Walter Johnson is a school that offers lots of different and diverse clubs. It constantly encourages students to participate in at least one club throughout their high school experience. Some examples include math club, chess club, ping pong club, and debate club. Each WJ club has students of different races, genders, and grade levels. Clubs can serve an important purpose in students’ high school experience by either helping them with their work, teaching them useful skills or serving as a relaxation or entertainment place during a stressful day.
The chess club is well known for its strategic thinking, tournaments and special community. Maintaining high performance while under pressure and analyzing the next steps to win can help many in future situations and is a helpful life skill to have.
“I love the chess tournaments at the beginning of the year. They were well-organized and were a ton of fun. This club is great for making friends and improving your strategic thinking,” freshman Elijah Duncan said.
The Chess club can open up the students to much better opportunities to succeed while overcoming many different challenges.
At WJ, there is another special club that many students join: the debate club. It presents a real opportunity for students to practice another important life skill: advocating for their opinions and positions on different topics. The debate topics are also very engaging for students to spend their free time pondering upon.
“Debate club provides more practice and actual advice on how one should argue for themselves. This club can be very fun on one hand while also helping students with the development of other abilities,” freshman Sid Aruru said.
Our world is full of different arguments about important issues, and when you can argue upon them clearly and engagingly, it helps boost the impression and presents an opening to a high-class society full of dedicated and hard-working people.
Another great club option is ping pong. The club offers an opportunity to play with your friends and meet lots of other students all while also experiencing a new sport. It is a brand-new club and is still in the making. Ping pong develops a new skill of playing the sports ping pong, improving teamwork and communication abilities.
“I would recommend my ping pong club to others because I make sure that people get a feel for the sport [ping pong] as it is enjoyable, safe, sporty and competitive. But last week was the first week we started the club. I will do many more things such as work with other clubs and work with other schools to plan concessions so that this club will be a good place to make new friends and meet new people while having fun,” sophomore Kuang Miao said.
Lastly, another club option is the Asian American Student Union club. This is a great place to learn about Asian culture and give students a greater understanding of a different community in the world. Asia isn’t always a topic that’s covered in history class and by visiting this club, students can expand their knowledge and become more knowledgeable about their specific traditions.
“I think the Asian American Club is a great way to spread Asian culture with the school and the people who might not have that much knowledge about it. The event is open to everybody in the school, they are great, with a lot of food and activities. It is a great way to celebrate Asian culture. We have a lot of freedom and are pretty open to everything,” junior Kristin Chen said.
