Tag: diversity

  • Microsoft Welcomes Minority Students!

    Microsoft Welcomes Minority Students!

    Polytechnic High School was cordially invited to attend Microsoft’s annual Minority student day.
    This is the second year it is held in Southern California, but worldwide has been an event for 29 years.
    According to Microsoft’s Diversity and Inclusion Blog, 4.1% of workers are African American, 1.8% are Latino or Hispanic, and .5% are Indigenous.

    Caucasians are the majority, 55% of workers, meaning that there is a need for diversity in the technology field.
    Microsoft aims to have a more inclusive image, accepting people of all backgrounds to be successful within their company.
    In attempt to raise the number of minorities, this day hopes to inspire our generation to work within the fields of technology and business management.

    Based on how dependent humans are on technology, there will be an increase in the number of people that need to work in technologically related majors.

    The event exposed students to new technology systems, such as the HoloLens software that mixes virtual reality with the real world.
    These mixed reality systems are the foundation for future architect, engineers, and even surgeons.
    Lauren Reynolds, a senior at Poly, said, “ It was interesting to see how much technology can benefit our future in multiple aspects. It allows us to access information more conveniently by technically being hands-free.”

    Overall, there are many opportunities to benefit all students of color by being able to intern for Microsoft in college.
    The MACH program allows college students to have a head start in getting a job with the company while still being a full time student.
    Even if students are not interesting in pursuing a career in coding, the company promotes those interested in business, marketing, and even engineering to apply to the program.

  • ASB Voting

    Now, I know what you’re thinking, what did ASB do now? Stop your thinking and listen. I want to talk about the different voting suggestions for ASB. It’s not that we despise the way of voting, we just strongly believe that it does not give an equal opportunity for the candidate to receive their votes. One way to make the campaign have a better participation rate, is having voting ballots be distributed to every class. The current way of voting takes place during lunch, where majority of it is taken up by long lunch lines. Most students do not want to wait in another line just to vote, especially when most of the school’s population feels like they have no voice. If our solution is taken into consideration, the participation rates could rise, everyone can take time to think about their choices, and teenagers wouldn’t complain about waiting in line to vote. I understand the voting sessions mimic the same system that real-world adults take, but if you really want kids to vote, you’re going to have to make it more convenient for them. Think about this, the more participation, the more active teenagers are going to be in their schools. It only takes a little change to make a big difference.

    As stated in last month’s paper, a major issue as to why there is such a lack of diversity in ASB is because of the amount of uninformed students that attend our campus. A larger effort should be made to reach out to those students, outside of PACE and CIC, to place them on the same playing field as the more popular candidates. Many students who aren’t in PACE or CIC, feel like they have a limited voice on campus. Instead of taking offence to criticism, take this as an opportunity to broaden the horizons of ASB and make a change to the voting system. If ASB enforces a more inclusive, and less clique-oriented environment, then it will truly bring harmony across all pathways on campus.