Miss Porter's School Pandemic Seminar:
A Call to Action
5/23/20
During this quarantine, I decided to sign up for the Miss Porter's School Call to Action Pandemic Seminars, which took place on the first four Saturdays of May. I’m so glad I attended because not only did it give me something to do during quarantine, but it was also a great experience. I had the opportunity to hear from so many amazing speakers and learn about the health aspects of COVID-19, how it's affecting everyone all over the world, and more. These seminars were open to several high school female students around the world and it was so great to get to know them and hear their experiences with COVID-19. It really puts into perspective that even though we’re all scattered around the world, we are not alone in what we’re feeling and experiencing especially during this pandemic.
During the last week of these four seminars we all got placed into groups for a Hackathon. My team and I had the idea to think of a social media app that would promote mask wearing. We called it the MaskTask. An issue we noticed is that people are sick and tired of wearing masks and many people simply don’t want to. But mask wearing is essential in the fight against COVID-19. Not to go into too much detail, but this app would be used as a friendly way of competition to promote mask wearing between people all over the world. It also gives daily facts about COVID-19 and how to stay safe and healthy during these times.
The State of Democracy & The 2020 U.S. Election
11/7/20
I find it interesting that in the U.S. we see ourselves as being a role model and that other countries should follow suit. In reality, there are many countries who do not view the U.S. in this way. We are often seen as not having good morals and being consistent. I think this speaks to the fact that we have a habit of living in our own bubble. We often do not look into the mirror and analyze our actions and then take action to improve. I found it very interesting when one speaker talked about democracy in theory vs democracy in reality. Then, she started talking about countries who declared a state of emergency and then received special powers to act fast and efficiently to combat COVID-19. While this is not a democratic way of handling a situation, those are the countries who have COVID-19 under better control. COVID-19 is a disease that has become a political game when we should be fighting it as a whole. Overall, I think democracy is a good thing, but there are instances where it isn’t the best solution. And I think that that is evident when we look at how countries have responded to COVID and the ones that are doing well now.
