grade

Mock Trial Club Member

I knew I wanted to join the Mock Trial Club in high school. I joined as soon as I could. I've always been interested in competitive clubs like Mock Trial. I was intrigued by the prospect of getting to be a lawyer and running a trial.

I’ve been both an attorney and a witness, but I’ve primarily been an attorney. I had a ton of fun being a witness last year, taking the stand to be cross examined and playing around with the lawyer. I love speeches and cross examinations—that aspect of controlling your witness and making a fool of them a little bit. I love making it a show.

Through my experience, I’ve come to really enjoy trial advocacy and being at a trial. I could see myself pursuing law, whether that’s in a courtroom or doing other types of work. I find it super exhilarating to be in the courtroom. It opened a door for me to pursue this interest and realize I really do love and enjoy it.  

Mock Trial Club is a lot of hard work. There’s a lot of adrenaline that happens at trial. I’ve messed up a lot, especially during my first couple of years. The experience of going back, getting better, and succeeding kept me coming back. I love the community aspect of the club, coming to practice every Sunday, going to competitions together, and learning from everyone. I’ve developed strong bonds and friendships with the students and the coaches.

I’ve learned leadership skills, too. Throughout the year, you need to not only pick yourself up but pick your teammates up. We get the case we are working on in October, but the drive wanes a bit in December and January because our competitions are in February and March. I try to be that person who is proactive with my counsel, teammates, and coaches. I try to make sure everyone is working together, that the motivation is still up, and that we’re bringing our A game.  

I’ve learned a lot from our captains, including this year’s captains, Sid R. and Elsie R., 12th grade. I also learned a lot from Haley Hoffman ’23, who was a great leader when I was first starting out.

Although I’m still learning, I’ve tried to develop the teamwork aspect of leadership. In my experience, leadership is about adapting to the people around you and elevating them. It’s about being a team player, understanding people’s needs and the differences between people and trying to bring them together. 

This year, the UPrep team took first in our district competition and then we placed third at state. The team hadn’t placed that well in a long time. I can’t wait to start my last year on the team next term, and hopefully we can bring back some more hardware. 

Ethan F., 8th grade

Robotics Club Member

I joined the Robotics Club this year. I really like robotics because I like doing hands-on activities. I had some experience in coding and building stuff beforehand. I like Legos a lot. I figured it would be a nice place to apply my skills and it sounded interesting, which it is.

I love that I get to work with people who can do a lot of cool things. Everyone in the club is on a three- or four-person team. I’m the driver of the robot on my team. Two people on my team were in charge of building the robot and another person coded the software.

Sometimes we have different jobs. Sometimes we all come together to achieve one big goal. We had a really scrappy robot, and we knew we couldn’t go to the competition like that. We all took the time to come together and make a new and better robot.

We had one big competition this year at Odle Middle School in Bellevue. Our team representing the school split into two teams, blue and red. As the blue team, my squad placed eighth out of 15 teams in the finals. It was surprising to make it to the finals from the original pool of about 40 teams and we were happy to place that high. We observed many clubs and schools participating from around the state.

I have learned a lot about teamwork. People have different ideas on how to tackle a problem. We have to figure out how to compromise, work as a team, and figure out which one works best.

Since I am the driver, I’m the one who does things on the playing field. You have to be a leader to do this—to know where you are going. You can’t be scared of it. Some people naturally have leadership skills and some work more on it, but it’s something we can acquire. I have a mix of natural and learned leadership skills. I went in not knowing how to drive, but as I went along, I picked things up along the way.  

Being on the Robotics Team is fun, and a lot of the skills I am learning are transferable to other areas. It’s a great way to learn how to work with a team, and little experience with robotics is required. It’s also always nice to see your robot finally work after countless times of it exploding into thousands of pieces. If you want to do engineering or programming stuff in the future, this is a good opportunity to get started.

READ HOW UPREP COMMUNITY MEMBERS LEAD A LIFE OF LEARNING.