From Feb. 19 to Feb. 23, the school celebrated its annual tradition of International Week. From fun activities during lunch like ping pong to interactive group events like the potluck, each day of International Week sought to educate students and faculty about several diverse cultures around the world.
While the week appears straightforward, the coordination of specific events, activities, and decorations for each culture every day requires hours of planning beforehand.
To properly organize the entire week, Senior Arnav Lahoti, the co-chair of the International Week committee, and other members of the committee worked relentlessly for students to have a memorable experience.
“The planning process consisted of creating subcommittees, and we worked together with the subcommittee chairs to organize every event,” said Lahoti. “We also had to organize the shifts during the week as well.”
With the week finally over, Lahoti and the whole committee feel satisfied with their work.
“I think it went very well,” said Lahoti, “the planning was very smooth this year, especially with an event like the potluck that we worked on with the Elevated Cooking Club.”
Although International Week provided an enjoyable experience for campus this week, in the future, the committee believes in incorporating more members of the community as a whole.
“I think we can work on adding more activities,” said Lahoti. “We need to involve more people because it didn’t seem like the entire school knew about it.”
With a history of more than a decade, the week-long tradition featured familiar activities such as the school-wide poster contest while also introducing new games.
International Week co-sponsor Janet Lin highlighted this year’s priority on cycling through the activities.
“We try to improve every year,” Lin said. “The seniors on the [International Week] Board carry on their experiences, and with more people joining we can come up with more ideas and diversify our options while still keeping popular events.”
A few of the stalwart events this year included the morning music sessions and button-making during lunch. Each day of the week, the student body arrived at school with the sound of music from different regions of the world, including Hispanic music on Tuesday, Chinese music on Wednesday, and music from different Romance language-speaking countries on Thursday. During lunch throughout the week, students were able to craft their own buttons featuring different expressions in a multitude of languages. Students were also encouraged to play the various games showcased in the Commons.
