Newly formed clubs cultivate multitude of opportunities

Whether they are animal enthusiasts, future psychologists or creative thinkers, students can now explore new passions and continue old ones through some of the clubs introduced at the school this spring, including Animal Science Club, Paradox Club and Psychology Club.

Animal Science Club

Members of the Animal Science Club plan to teach students about common animal diseases and how to take care of a variety of animals through meetings every other week in biology teacher Lisa Cockrum’s room. Club members’ love of animals comes from their own personal experiences, according to sophomore secretary Riley Alves.

“Living on a farm, my love for animals comes from taking care of my many pets, including two horses, two dogs, five cats and twenty chickens,” Alves said.

In the future, the club is hoping to do some volunteering work including donating homemade blankets to an animal shelter. 

“We are all animal enthusiasts, and we hope we can inspire other students to develop a passion for animals as well,” Alves said. 

Psychology Club

To improve students’ mental health, sophomore president Minh Do, along with juniors Mahati Kotamraju, Maithili Kulkarni and Kasie Yang, founded the Psychology Club. 

“I became interested in psychology after realizing there were many correlations between psychology and business marketing,” Do said. “It really helped me understand more aspects of marketing — the field I want to go into.”

Members of the Psychology Club meet in Spanish teacher Gina Rodrigez’s room every Blue Day Wednesday. With a different focus every month, students are able to learn about a broad range of issues, including the current topic of stress for which members were asked to keep a stress log to better their understanding. 

On top of biweekly meetings every other week, they also hope to host two fundraisers per semester to donate to a nonprofit that will benefit student mental health. 

Paradox Club

Paradoxes describe a scenario in which contradicting statements are true. Classically, examples of this are the Grandfather Paradox — what happens if an individual goes back in time and kills their grandfather — and Theseus’s Ship — if over a sustained period of time each component of a ship is replaced until eventually the entire ship was replaced, is the ship still Theseus’ Ship?

In addition to these brain puzzles, the club also covers mathematical paradoxes such as Monty Hall’s problem, which uses probability to guess which of three doors contains a prize.

Paradox club starts off each meeting with a brain warmup, questions such as, “How many windows are in Manhattan,” or “Are there more doors or wheels in the world,” before discussing problems that seemingly have no logically consistent solution.

Junior Ojas Somani and Uma Phalke founded this club after Phalke attended a summer program at John Hopkins University that tackled such problems. 

“I thought the class was an interesting way to learn how to critically think in a way you don’t really get to do in any class,” Palke said.

For Somani’s part, she hopes the club can support students in their academic pursuits.

“We want to foster better situational logical understanding or common sense amongst all Saratoga students,” Somani said, “skills that can be applicable in any class.”