by Aleicia Zhu
Watch an introduction to Technology Student Association.
*Videos skips in the middle due to technical difficulties.
Transcript
Aleicia Zhu: First question. So, what's the history of TSA at Biotech, specifically?
Sarah Memon: At Biotech, specifically, I'm not aware because the thing is with TSA, it started as a completely different organization in the 1900s. And so as it progressed, it changed the name to TSA, the Technology Student Association. So, in Biotech when I was starting out, because it is a STEM school, TSA was integrated into our club activities, because it is a STEM club. And right now, we don't really have many other STEM activities at all, besides Science Olympiad. That's a subset of Academic Team. So with TSA, yes, we're Biotechnology High School, but the reason that TSA became a part of biotech was so other students could become aware of other different types of STEM opportunities that exist in our world.
Aleicia Zhu: So what motivated all of you to try and take a leadership position at TSA?
Simar Arora: So, I applied after sophomore year, and I was doing architectural design with a few of my friends. Until then, I wasn't really into TSA. Like, I didn't really know much about it other than that there's a bunch of different competitions. But seeing how close I got to some of the people on my team, and how much fun we just had during the competition, it made me want to be more involved in the club.
Sarah Memon: For me, and for some other board members, like James, we've been doing it since middle school. And for me, I joined in sixth grade because I was interested in STEM, but my school didn't have the strongest program. And so ever since then, once we saw how many opportunities there were in TSA, all of my friends, we just kind of wanted to get involved, as much involved as we could to spread it to other people, because there's a lot of parts about TSA that other people aren't aware of. So at Biotech, specifically, I want to bring as much of it as I could to other people and the best quality as I could.
Michael Tepperman: I mean, I only started in ninth grade. But I liked there were so many, such a variety of things that you could do from architecture to, you know, computer things to biology related things. It was just really cool to me. So that's one of the main reasons that I was really interested in getting more involved in it.
James Lavery: Yes, and for me, similarly to Sarah, I'd been doing TSA all through middle school. And then when I did freshman year, and when I knew that we had a council at Biotech, I was like, this is really something that I want to be a part of, since I want to take initiative and help other people really get into TSA, because I've enjoyed it for so many years.
Sarah Memon: Yeah, because at least from my perspective, it is very time consuming, and you have to be organized and all the rules and stuff. And there's little tricks and stuff that can help your entry become more noticed by judges or receive a better score. Just in general, I know this year, we were trying to get speakers to come in, but obviously, because of the pandemic, that wasn't possible. So just try and expose people to be on biotechnology, because our classes are biotech focused. There's just so much more out there.
ALeicia Zhu: So what do you think are the specific skills and experiences that will help you in your roles moving forward?
Pranata Sannidhi: Cooperation is a big one. So, we are working as a team, and I know all of us have our own rules. Some of us might have like specific things to do, like take meeting notes. But, most of us have to work together and understand each other in order to help run meetings and help other students with other questions that they might have. So, working as a team is pretty important.
Sarah Memon: Biotech takes a unique approach where a lot of schools, they have specific roles, and they follow it. And so there's kind of a hierarchy, but Biotech, we all have similar responsibilities. Obviously Secretary sends out emails, but sometimes the President does, sometimes reporter. So, we're working team and another important skill is delegation, whenever we have competitive events, we all split up the competitions based on what we're most comfortable with handling, and then we work with those teams specifically.
Aleicia Zhu: Alright, so how do you think remote meetings will work for TSA going forward?
Sarah Memon: As of right now, all clubs, aside from SGA and class counselor up are put on hold because of the remote nature of the meetings. So, once we are able to continue, I don't think it'll be that big of a problem because a lot of our meetings aren't very hands on. Obviously, we'd love to do more engineering design challenges, but our main thing is just to communicate information and be there to answer questions. Since TSA releases the new rulebook every two years for competitions, this is the year the new rule book is coming out. So, we really can't even do anything until that rule book comes out. It's not gonna affect us that much.
Simar Arora: Also, our job is just to give them information. Then, it's mostly an independent club. You work on your own projects with your own team. We're just there to guide our members. So I don't think it'll be that hard to continue the club without in-person meetings.
