Following the departure of the  beloved in-house Tech guy and AV Club leader, Jason Ketter, fresh out of college, Maddie Helm immediately volunteered to assume the role of leader of AV Club due to her experience and degree in film. For many of the girls in AV Club, it is a time to relax and explore something that they truly enjoy without having the pressure of graded assignments or tests all the time. Sophomore Megan Kelley enjoys bonding with the other members of the club over food, classes, and their shared passion for technology.

“It helps me [get through my busy week]  because I get to go and have fun and mess with the microphones,” Kelley said. “I enjoy AV club, it makes me happy.”

For most high schoolers, weekdays are filled with stress and overwhelming amounts of work which is why having time blocked out for hobbies such as AV can be so important for students to escape their hectic lives. AV Club gives students the room and positive environment to grow without putting extra pressure on them. Helm hopes that she and her students will continue to grow through this experience and set them up for success in the technology field.

“That is what AV club is primarily about, after all: Offering students a safe space to experiment with and learn this technology,” Helm said.

With this opportunity to explore technology and everything that goes into it, members such as Junior Clara Stribling have realized that they can take the lessons from AV Club into the real world. Now that society is more reliant on technology than ever, there is a higher demand for people who do work similar to the AV Club whether it is live-streaming events, tech assistance, or software engineering.

“AV has opened up my perspective to see that there are more things that I’m interested in and that I need to try out more hobbies and lines of work before I make a set-in-stone decision,” Stribling said. “There are a lot of possibilities for what I can do in life and AV has become one of my main options.”

The comradery and joy that students get from participating in the club is what it is all about. Whether they are talking about life or live-streaming a mass, the members of the AV Club are always there for each other.

“I love being able to talk to the club members and eating food whenever we can,” Stribling said. “We usually check in to see how we are doing and talk about classes that we have in common.”