Brooklyn Baggett
Co-Editor in Chief

The high school experience of our graduating seniors and other classes is nowhere near ordinary.

     As a graduating senior at MVHS, I can attest to the ups and downs of possibly the strangest universal high school experience ever. For the classes of 2020 to 2024, each student at every high school in the nation and at schools around the world have been impacted by the shutdown in March 2020.

     What most people don’t realize is that the pandemic caused a chain reaction in a lot of people’s lives, and all students are extremely strong for pushing themselves through school despite all that they have had to deal with. 

     I’m not here to tell a sad story, however, it’s more important to celebrate the accomplishments of the class of 2022 and how much more their success means with all that they have endured in mind. 

     The current graduating class, including me, went into their freshman year in August of 2018. A lot of us played sports, went to homecoming and winter formal, and the seniors went to prom and walked at their graduation at the end of the year. Personally, I played basketball in winter and joined the swim team in spring. 

     I also started taking journalism my freshman year.

     Sophomore year rolled around, with nothing but the ordinary. That year, however, I didn’t continue playing basketball, but I practiced swim year round and competed once again in the spring. 

     I had struggled with my mental health for the past few years, but unfortunately, I became increasingly depressed as well as physically ill as 2019 turned into 2020. I didn’t know what it was, but something was definitely wrong.

    I was missing at least one swim practice every week, and I had to wait on the side of the lanes or sit out entirely for most of the ones I went to, because I was chronically exhausted, dizzy, and nauseous. I was physically unable to do what I had done just months before. 

     So, I made the difficult decision to quit the swim team, ironically, the week before the Friday that school got closed for over a year. I took everything out of my locker, thinking that the teachers that told me that we would never come back were being paranoid. 

     The end of my sophomore year consisted of attending a zoom once a week for one of my classes and doing a little bit of work for the rest of my classes online. I also took two AP exams that year, which were luckily modified, but stressful nonetheless. 

      After the first couple of months of my junior year, students had the option to attend a minimal block schedule in person, and sign in to zoom meetings as well. I was eager to do this at first, but the days that I was at home by myself made it hard to get out of bed. 

      I often set an alarm, rolled over, logged into my class, and watched it half asleep. I’m sure that a lot of students that year can relate to this. 

      However, my mental health got increasingly worse as well as my physical health, and I switched to only online school because I started attending an outpatient facility for most of the day in March of 2021. I got diagnosed, and had group therapy every day with lots of people my age who understood because they were going through similar things. I left in June.

     I started going to different specialists to figure out what was wrong with me physically, and I got diagnosed with dysautonomia. I figured out that, since I had tried over a dozen different psychiatric medications over the past year and half, they were definitely wearing down on my body.

     I am still a work in progress and don’t feel that much better than I did in 2020, but I am no longer taking antidepressants and I am working on my health every day.

     The pandemic threw a wrench in all of our lives, and made it difficult for us to take care of ourselves and maintain happiness, while going through our own personal struggles. 

     I know that the entire class of 2022 and I are so proud that we are graduating high school and moving onto a new chapter in our lives, and that things are only going to get better from here. We have accomplished more than we were ever expected to.

Brooklyn Baggett
Co-Editor in Chief

It’s true that a lot of the time we hear what we want to hear, but this makes for a dangerous situation where our “facts” are clouded by opinions.

     When you think of “bias,” you may be thinking of large news publications that put out ridiculously opinionated headlines, take quotes out of context, and at times completely spin information to fit their agenda. 

     We all know that modern media as a whole is responsible for its own bias, but it is up to us to take things into our own hands, to give ourselves the best perspective of reality.

     In an effort to do just that, a lot of people end up subconsciously searching for what they want to be true, resulting in something called confirmation bias, or cognitive bias. 

     The most glaring problem with this is that once an individual reads what they want to believe, they stop looking for more information. This leaves so many sources unchecked and causes them to shut off their mind to other stories.                       

