Alexandria Friends School Curriculum
Senior Project
Seniors in good academic standing may elect to spend two-to-five weeks at the end of their senior year away from school doing a senior project. Senior project enables graduating students to experience time out in the world where they may pursue an interest in an internship-like setting. Projects must be uncompensated but need not be service or non-profit oriented.
Every graduating senior is strongly urged to complete a senior project after completing the spring mid-trimester of her/his senior year. Most often a student will work with or through an organization, but there have occasionally been projects that were independently designed and executed. In such situations, we require an adult contact person outside of the school who is willing to act as a supervisor.
Students typically find projects by networking with personal contacts and the friends and colleagues of parents, or simply through their own independent research. Distant or unusual projects are sometimes arranged through placement agencies such as LeapNow, and the Center for Interim Projects (though these come with a price tag). The options are nearly limitless. In the past, students have worked and learned in all kinds of environments, both local and out of the area, including:
Local projects
- WPFW (Pacifica radio)
- Arena Stage / Roundhouse Theater
- Navy Medical Center
- Takoma Park Elementary School (Head Start)
- Omniverse (on-the-job web design training)
- Center for Conscientious Objection (learning to be a draft counselor)
- D.C. Arts Project (working on DC mural project)
- NBC local affiliate Channel 4 News (working with a camera operator on assignments)
- Gymnastics instructor / veterinary medicine assistant (internships)
Out of the area
- Betsey Johnson, NYC (intern at a fashion design studio)
- On-location television production assistant, NYC (gofer on set)
- Exchange student, Finland (through a formal exchange program)
- Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat Center, Wallingford, PA (living within a Quaker community)
- Billy Mills Youth Center, Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota (counselor)
- Coral Cay Conservation, Roatan, Honduras (scuba-based coral reef analysis)
- Bike Mechanic School, Seattle, Washington