The PHS Club Fair in late September was quite a spectacle,
with a bustling, friendly atmosphere and impressive
turnout. Students moved from stand to stand, eagerly typing
their email into sign-up sheets and taking a piece or two
of candy on their way out, building a mounting stash of
treats. One of the most exciting aspects of the high school
experience is the opportunity to join clubs — and not just
for the snacks. PHS has a robust club culture, boasting over
140 registered clubs. The vast array of organizations — from
Debate Club to the Spork to Chess Club — ensures that
each student can find a space and community that aligns
with their unique passions. For the
most part, students at PHS enjoy
the process; clubs offer a tangible
space for students to bond over
shared interests and form lasting
friendships throughout their four
years.

However, not all clubs are created
equal. The most beneficial clubs for
students are those that hold regular,
organized meetings, have active
participation, and clear goals. Such
clubs can allow students to gain
valuable skills, experience, and
confidence. But the tale of clubs
that meet once or twice before
disappearing into inactivity
is all too familiar. PHS is
plentiful in clubs that lack
steadfast leadership to look
up to, making it difficult for students to create a lasting
impact. Thus, the benefits of joining a club are limited to
reliable clubs that meet recurrently, and PHS’s club system
is not ensuring this as such.

The current club system is surprisingly rudimentary
considering the large sum of student organizations we
have. For a student looking to start a club, the process
looks like this: leaders submit a club application with the
endorsement of an advisor, and if the proposal is accepted,
the responsibility is left completely up to students to
promote their club, attract students, design club plans,
retain members, and meet consistently.

The unfortunate truth is that many clubs are not formed
out of true passion or genuine interest — as a result, rather
than engaging with the established clubs, students start
near-duplicate clubs that end up serving little purpose other
than fodder in their college applications. Worse, nearly all
proposed clubs pass the application process seamlessly,
including clubs that are simply performative.

The low bar set to create a club at PHS ultimately causes
deteriorating quality. Most clubs fall short of providing
the experience they promise to deliver to prospective
members at the club fair. Many underclassmen complain
about unproductive club meetings, where members do
little more than eat their lunch and talk to
friends. This may seem harmless on the
surface, but the existence of organizations
managed halfheartedly distorts the purpose
of our club culture as a whole.

As the existence of these
dispassionate clubs become
normalized, students lose trust
in PHS clubs overall, even the
truly productive ones led by
passionate students. At best,
attendance dwindles over time
as people become reluctant
to waste their valuable free
time; at worst, students will
emulate this behavior in
their own organizations,
and this complacent
phenomenon will
become commonplace.

Some sort of check-in system needs to be in place to
stop this from occurring. First, a reform to the application
process itself is necessary. Clubs that are possible duplicates
should face much higher scrutiny before receiving approval,
and be extremely apparent in their distinctions. A more
detailed description of activities and curricula should be
provided by club leaders, rather than a vague mission
statement. Advisors should ensure that the club is being
actively managed to keep students accountable.

Numerous aspects of the club system make it difficult
for clubs to remain reliable for both members and leaders.
Most well-established, reliable clubs have recurring
meeting rooms that are claimed — but only unofficially.

It is a cumbersome task for new club leaders to find
available rooms and times to occupy, making meetings
hard to organize. Rooms may be locked, occupied, under
maintenance, or denied usage by a teacher, and there
would be no efficient way to tell ahead of time. Lacking
a reliable meeting location makes it challenging to plan
productive events; members may be deterred from the
complication or miss meetings out of confusion, lowering
attendance and creating new obstacles to productivity.
To make matters worse, keeping track of the clubs you’ve
signed up for is a pain. Getting on a club’s email list after
the club fair is often near impossible if you don’t already
have friends connected to them, making it even harder to
find out which room meetings are.

Of course, it could be argued that these issues can all be
more or less rectified with increased efforts of club leaders.
Leaders could facilitate seamless communication with
their members, have their contact information constantly
be available to interested students, and sort out logistical
obstacles on their own. After all, by taking on the role of a
club leader, a student is encouraged to devote themselves
to the community they manage. Unfortunately, the idea
that students are wholly responsible for maintaining a
club simply is unrealistic; at the end of the day, we are
all busy high school students trying to get by. Between
the overwhelming load of assessments and projects,
essays and presentations, it is inevitable that mishaps and
miscommunications will occur.

