Beginning on Monday, May 1, senior English classes are going to be doing one thing and one thing only: presenting senior exit projects.

From the start of a KHS student’s senior year, the senior exit project is looming over their heads.

This is cause for a serious amount of moaning and groaning among the students.

Students complain that the project takes too much time and does not pertain to their education. Some say that it is too big a part of their fourth marking period grade.

First of all, something this big and involving this much effort should have a big impact on your grade.

On top of that, the project covers a number of issues that actually matter. I’m glad I’ve had to put together a senior exit project together.

I see it as a culmination of how high school has prepared me for secondary education and a career.

Because of the senior project, students have to write an essay about three potential careers, select one to do a “day on the job,” analyze their options for higher education, and demonstrate a number of skills they have developed throughout their high school career.

Completing the senior project guarantees that students have served their community through volunteer work, as well.

There are people who make a big deal out of the peer-editing that goes into writing the essays.

I admit that the number of essays required is excessive. I probably shouldn’t have had to write an essay about my favorite book.

Peer editing however is a wonderful tool when used correctly. It gives students a chance to see how their writing compares to that of their peers.

I might have had one approach to an essay, then read my friend’s essay and get inspired.

This also ensures that multiple people read the essay before it gets graded.

Editing is important, it’s the majority of what I do for this newspaper. Having multiple people read over a piece of writing can make it world’s better.

At the end of the day, you just have to take it seriously. The senior project is a great idea if you actually put in effort.

Much like everything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

At KHS, a great deal of a senior’s final semester grade is based on the senior presentation.

The senior presentation is a graded project in which seniors talk about themselves in front of teachers, parents, and classmates. The presentation includes essays seniors are required to write, and information about what they hope to achieve in the upcoming years.

About two weeks of the seniors final semester is spent working on PowerPoint, putting together about a 10-minute presentation that determines their final English grade.

Starting at the beginning of the year, seniors begin to work on these essays that they will need to include in the presentation.

A few essays that are included are the best book, college application, complex thinker, reflective, passionate individual, day-on- the-job, and the career research.

While I believe that a few of these essays are beneficial, I also believe that the rest are a waste of time. Writing an essay about a favorite book does not prove that a student can read or write.

Writing essays can give students an opportunity to better their writing, but only if they are being given sincere critiques. When students are in their writing workshops and are supposed to help give feedback to help the original author, many students put little effort into helping the author.

I have witnessed that students will wait until the night before the final due date to finish up the paper. This means that the paper has yet to be peer-edited for corrections, taking away from the learning process of writing, and making the peer-editing groups pointless.

The seniors are given six class days to work on this presentation, which determines almost their entire final marking period’s English grade.

If such a large project is required, students should at least get more then a week and a day to work on the actual project, in class, before presenting it to their parents, classmates, and teacher.

This wastes the seniors time that could be spent on actually practicing college reading and writing levels that the student will actually need. After high school ends, there will be no application to the real world.

Students should spend their time working to improve their writing to be ready for college and reading books that challenge them.