Aleicia Zhu: So with that, considering that a lot of the duties and responsibilities considered a part of the members, then do you feel like TSA involvement in our school is adequate or lacking.
Pranita Sannidhi: TSA is a pretty big club. It has around 100 members. So, I would say it's not lacking at all, we have a decent amount of students in the club. It's nice to see lots of new faces and lots of people who are interested in technology and participating in competitions, because you can make a lot of memories through this club. So, we're not in any way lacking, but if more people want to join, then they are welcome to.
James Lavery: Yes, and in addition, since for states, there are many different competitions that you can try out for, we normally have a ton of different teams who all want to try out for one competitive event. So, then we do in school competitions, because so many people have an interest in doing the same events. We have such a large group of people who are interested in the offers for TSA.
Sarah Memon: For sure, and after every year, I know not this year in specific but the last two years of TSA when the seniors graduated, we took a big hit because senioe seniorsonly composes a very, very small percentage of it. So this year, actually, I don't remember the exact numbers, but we increased percentage-wise in how many members as a club we had. We also placed more frequently than I think we've ever done. We usually place at one to two events, maybe three, this year we placed at five. Even though they were remote, and less competitions were offered, people who were genuinely interested stepped up, and we did amazing. So I think biotech definitely is one of the stronger chapters out there.
Aleicia Zhu: Okay, so how do you plan on recruiting some of the new freshmen who are coming in, especially with the tenuous situation of club fare and whatnot.
Michael Tepperman: Oh—
Sarah Memon: You can go.
Michael Tepperman: Oh, I mean, I was just gonna say I expect every club will have trouble navigating what to do in the era of COVID. But, we will obviously send that a lot of emails. Once we go to hybrid we will, you know, we can talk to people.
Sarah Memon: Yeah, so I think as of right now, I don't really know what we're allowed and not allowed to do per se, because clubs are put on hold. So once we're able to, I think we'll send a brief email explaining what TSA is and then say if anyone's interested, come to this meeting, or fill out a form to be on the email list. And once we're able to, we'll start conveying as much information as we can and trying to recruit people amongst the hybrid, and who's in-hybrid can talk to the freshmen. If we're able to, it's going to be difficult considering we're not going to have lunch necessarily and club fair, but just trying to reach out to as many people as we can. If anyone knows any freshmen, I'm sure sophomores—current sophomores—are more likely to know the incoming freshmen. So working with whoever we know to talk to the freshmen and build their awareness to TSA.
Aleicia Zhu: So, what do you think is the best thing about TSA and what makes it different from other clubs at school, other than the STEM focus?
Pranita Sannidhi: For me, it would be the amount of competitions because there are so many different kinds of things that you can do their stuff. from architectural design, to essay writing to fashion. There's a whole lot of things that all incorporate STEM. So if you're into STEM, but want to try out something else, you have that STEM basis, but you can also explore possible hobbies. And for some of them, you might have a lot of fun doing it. And then for some of them, it might it might not be for you. But there's always next year to try another competition. And I like that you have so many opportunities to branch out. A lot of the competitions are also team based. So you need to form a team with people in your grade or other grades and that way you can meet new members.
Sarah Memon: Yeah, we have Science Olympiad and, I don't remember all the different subsets of Academic Team, but one you take a test and another is a hands on component and a test, something like that. With TSA, you can give presentations. So that is a public speaking event. There's animatronics, which is more building, but I think that also has a presentation component. There's coding competitions. So there's different types of events, too. There's on-site, there's static, so there really is just a ton of opportunities to explorein TSA. Then we also partner with different organizations, which most people don't know about, but partners such as Junior Solar Sprint, and the AEOP army educational outreach programs, we're partnered with all of them. We have other opportunities through them, such as summer camps and classes and things like that.
Aleicia Zhu: Considering the wide range of competitions Do you think that there is one competition that's most popular and maybe one that's less popular?
Pranita Sannidhi: The most popular one is probably biotech design, but it's restricted to upperclassmen, only,. A lot of people sign up for it. There's also groups of up to six members, I think. So lots of people get together and work on biotech design. As for least popular, there are new competitions. Well, as of last year, there were, so I feel like those would be less popular compared to the other ones.
