An Inside Scoop of NGN AND TSA

By: Daisy Gonatice

In order to help students at Jackson gain information about clubs they might want to participate in, the Wolfpak Press’ PR team decided to interview some members from two clubs. The interviews weren’t done on just ordinary club members, but they focused on members who held 1st place at club competitions against a wide range of other schools in the state and even in the country!

Next Generation Nations (NGN):

The first club that we interviewed was NGN, and the three members who represented NGN are Maria Kang, Kendall Kaleo, and Ananya Cholkar. Together, they were named 1st Place North America winners for finding “a physical solution to help solve the problem of healthcare access for all in settings of poverty.”

But what exactly is NGN? As NGN winner Kendall Kaleo states, “NGN is an abbreviation for Next Generation Nations which is a club that centers around these 21 goals to help better our world in the next century.” The club focuses on finding ways to reach the 21 goals either through new policies or STEM projects which members come up with in teams. It seems as though NGN allows students to figure out the best solutions to reach a common goal, which brings forth a lot of team skills such as cooperation. However, another NGN winner Ananya Cholkar shares that NGN also helps to build life skills such as presenting and collaboration.

When preparing for the competition, these three members felt very nervous as their solution was focused on the idea of COVID, and they were not sure if focusing on COVID was going to be unique enough. Thankfully, nervousness and second thoughts did not stop them from winning and when asked what emotions they felt after the competition, Kendall Kaleo states “No we literally didn’t believe them. They were like ‘guess who won the competition!’ and we were really shocked because we were really nervous.”

Reflecting on their experience in NGN, the members name two teachers that had been a tremendous help to their success: Mrs. Kinlich and Mr. Poe! Moreover, here is some advice they give to anyone interested in NGN:

“I feel like every person says this whenever there is a big competition or this big thing which is don’t procrastinate and really get on top of your work really early so you’re not scrambling at the end or you don’t rush so you don’t feel extra nervous. I think it’s best to just be prepared, practice your presentation skills, get comfortable talking about your topic and be confident. “ -Kendall Kaleo

Technology Student Association (TSA):

The second club that was interviewed was TSA, and the two members who represented TSA were Lauren Kim and Naisha Sinha. They won the title of 1st place winners for Data Science and Analytics. To explain what TSA is, Lauren Kim states, “TSA stands for Technology Student Association and the club or the organization is across the nation. It consists of competitions for pretty much every event or for each theme. So there’s like fashion, data science, architectural design- anything related to technology really.”

There are teams who represent each event in the competition, which reveals that being involved with TSA requires team skills. But TSA has also helped members learn practical skills. As Naisha Sinha states, “I learned a lot actually in terms of practical skills. There’s some things you can just learn off of a course or a textbook or school, but actually doing stuff gives you a different perspective not just on technical skills but other practical skills like collaboration and time management and stuff.” Lauren Kim adds on to her statement, “ Yeah like Naisha said communication skills improved a lot because we had to collaborate and work together but also like leadership as well because this is basically an independent project of our group and there’s no help really, no guidelines. So we learned everything on our own and planned that and there’s that independence that we learned.”

The road to 1st place for the two members involved constructing outstanding ideas, Naisha Sinha mentions, “The issue we chose was centered around police/civilian assaults and stuff. And so basically we collected data sets from the FBI and other police departments and then conducted analysis through excel. So I feel like this topic specifically might have helped us I guess reach our position because it's a big issue, like with Black Lives Matter .” Black Lives Matter and racism in the police force are very prevalent issues we see today. Just like with the NGN winners, it is evident that connecting global issues with the project can help club competitors win in their events. After winning, Lauren and Naisha felt the results were “unbelievable,” since last year they did not place at all for any of their events. They also mention how they did not have much experience with data analysis, and basically had to learn more about the event while simultaneously preparing for the competition.

Lastly, Lauren and Naisha mention that their supportive team members played a huge role in their success. Here is some advice these members mention to anyone wanting to join TSA in the future:

“You may feel lost at first but with a lot of effort, everything goes well. And ask questions. Last year when we were new to TSA we didn’t know what was going on so it was nice to just ask around.” -Lauren Kim

“And also, more TSA specific advice, be sure to take risks and do events that you don’t have any idea on how to do. Like this specific event, we had no prior experience in data science and we still I guess won it. But I would say if you procrastinate that would be an issue. We had a lot of times where procrastination I guess brought us down.” -Naisha Sinha

JHS has so many clubs with diverse purposes! If you would like to participate in NGN or TSA, check out their Instagrams: @ngnjhs @jhstsa or visit Henry M. Jackson High School’s website and click on “Activities” in the Student tab to find the list of clubs.

Wanna rep your club and do an interview?! Let us know by DMing @jhs.newspaper OR leave a comment on our “Forum” page!