There is a straightforward solution to these rampant
problems — establishing a club room log available to all
students. Faculty would first indicate which rooms are
available at what times, and then club leaders can fill in
which slots they would like to occupy in advance. This
not only makes room claims a much more standardized
process, but also addresses accessibility problems. Students
will finally have a log they can refer to if they would like
to join a club after the club fair, or simply to check when
their club is meeting in case communication was missed.

As we head into the 2024–2025 school year with a
record-breaking number of new clubs, it is important to
think about a set of checks and balances to hold students
accountable. A more consolidated, organized, club system
would support PHS’s ambitious students and preserve the
passion and community that clubs promise us.

To make clubbing more enjoyable

Art is a reflection of the times, constantly
evolving alongside modern technology.
Today, we find ourselves in the middle of
yet another major transformation with the
rise of digital art, which uses technology to
give artists more tools and opportunities to
take their artwork to the next level.

Over the past few decades, the popularity
of digital art has skyrocketed due to the
advancement of technology and the
increasing popularity of social media.
This growth has allowed artists including
cheriise.art and haranikala to promote
digital art by creating posts on apps like
TikTok and Instagram. Furthermore, digital
art has become a popular medium for artists
thanks to its portability. Unlike traditional
art, such as painting, which requires
numerous supplies, including paint, paint
brushes, a water cup, and a pencil, digital
art only uses two instruments: a device and
a stylus. Digital art softwares also offer
customizable settings
that allow users to easily
adjust their brush size,
brush type, opacity, and
canvas size with just the
tap of a button.

While digital art is
gradually changing the
creative world with its
flexibility, traditional
art remains a vital pillar
to the foundations of
art. Traditional art
forms, such as sculpture, print-making,
and painting embody techniques and
a historical significance that will last
throughout human history. Art movements
such as the Renaissance, Impressionism,
and Cubism are all tied to centuries
of culture and societal
reform. Traditional
artworks from different
artistic movements
remain a way for people
to admire, study, and
understand the past.

Digital art and
traditional art, just
like how one might
compare handwritten
letters to emails, are
two unique ways to
express oneselves — neither can replace
the other. Both may communicate the same
message, but the experience and creation
processes for each are vastly different. While
traditional art may hold the weight of art
history and craftsmanship, digital art has
opened artistic creation to new realms once
thought unimaginable. The efficiency and
mobility of digital art is often disregarded
with a lack of time, effort, and heart. But
in reality, digital art is just a different form
of creative expression.

Art is never a competition between
different styles and media. Every new art
form draws inspiration from previous
styles, such as how digital brushstrokes are
made to mimic traditional paint brushes,
and how the emphasis in contrast and
shadow in digital photography art is a model
of traditional still lives. Despite the rapid
growth of new art styles and movements,
art cannot be replaced, only transformed.

The rising popularity of digital art

In 1884, Paul Nipkow made the first mechanical television scanning system in Germany, using a disk with a winding pattern of holes, and blurred points together to create a full picture.

In 1924, John Logie Baird transmitted the first moving image, based on Nipkow’s mechanical design. Baird later gave a public demonstration of the first mechanical television picture in London.
In September 1927, Philo Taylor Farnsworth introduced the electronic television to the public, using antennas to receive signals and display pictures and sounds. Despite being relatively expensive, with poor image quality, these televisions became widely popular.

The Radio Corporation of America introduced the first electronic color television at the 1939 World’s Fair, officially launching it to the public in 1953.

Music Television (MTV) aired on August 1, 1981 with “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. MTV was known for airing music videos of popular songs 24 hours a day, allowing people to watch artists’ music videos.

In September 1996, the first digital video disc (DVD) for the television was released in Japan, expanding to the United States in March 1997.

YouTube became the first streaming service in 2005, gaining popularity day by day. Following this, Netflix transitioned from a rental business in 1998 to a streaming service in 2007.

Marketing strategies for shows have evolved with the rise of social media and digital ads since the 1990s, allowing streaming services and individual TV shows or movies to engage audiences and create anticipation for new releases.

Streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV have grown more well known today. Netflix is the leading streaming service, with 260.28 million subscribers as of 2023. 

The Tower

Chen Jiang's Work

The Tower