Sophomore, Julia Ghagare, is involved within her school community constantly in joining clubs, after school activities, and sports. 

One thing that Ghagare is involved in at SWHS is the Girls Tennis team. Ghagare joined the team for a couple of reasons. She was looking for a new sport to try out with her friends and were happy to learn it and improve when the season started.  When first trying out for tennis, it was a little intimidating to begin with, but as the season went on, she grew to love the team. Ghargare also loves the atmosphere on the tennis team and she even says that “Everyone is super welcoming and kind and it feels like a huge family.” From knowing this, she knew she was going to make a lot of friends on the team and enjoys playing with everyone as well. Ghagare mainly enjoyed how physically demanding the season was, because she was able to become a stronger tennis player and according to her, “listening to BTS while conditioning was definitely a highlight.” 

Besides tennis, Ghargare is also part of the robotics team. She joined because she wanted to learn about the aspects of robotics and reinforcing more women in STEM fields, because she hopes to have a career in STEM. Overall, she thought that robotics would be a good introduction to some of the extracurriculars offered for STEM at the High School, and since not many women are seen in the STEM field, she wanted to encourage more women to give robotics a try. 

Ghagare’s favorite part about robotics is the abundance of hands-on work offered. “There wasn’t a minute gone to waste because there was so much available to be done, and therefore many opportunities to learn.” She loves working with the sub-team called Controls, and was able to learn more about the wiring and pneumatic elements of the robot. As part of the Controls team, she helps steer the robot and allow it to pick up objects, and move the robot as well.  

In her free time, she loves hanging out with her friends and she spends a lot of time with them. She does a lot of things with her friends, like tennis clinics, swimming, movie nights, cooking, baking, and talking for hours about anything. Seeing the recent problem with COVID-19 and distance learning, she is not a fan because she, “can’t see [her] friends in class or be able to ask questions at the moment.” Ghagare didn’t realize how much she liked school until the two week cancellation, and, because she can’t do any big projects or activities from home, she’s been backtracked in many classes. Luckily, as a sophomore, she has two more years for school trips, but is still disappointed in the circumstances of the field trips. 

Ghagare is looking forward to coming back to school to see friends, while also getting the chance to spend time doing activities she loves. She is hoping that spring sports won’t get cancelled, seeing that her robotics season was cut early.