Hello! My name is Nikita Andrea Pokala and I am 18 years old. I am an ambitious and hard-working student at Santa Susana High School, and the 2021 STEAM Expo is my cumulative Senior Project that highlights my various areas of study and passion.
Beginning in freshman year I immersed myself in all the Santa Susana had to offer, from classes to student run clubs. I upheld the importance of academics in my life while also exploring other passions and hobbies. From a very young age it has been my life long goal to enter the medical field as a Pediatrician. Throughout High School, I sought after this goal by taking classes the fueled my pre-medical interests, such as AP Biology and Honors Anatomy and Physiology. In conjunction, I became involved with clubs like HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) where I have held leadership positions. Outside of school, I spent my hours volunteering at Simi Valley Adventist Hospital weekly. Interdisciplinary studies are extraordinarily important to me as I believe that is important to explore and study various opportunities. To pursue this, I played the violin and viola in Santa Susana High School's orchestra for four years, took classes outside of my comfort zone such as AP Physics C Mechanics and Calculus C and joined a variety of clubs including JSA (Junior State of America) where I further my political and social justice interests. I selected the STEAM Expo because I feel that it best highlights my academic and creative growth as a student that is always driven by one thing— curiosity. From my very first STEAM Expo in my freshman year, I knew that I wanted to conduct this as my Senior Project and have been blessed to see that goal come to fruition. I have participated in the STEAM Expo for the past three years, running booths with my best friends. This experience of brainstorming booth ideas in an innovative fashion and being able to present it to the community was extremely rewarding. From gathering materials for kids to make their own Strawberry DNA to giving real life, hands-on examples of blood vessels to taking people's blood pressure and explaining medical devices, I knew what the community liked to see and what student booth-runners liked to do. In my junior year, I got the opportunity to shadow the 2020 STEAM Expo in preparation for my running it this year. I believe that from this project I will learn the process of implementing proper communication and creativity into planning a large scale event. While my focus over the past four years has been in science, I will learn to implement my time management and innovation into conducting a successful event. As I work alongside with Adrean Pokala, I will learn how to create an aesthetically pleasing and easily accessible website. In addition, I hope to learn from the wonderful students who will take part in this event. Finally, I hope to learn more about myself and my passion for the sciences and arts as I embark on this journey with the purpose of spreading and enlightening STEAM within my community. |