Sarah Memon: Yes. I completely agree with biotech design. Unfortunately, the reason we do have to limit it to upperclassmen is because you need to take molecular and agricultural biotechnology your sophomore year in order to have the knowledge to compete in that competition effectively. Aside from that, music production and digital video production, I definitely feel like are amongst the more popular competitions. A lot of competitions that require more technical knowledge such as strong coding skills, such as computer, integrated manufacturing and software development, a lot of those competitions—unfortunately, we don't have a large, large number of coders at Biotech. So some of the ones that do code, do other competitions that they're interested in, such as video game design, or website design so those competitions are lacking.
Aleicia Zhu: Do you feel like being from Biotech gives us an especially big leg up in that competition?
Simara Arora: Yeah, I think Biotech usually has success in biotech design. Like, I think last year, we got first—the year before, the year before. Yeah. And they didn't go to Nationals, but they could have.
Sarah Memon: We definitely have a lot of resources, like teachers to help us out if we need it. I mean, we can't really like have them do our project. Because you know, that's not appropriate. But if we do want to get an idea by them, or if it's a complex topic, and we just want to make sure we're understanding it, we can definitely go to a teacher, and so that I feel like is a great advantage biotech has.
Aleicia Zhu: Do you feel like most kids go to Nationals if they have the opportunity or do they usually put it off? And why wouldn't they?
Sarah Memon: Most kids would. Wowever, if you're a senior, I think last year, the national competition overlapped with graduation, and that's why they didn't go. You know, graduations such a milestone, and you want to be there. So in most cases, people do go. However, if they have graduation, or it overlaps with another summer camp that they're attending, and it's in their conflict of interest, and in that case, they wouldn't go.
Aleicia Zhu: Then what would you recommend to the newer members of TSA?
Pranita Sannidhi: I would recommend going to the meetings and asking whatever questions you might have. What we do is when we get the rulebook, we release it out to all the club members, as well as signup sheets with basic descriptions of each competition. So I would suggest reading those, possibly, ahead of the meeting time and asking questions. We go over them during meetings to some extent, but I would suggest reading them ahead of time. I also would suggest signing up for as many competitions as possible. There will be a limit, I think it was one on-site and—yeah, so sign up for the maximum possible but of course, ones that you're interested in. Don't hold back for any reason. There's also a chance to drop out of competitions if you feel like the work is too much for you. So, yeah, basically go to meetings, ask as many questions as necessary during meetings or through email because we will try our best to reach out and answer your questions, and sign up for things.
Sarah Memon: You don't force yourself into competitions you're not interested in because you're worried that you're not going to get the one you're interested in because of in-schools because honestly, you don't want to be stuck in a competition you're not interested in because not only are you wasting your time and probably not gonna place it, you're not giving it your all because you're not passionate about it. But there's no real point to do something you really, really are not interested in. However, if it's something you're not sure if you'd be interested in, take the risk, go for it. A lot of times you find things that you love, because you take a risk and put yourself into that situation, you know, it doesn't hurt. If something you really don't like, Don't force yourself. There's really no point to that. And reading the rulebook—definitely, if you're a freshman. If you're competing, just know that the rubric is in the rulebook. I'm repeating that the rubric is in the rulebook. That's how they judge you. I can't emphasize that enough, because people still do not know that, no matter how many times I emphasize it. I mean, obviously, I know because I've read the entire 300-page rulebook a couple times for fun. But yes, yes. Okay, because I like knowing so I can answer questions rather than having to search it up. So I've read it. I read it every year it comes out. So I know, all the rubrics are in that rulebook, and we send it out to everyone, so please use those when you're doing your project.
Aleicia Zhu: All right, then. Do you feel like for most students, just reading the rulebook would vastly increase their chances of placing?
Sarah Memon: Yeah, because some students who are competing don't even know there's a rulebook, or if they do, they don't look at it because it breaks it down everything you need. Sometimes people will see everything they need, but if you scroll down, like one or two more pages, and you see the rubric. You'll see this is what they want for this section. This is what they want for that section. So it literally breaks it down for you.
Aleicia Zhu: Alright, then, so can you tell me a funny story about TSA.