     The longer our cognitive bias goes unchecked, the more difficult it becomes for us to look at all types of information objectively, leading to problems in everyday life, but more importantly in the way that we retain and interpret news related information.     

     Surprisingly, it’s not just what you choose to consume, but how you consume it. Confirmation bias can be found in three forms: search for information, interpretation, and memory. 

     When searching for information, without even noticing it, a lot of people word their searches in such a way that only the answer that affirms their belief will pop up. For example, if you search “Is _ better than _?”, you’re likely to find more sites that confirm that, rather than if it were the other way around.

     In terms of interpretation, most people are so set in their beliefs, even after being presented with extensive evidence, because of the way they interpret it. We are prone to treating information that reassures our beliefs differently than we treat opposing arguments. 

     In a more separated way, you can actually remember things selectively if it helps to “confirm” what you wish to be true and accurate. More shocking information is also easily stored in the brain, which is why outrageous headlines are so effective at convincing the reader of something before they’ve even read the article- especially if it’s what they subconsciously want to believe.

     Media generators and people on the internet alike are clever- and they know how to feed into your biases in order to help continue the cycle of being inadequately informed. So how are we supposed to make sure this doesn’t happen?

     It might be uncomfortable at first, but start with identifying in what contexts you experience this type of bias. It’s hard to admit to ourselves that we are guilty of this, but ignoring it will only worsen the problem.

     There’s no reason to feel bad about it, in fact, it’s just human nature. What you can do, though, is always look for the right answer, not to prove your initial theory.

     This means using sites you might have never visited before (or avoided), and talking to people who think differently from you sometimes. Don’t take someone else’s word for it though, make sure to fact check anything you hear. (and not on CNN or Fox News)

     Another way to beat cognitive bias is to not take a side until you have all of the facts. Submitting yourself to an opinion too early makes you more prone to reinforcement seeking.

     Especially now, it is crucial that you, if you’re reading this, actually think about your personal biases. If everyone recognized their own confirmation bias, we would be so much better off in all aspects of our lives. 

Breanna Huynh
Feature Editor

An inside look on whether or not the IB program is worth it.  

     There are many things in life that can ruin one’s high school experience. This may be trauma, mental illness, or a death of a loved one. However, ask some current IB student at Mission and the first thing they’ll think of is IB. 

     IB (International Baccalaureate) is a program offered at Mission, starting junior year, that is more academically rigorous and demanding than that of AP (Advanced Placement). 

     What makes it different is that it is international, meaning that an IB diploma is recognized around the world. So, if you’re not planning on going to school in the UK or elsewhere, is it even worth doing? 

     If you’re looking for endless nights of homework, studying, and writing essays then IB is definitely worth considering. Okay but in reality, there are some positives to doing this program. 

     One of the 20 senior students in IB, Shelby Mills, says that by doing IB, she has learned a lot such as realizing that, “time management is a really challenging thing, but it is also such an important skill. Staying on top of your work is one of the biggest keys to success in IB.” 

     Similarly, others have shared similar thoughts. Emily Brown, another senior, strongly advocates for the IB program but emphasizes that, “be prepared for it and don’t go in without knowing that it’s a commitment and will take up a lot of your time” for those considering joining the program in the future. 

     While AP depends on passing an exam in May, IB is more well-rounded in terms of what counts for getting your IB diploma. Besides preparing and studying for the end of the year exams, full diploma IB students are required to fulfill their CAS (creativity, activity, and service) hours. 

     You can fulfill these 150 hours by doing various activities that fall under those categories such as learning a new recipe, joining a sports team, or tutoring kids in your neighborhood, which is all done outside of school and falls on the responsibility of the student. 

    However, CAS was the least of our worries as February came and our workload, which consisted of writing the dreaded EE (extended essay) and back to back IA’s (internal assessments) which became absolute hell for the first few months of senior year. 

