Alumni opinions on Whitney High School’s new Multimedia Center

By Maria Bolanos
As an alumnus of Whitney High School, I’ve seen first-hand the caliber of which it is capable: students are always top-notch in the fields of mathematics and engineering, attending and winning robotics competitions across the region; we always score in the top percentile on standardized tests regarding languages and literature; we have a strong social sciences department, augmented with a history of excellence in Model United Nations. And despite the school’s emphasis on academics, Whitney High has also produced some of the most talented visual artists to apply to art school.
Yet for a while, this spectrum of excellence and talent has not been showcased at its full potential--which is why students, teachers, and alumni alike were all ecstatic at the prospect of Whitney’s own multimedia center: with this direct access to a theatre and media lab equipped with film-making software, we would finally be able to adequately explore media, mass communications, and the performing arts as serious outlets for students and a taste test of potential careers.
As a college student with the intent to major in Media Studies, I can personally attest that had Whitney built the multimedia center during my days as a wildcat, I would have definitely taken advantage of the opportunity to learn more about media, mass communications, and theatre production. As it turns out, many Whitney High School alumni such as myself, who have decided to undertake majors related to mass communications in the hopes of careers in film or broadcast media don’t really know what to expect, having never been on the air or handled more than rudimentary film equipment.
To get an opinion on the matter of practical advantages that a new multimedia center would bring, I interviewed Alexander Chang, a fellow alumnus from the Class of 2009, who had been both an editor for Aspects, the school newspaper, and a student taking Mr. Ziolkowski’s Contemporary Media course. He told me that a new multimedia center “would facilitate things and help you to get more into what you're doing if you aren’t just borrowing the school's computer lab for a (class) period. It was always inconvenient when the place would be full with other classes. In terms of Aspects…one of the things that made broadcast journalism seem less feasible (as a program at Whitney) was that we didn't even know where we'd film the show or if we'd have equipment or storage space. That discouraged a lot of us from supporting the start of the Whitney broadcast channel.”
I have high hopes and high expectations for the multimedia center, and can’t wait to see the kinds of productions that the school will now be able to produce, with much more autonomy and less technical and bureaucratic hindrance. I feel confident that the availability of this new center will spark newfound passions and talent in broadcast media, film, and the performing arts. Pretty soon, alongside the budding new engineers, political leaders, authors, and artists of the nation, Whitney High School will be able to see the beginnings of the next generation of news reporters, actors, producers, and film directors.