At a school with almost 4,000 students, only some are lucky enough to find a specific group but those who do find friendships and community.
Here are four stories of students who found a community within one of Creek’s many clubs.
Theater
Most people think of theater kids as overly dramatic, constantly bursting out in song, and having some type of obsession with “Hamilton” but this is far from the truth for senior Kate Dann.
For her, and most other theater students, theater has become a second home.
“You find that it’s a place that you want to be, it’s [definitely] a safe space,” Dann said.
As the current president of Creek Theater’s Troupe 1730, Dann has found that the group is extremely tight-knit; everyone knows her name, and she knows everyone’s names. Even though there is some divide between cast and crew, they all still work together. The troupe holds occasional bonding days that bring together cast and crew, upperclassmen, and underclassmen, and allow students to create close connections.
“[Theater is] where I met many of my close friends because they all share the same passion as me. So it’s easy to become friends with people who like the same stuff as you,” Dann said.
Theater also adds an aspect of healthy competition for students like Dann. Between auditions for
the cast and crew head interviews, theater builds an environment where competition is the key to success.
Within Troupe 1730, students combine their talents and help others to create a cohesive set, play, and group of characters.
“We all compete against each other to make each other better, and at the same time, once we are working together, we just keep going and inspiring people,” Dann said.
Dann has found her passion in theater. It’s where she can be herself while still doing something she loves, and she’s not the only one. The theater has become a comfort for hundreds of students at Creek.
Softball
When you think of athletes, you might think of a group of students who spend their entire day at the gym, building up muscle.
But for many student-athletes, sports have become a way to find a community of friends.
Senior Sydney Berry has been playing for the Creek softball team since freshman year and is currently a varsity catcher. She has since found a close-knit community.
“It’s really easy to talk to everyone, and the coaches are also part of that small community, so it’s nice,” Berry said.
Berry and her team have won and lost together, been through hard practices, and have created a community together.
“It does take a lot of commitment, but it also does reward you with a lot of really close friends,” Berry said.
Being a part of softball has also given Berry a closer connection with Creek. Like many other student-athletes, she feels pride in participating in a Creek sport. Because Creek has such a strong athletic culture, participating in sports helps students find a sense of success and celebration in their athletics.
“know what it feels like to put on a jersey that says ‘Creek’ so I feel closer to the school community,” Berry said.
STEM
Some people view students as heavily involved in STEM you think of nerds who don’t know what deodorant is. But at Creek, there’s an extremely wide variety of scientific and engineering pathways available.
Whether students are involved in programs like robotics, engineering and design, physics, biology, medicine, or chemistry, they are constantly finding groups of people to talk about their interests. Within these groups, these students are finding the opportunity to ‘nerd out’ with each other.
“I’m kind of like the ultimate nerd,” senior Dylan Chen-Becker said
Chen-Becker is not only part of the robotics club, which builds and programs robots but also participates in Aerospace leadership, which has taught him a lot of aerospace principles and how aircraft work.
By being a part of STEM pathways at Creek, Chen-Becker has found a career path he hopes to pursue; aerospace engineering. As he’s fostered his interests in aerospace engineering through clubs at Creek, Chen-Becker has found that the experience has helped him come up with ideas about where to go to college as well.
Over the years, he and his robotic team have become good friends. The robotics team has dinners together, as well as other activities that bring those involved closer together.
Over the summer the robotics team was working on the T-shirt cannon and kept it stored at one of the member’s houses. As a result, the robotics team would work on a project, while bonding as a group Chen Becker has also learned things from his STEM-oriented peers. When he doesn’t understand or is trying to learn something new he can ask others around him that know a lot about a specific topic.
“Just through these clubs and organizations that I’ve been a part of doing that type of thing, you just meet a lot of people that are interested in the very same things that you are,” Chen-Becker said.
Speech and Debate
Popular opinion on Speech and Debate kids says they’re too argumentative and invested in politics.
But when senior Lucas Barun entered the halls of Creek four years ago he kept to himself and stayed quiet. Ironically he had decided to join Speech and Debate, and this decision would soon alter his personality.
“I was able to become somebody who’s much more extroverted than I used to be,” Barun said.
In the three years Barun has participated in speech and debate he has met many of his closest friends. His girlfriend participates in the program, and almost his entire homecoming group is in it as well.
“It’s greatly positively impacted me because I’ve been able to meet a lot of new people and create a community,” Barun said.
Not only has speech and debate given Barun a community at Creek, but it’s also helped him in more academic ways. He’s had to develop critical thinking skills and develop the ability to create speeches on the fly.
“It’s let me be able to think on my feet,” Barun said.
To Barun, joining a group or a club gives you a community and friends. At Creek especially, with how big it is, the easiest and most effective way to find yourself in a sea of thousands is by joining groups and meeting people who share similar interests.
“I think that it’s just something in general about Creek that getting involved in clubs gets you friends,” Barun said.