     “It was especially hard at the time of all the IA’s [because] it was difficult to manage my time with so many different projects going on all at the same time,” Mills explained as she is also involved in many other extracurriculars such as choir, volleyball, church, and Girl Scouts. 

     This is why senior, Delia Redman, is extremely anti-IB. She is not in IB but has taken AP classes her entire high school career and has made it her mission since sophomore year to persuade her friends and her peers to not take IB. 

     “My main reason is that the school has the IB and AP system so there’s  no opportunity to focus on either and you end up with just a bunch of exams at the end of the year,” Redman comments. 

     It is doable to do both IB and AP but in my personal experience, as someone who has been in the program since junior year, it is true that the school doesn’t do the best job in balancing the two programs. 

     The bulk of the IB exams we have to take is during our senior year and most of these courses are HL (higher level), indicating knowledge of a subject studied for more than a year. However, these classes are usually taught your junior year, but we take these classes our senior year at Mission. 

     This is because AP Literature is typically taken during junior year and if IB was done like how it was done at other IB schools, we would’ve started TOK (Theory of Knowledge) our junior year but because of how our school is structured, it interfered with the AP program. 

     That being said though, it wasn’t that bad when looking back at it, even though it might have seemed terrible in the moment.

      It definitely helped with the teachers that were heavily involved in the program says Sophia Kopp who glady shares that “Mrs. Beaman and the people made it better. You get a closer connection with your teachers, which I really appreciated.”  

     So, is IB worth it? Overall, I do think that if you’re willing to commit to spending hours outside of school doing more school and wearing the gold robes at graduation, it’s worth a try. 

Jason Hatfield
Entertainment Editor

    Life at Mission Viejo High School is not too bad for the most part. Sure, the American education system has its fair share of problems that run deep and are ingrained in our way of life as students, but there’s nothing outright wrong with Mission specifically.

     But one problem that I and many other students at Mission Viejo High School have identified was the lack of access to a vital resource for human existence: water.

     This may sound bold, but I like water. Love it in fact. So when I saw the slow devolving of the school’s campus into a barren desert void of water sources, I couldn’t help but feel the crushing pressure of the desiccated winds tumbling to me as though another dust bowl was on the horizon.

     Now I’m no hydroflask wielding sorcerer of the water pouring station, so I cannot speak for these marvels in modern engineering that the school felt was superior to install, but as an average water-bottleless serf, I have found Mission to be near inhospitable. Where have the days of plentiful water fountains sprinkled throughout the school gone?

     Water is great, but it shouldn’t be a delicacy only enjoyed by the Contigo conquestiadors. I for one, cannot stand here and let my way of life be ripped from me.

     There are a couple of exceptions to the waterfountain drought at Mission. The gym, outside the locker room at the front of the school, and that one water fountain behind the portables are all places where this classical pracitce still thrives. Also the water fountain in the library, which might be the fountain of youth because that gem is purely delectable, is still in full swing still to this day.

     But like CD players and pagers, the water fountains still feel like they’re on their last stand. But unlike the previously mentioned inventions, there is no better replacement for the much-beloved water fountain.

     Now I will address the real reason why the water fountains were replaced with these abhorrent, excuses for water fountains. It was Covid 19, and for that reason I totally support the decision.

     But I still don’t think we should forget about these scholars’ parched lips just yet. As soon as we as a school become comfortable with these restraints of having no water fountians, we will become comfortable with mediocrity in not just our sipping habits; we will be complacent in our study habits as well.

     Now let this be known: if the Corona Virus is still raging in full force, please do not use water fountains if that will spread the virus more. But in our current state, the school needs to think about bringing the much-beloved water fountains back, just like Burger King brought back the Chicken Fries. 

     Now which water fountains should the school bring back? Elkay, always Elkay. My personal favorite is the LZSTLG8WSLK, but I personally think the price per performance of the LZSTL8SC is unmatched.

     Vive les fontaines à eau!!!