Hi there, my name is Brandon Isbell, co-founder of PolyTechTalk.
Upon arriving at Poly (virtually) in 2020, I quickly began to notice that information about the school was hard to come by. Having played sports for the entirety of my childhood, I was thrilled to hear that spring sports were available (after a long layoff due to COVID). However, my parents and I struggled to figure out how to sign up for spring sports. Even after completing the long and difficult process of signing up, I still did not know when and where to go to try out for outdoor track. When I finally arrived to track practice weeks after the tryouts took place, I was shocked by the number of people who successfully completed the complicated sign up process. For me, the information was so hard to come by that I almost abandoned the idea of playing altogether.
Fast forward to September 2021, the beginning of my Sophomore year. After hearing Poly administrators rave about the school’s diverse selection of clubs and activities, I decided that I wanted to join a club; one that met my interests but would also fit in with my schedule. Around the end of the month, Poly held a “club fair”, which (to my knowledge) was the only way to sign up for clubs that year. Upon hearing about the fair, I expected to be informed about all of the clubs, when they met, and how to sign up. However, much to my dismay, my expectations did not correspond with reality.
Picture a crowded and noisy cafeteria filled with hundreds of students. Along the walls are club booths run by student members of clubs at Poly. Some booths are very crowded while others are empty. Yes, this was my interpretation of the club fair. As an introvert, I naturally gravitated towards the booths that were empty. And so, I walked up to a few of the ‘uncrowded’ booths, learned about the clubs, and gave them my contact information. But, before I knew it, the club fair was over. I ended up rarely attending the clubs I “signed up” for that year due to lack of availability and/or interest. Much like the sports sign-up process, the process for finding and joining clubs was confusing and difficult. Because of my personal experience with clubs at Poly, throughout my sophomore year I assumed that most clubs didn’t do anything of value. I could not have been more wrong! Little did I know that wonderful organizations like Poly.Tech and the Baltimore Student Union existed and wanted new members to join.
My experiences with joining spring sports and attending the club fair and just two examples of how I struggled to obtain important information regarding programs and events at Poly. Throughout my first two years at Poly, I often found myself asking multiple people questions like “When is the game?” or “Where do I go to sign up?” or “How do I submit service learning hours?”. After a while, this inefficient process of gathering information became tiring and annoying. At first, I thought I was the only student with this issue. I thought, “maybe I just need to get to know the right people” or “maybe I’m asking the wrong questions”. After all, my social skills were (and still are) severely lacking. However, upon discussing my concerns with my peers, I realized that many Poly students are in the same boat when it comes to access to information.
Clarification: My intent in sharing these stories is not to criticize Poly or its administration. I think that Poly is a good school and like any other good school, there is still room for improvement.
Having recognized the “lack of information” problem at Poly, I began to think of a way to solve it. One day, while talking with Andrew, we came up with an idea which we thought was feasible and a valid solution to the problem. What if there was a student-run website that took all the information about Poly from social media, word of mouth, and email and put it in one place?
By now, you may be wondering, “Who is Andrew?”. Put simply, Andrew is probably the most extroverted person I know. Andrew will go up to a complete stranger and speak to him or her like they’ve known each other for years. Andrew is someone who shouldn’t have a problem obtaining information about his high school because he knows pretty much everyone. And yet, even Andrew struggles to obtain school-related information from time to time.
We began to quickly formulate a plan to build the website. And after further discussion, we decided that we wanted our website to be more than a landing place for school information. We wanted it to be a place where Poly students could share their unique ideas and experiences with each other. We wanted it to be a diverse source of school news, one where even the smallest of clubs could have their voices heard. And so, we created PolyTechTalk, the organization behind the website you’re viewing now.
If you would like to join our fabulous team, please tell us your name, grade and email/phone number using one of the methods listed in the contact tab. We would love for you to join us!
We hope you enjoy our site. Thank you for taking the time to read about our story.