Okay so, this year, we had a leadership conference for the board. And we were supposed to leave at eight, right? That was when the bus was supposed to pick us up to take us to TCNJ. And first of all, we waited for an hour and a half of the bus came at like 9:30, or even later, and Mr. Hercek didn't send us back to class, we were just sitting in the lobby for so long. Then the bus that showed up was not—it was a bit questionable. It was a bit questionable of a bus and the bus driver didn't know the way there. So Mr. Hercek had to instruct him.
Sarah Memon: And baby seats in the back.
Simar Arora: Little baby seats.
Sarah Memon: Like actual baby seats, like the ones you buy in a store.
Simar Arora: It was a little—it was an interesting experience. And I think we all bonded a lot.
Sarah Memon: And Simar slept.
ALeicia Zhu: So considering that biotech is a STEM school, do you feel like kids are more motivated to be involved and put a lot of time in?
Simar Arora: I think that Biotech, also, kids may be more interested in STEM, but I also think that like the school gives students a lot of stress, and they have less time for projects they might be really interested in. So they might do a better job, but they also have less time, I guess, than you would want for projects like this.
Sarah Memon: You can I mean, honestly, sometimes, people, yes, they're interested in STEM when they apply, but by their junior, senior year, they're not as interested in STEM. So that's why I feel like we get a lot more interested participants freshmen and sophomore year, but I know for my grade, some people want to major in music, others in business. You know, where once I feel like a couple years ago, we had 99% of people being a stem major. And now I think the number slowly decreasing. I'm not sure why that is, but I think people are just with these clubs, I feel like our clubs have gotten stronger, and people are genuinely able to explore other interests they have to a greater extent.
Aleicia Zhu: So I know that one of the accusations of Biotech is that our extracurricular activities are a little weak and a lot of clubs that we used to have, like Environmental Club or Key Club have since shut down for whatever reason. How are you going to make sure that TSA continues to have a strong involvement not only from the students but also from the leadership?
Sarah Memon: Well, I think a lot of the clubs, the problems they face where their advisors basically, they change schools or something like that. And so a lot of the times we—they didn't know, so I feel like because we have such strong communication with our advisor, if he was planning on changing schools or retiring in the far future, he would let us know and we could help solve that. And at the same time, I know Environmental Club that had, I think, I believe, less than 15 members. So a big part of it was the teacher went on maternity leave. And so because of that, the meetings weren't able to happen as consistently and then also, there were only 15 or so kids in it, but TSA has 100 people. So as long as we keep on focusing on doing the best job we can and keeping our numbers strong, and people who put in the effort, we give them the resources, so they will succeed. If they put in the time and efforts such as the rulebook, I feel like we'll be able to maintain TSA.
Pranita Sannidhi: Also TSA, as one of us mentioned earlier,, it's sort of individualistic, because the main focus of TSA are the competitions that lots of people can do. And those are mostly conducted by the students themselves and the advisors, or the advisor and we, as the so-called leaders at TSA, like don't have too much of an involvement in how students complete their competitions. We kind of just check up on them to make sure that they're doing it and ask for any questions or concerns and answer them. So lots of kids are motivated by themselves to finish their projects. And if any of them lose motivation, they tell us beforehand. So yeah, I feel like a lot of it is due to the dedication of the students themselves, which is why the club can continue.
Sarah Memon: Yeah, I think that's honestly one of the most beautiful things about the members of TSA, because when competitions, when they do have questions, I will get so many calls and texts, and people needing help with things. And, of course, I'm happy to help but it just also makes me so happy that people are genuinely engaged in their competition, because, you know, sometimes people do things just to on resumes, you know. And so, the thing is, when people are asking me questions, I can see in them that they're genuinely passionate about their events. I love that, like, I love helping people. Yes, sometimes it requires me staying up kind of late to help people, but it doesn't matter because seeing how passionate and how excited they are, to do the best they can. That's all that matters to me. And I feel like that's the same for all the other board members as well.
Aleicia Zhu: So of course, obviously, TSA requires a lot of individual scholarship and motivation in order to succeed. But of course, there's also the big time crunch from classes. And also, a lot of people may not know where to begin, even, especially if they don't have this kind of background. Or maybe their parents are engineers or professors. So, do have some sort of like plans or formal system in trying to help get students on the right path for competitions?Because I didn't notice that you've mentioned before that there are some like little hints and tricks, or at least some general advice for being able to look good in front of the judges and placing well, and overall just having a better educational experience.
