Technical Literacy. Those two words are enough fill any freshman who hears them with feelings of relief or dread. It is a steady cycle of changing teachers each quarter, with the purpose of helping make the decision of which career pathway to take, although all that remains is half-retained knowledge.

It is a rush to finish assignments that will never be seen by anyone other than a few chosen peers and soon vanish into the memory of even the student that made them. Even after the first quarter has ended, students move on to the next teacher with only a vague knowledge of what they will be learning, knowledge gleaned from overheard rumors and offhanded comments by their friends.

The Tech Lit Expo held Dec. 8 changed that. For the first time, freshmen had a chance to have their work displayed for the public to see in an event especially made for this purpose. They would be able to see a broader variety of projects and takes on the assignments given to them by their respective Tech Lit teachers, and be able to go into those classes more prepared than freshmen in previous years.

Throughout the semester, the students involved worked hard for this event. Freshman Lainy Dickson said she stayed until six o’clock each night to get her project done and presentable.

Cinematography teacher Matt Stroup first came up with the idea for the event with help from animation teacher John Over. The original plan for the expo was to host it once every quarter. However, doing so was too difficult, and therefore was reduced to once per semester.

For some students, like freshman Reed Maruyama, that meant double their work being showcased. “I had a PowerPoint and a movie for Stroup,” she said. “It was cool, and it’s like fun to show off what you’ve worked on because all of us worked hard on it.”

Other freshmen agreed. “I feel more comfortable now that I’ve done it once, I guess,” Dickson said. “You get to see how other people do it and you get to see the kind of ideas, how they pieced it together, did they do a commercial, did they have another idea, and so it’s just cool to see how everybody did.”

Being able to see the work not only from classmates but also from other periods was a big thing for this event. After seeing how other groups made their projects, freshman Naomi Beach noted that other projects she saw had taken a more funny route. “Ours was a little more serious and dark,” she said.

The knowledge that the assignments that were going to be shown also helped motivate the students with their projects, as part of their motivation became impressing the people who were going to see it, as compared to just getting the project done. “You want to work harder so it looks better,” said freshman Lili Dow. Maruyama agreed, adding, “So you can impress your parents.”

Although many students had not heard of the event or missed it due to the event taking place after school hours, students other than freshmen also believed the Tech Lit Expo was a good idea.

Senior Antony Karroum said he thought the expo was beneficial. “I think it’s great that the freshmen are able to show people what they were able to do and what they learned from doing Tech Lit this semester. It’ll definitely help them in the near future when they decide what classes they want to take next year, and eventually what career choice they want. It is a great way to show the community and parents what goes on behind the closed doors at Clark.”
Over said the expo was notable for parent turnout. “I was impressed at how proactive parents can be trying to secure a positive future for their sons and daughters,” Over said. “This can be a difficult decision for them, because many parents know so little about either engineering or animation themselves. In years to come, I predict the event will grow in strong content and community participation.”