Michael Tepperman: I mean, given the fact that we have an in-school system, the team that's going to make it past in-school is obviously going to know what they're doing so long as they had competition in the first place, because you can see that they're the best team. Then, the board will try and help whenever they can, and make sure that the project is going on smoothly, and so on.
Sarah Memon: Yeah, and do not provide a disadvantage people who have not done the competition before because, you know, sometimes there is kind of a team did it the last year, you know, so that's why what we do is there is—before for the competitions that we needed in school, there is a specific board member in charge of conducting the in school. Other officers may help grade, and kind of grade the tests, or evaluate the performances. What we do is we get people who, for example, for debate, I got two other people. So it would be, I'm biased, and to help those people who have not done it in the past. That board member who is in charge of conducting the in-school, that's the resource for the person there. Feel free basically for the freshmen—feel free to ask or whoever's doing the in-school, feel free to ask whoever's conducting the in-school, because they can't physically tell you like, Oh, this is we're gonna choose you or if you do this, you're definitely gonna win. You know, that's a really good idea. Go with that, but they can provide you general information about the competition. And then once they do get past in-schools, we can be like, okay, when if you do this about it, make sure you wear a blazer or make sure you wear a tie, or stuff like that, basically.
Aleicia Zhu: So also, a lot of kids at Biotech come without previous friends from their hometown, and clubs are a way for them to socialize. But at TSA, there are a lot of team events that require you to try and organize teams by yourself. So how are you trying to help make sure that people who come without friends get into their own teams without them feeling bad or awkward?
Sarah Memon: Well, on the signup form, we do indicate if you're doing a team competition, or you don't have a team, you can click that box or whatever the option is, and we will find a team for you. If there's no other individual sign-up for that event, we'll find a spot on another team for you, and we'll work and make sure that it works. And a lot of the team events, even some of the team events, you need a minimum of two people. Others, team events, you can compete as an individual as well. So we also try to broadcast that because some people do prefer working individually. I know some events, I'd rather have a team and some events, I'd rather work alone. So we work to accommodate all preferences, all needs. I completely understand that, especially freshman year, you don't know who works well. Honestly, I hate to say it. Freshman year, it's a bit of a gamble. Because, you know, I feel like who your friends are freshman year obviously changes significantly by the time you're a senior. So we do try and get you a team, if that's what you want. But we try our best, and that's all we can do.
Aleicia Zhu: Okay, so what do you think are the biggest challenges for TSA going forward?
Sarah Memon: Going forward, I think, the releasing of the rulebook, because last year—not last year—two years ago, they released it November, early December. So the thing was, sometimes when after they released a national rulebook, state modifications get released. And so the first problem with that is it already comes out late, but now because of Corona are probably expecting it to come out even later. And that will obviously significantly shorten the time people have to work on their events. Because A, we don't know what events are being offered. B, we don't know the team requirements, like how many teams we can set, how many people are the teams, we don't know if they're going to be changed from on-site to pre-conference. So there's just a ton of variables, and we're not going to get the answers until significantly later.
Aleicia Zhu: So considering all these challenges, how do you feel about the future of TSA at that attack going forward?
Sarah Memon: I honestly feel like we'll be fine. Because all the new members and all the old members of the board, I feel like, genuinely, we are all strong candidates who have dealt with adversities, either in doing our own events or past board numbers know what it's like to have these challenges, because we've dealt with late rulebooks. If it's even later, so be it. We've dealt with problems in the past. We've all had other leadership roles, other experiences, and I feel like genuinely, as a team, we get along really well. I've never in all my years of board, there's never really been problems with people arguing or not getting along. So I feel like because we are such a cohesive team, we'll be able to handle whatever comes our way.
Aleicia Zhu: Alright, that sounds great, and I'm optimistic for the future of TSA and how well Biotech will continue to perform. And this concludes the interview.
Sarah Memon: Thank you.
James Lavery: Thank you.
Simar Arora: Thanks, bye.
Michael Tepperman: Thank you.