Day 7 - The 2014-15 BHS Student Help Desk "Geniuses" - BHS Help Desk Staff

This post originally appeared on the Burlington High School Help Desk Blog

The GeniusesThe 2014-2015 BHS Help Desk team consists of a group of highly motivated, creative, and talented students. As a non-profit, Student Run Genius Bar, Help Desk students work as Educational Technology Consultants (ETC’s) and are dedicated to providing technology solutions and assistance to Burlington High School students, teachers of all disciplines, staff, and administration. No matter what your problem may be, our Help Desk staff members will work hard to find the solution!

Please come down to Help Desk and meet this year’s resident geniuses!

Dipen Patel- Class of 2015, 1st Year Team Member

My name is Dipen Patel and I am a Senior in period three Help Desk. Although this is my first year as a member of Help Desk, I am excited to improve the program by facilitating the process of adding more technology into Burlington High School course curriculums. In the past years, I have taken several programming courses and have learned several programming languages myself. As of now, I am well versed in C++, Java, Objective C, and I am currently learning Ruby on Rails. I joined Help Desk, because I wanted to learn more about technology, while also putting some of my troubleshooting skills, which include solving problems with Microsoft Windows OS and software, Mac OSX, and iOS, to good use. I am no stranger to technology, I have spent countless hours fiddling around with any computers, tablets, phones, ect. that I could get my hands on. As a result, I am excited to help integrate more technology into the Burlington School and to make education that much easier.

Nikhil Thakkar- Class of 2015, 1st Year Team Member

My name is Nikhil Thakkar and I am a senior at Burlington High School. Over the past three years, I have been extended the invaluable opportunity of being molded academically, extracurricularly, and personally. In the academic sphere, I always look for a challenge, immersing myself in academically stimulating environments both inside and outside the classroom. Nevertheless, I am extremely dedicated to my extracurricular activities and, since December 2012, I have founded four nonprofit organizations which now reach an aggregate of one-hundred thousand people across twenty-eight countries and five continents. Although each organization touches upon disparate facets of societal development, the one commonality among all is my method and goal—using interactive activities and stimulating discussion through technology to develop and improve education across Hispanic countries. One particularly relevant foundation I founded is “LiberEd”, in which I write interactive web-based textbooks and children’s books. LiberEd has “digitalized” education in hundreds of schools, and has also been successful in building the first school orphanages, where students have a place to sleep and receive an engaging education. In addition to my nonprofits, I conduct research in the field of Linguistics, studying how accentual nuances and particular debuccalization affect interdisciplinary developing pedagogy, and have been published in multiple multilingual journals, presenting at world-renowned universities along the way. My love for languages has determinedly weaved itself into my interest for music, having performed my fusion music in five different countries since 2012. Although my interests lie in distinct fields, my real passion lies in the integration of these spheres of study, and then the use of this integration to change the world. I hope that new more engaging methods of education become a conduit not only for academic growth, but for extracurricular growth as well. Oh, and I’m also a LinkedIn and Chipotle aficionado! As a first year member, I am truly excited to be a part of the BHS Help Desk, and can’t wait to see what is in store for us this upcoming year!

Daniel Pais- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

What’s up! My name is Dan Pais, I am a current senior at Burlington High School and this is my first year in Help Desk. I run winter and spring track & field where I am a varsity hurdler and triple jumper. In addition, I am a proud manager of the Boys Varsity Soccer team. I am the Vice President of the senior class, treasurer of the Best Buddies Program, and the senior representative for the Rotary Interact Club. My passion for automotive design and technology is represented through my involvement in the TED Ed Club as I have given a talk on Autonomous Vehicles. I am also involved in DECA, in which my partner and I won 1st place in our district in the category of Travel and Tourism. In my free time I enjoy doing loads of community service through my school and through my church, St. Malachy Parish. At the moment I am undecided on my major in college, but I hope I can figure it out by the end of the first semester. I am thinking about applying to Boston University, Clemson, and UMASS Amherst. I am very knowledgeable when it comes to troubleshooting iOS and PC devices so I can’t wait to help students and teachers with their problems!

Mana Purohit- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

Hi! My name is Manas Purohit. I have three passions: gymnastics, chemistry, and programming. Since originally starting gymnastics in 2nd grade, I rekindled my fire for the sport by joining the BHS gymnastics program during sophomore year. This led to a varsity letter in gymnastics during my junior year. My next passion in life is science and specifically, chemistry. My love for chemistry was inspired by Dr. Nassiff’s Honors Chemistry class during sophomore year. Following my interest, I taught myself Organic Chemistry and became a United States National Chemistry Olympiad Finalist at the end of junior year. Additionally, I enjoy science in general, and am Vice-President of Science Olympiad, Co-President of Students for Environmental Action Club, and am Science Coordinator for the Peer Tutoring Program, in which I have tutored several students in Chemistry and Physics. Finally, my TED presentation on“The Future Energy Source: Antimatter-Matter Collision” yielded worldwide recognition when it was featured on the TED blog. Finally, my third passion in life involves computer programming. The world of code was introduced to me in my Visual Basic class freshman year and I was hooked right from the first “Hello World!” From there, I mastered Visual Basic, C++, and created a foundation in Java. Currently, I am learning Objective C to create an app for our school’s Help Desk to promote more efficient troubleshooting and problem solving. I am extremely excited to be part of this year’s Technology Innovation and Integration Team.

Keley Daniels-O’Brien- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

My name is Kelsey and I am now a member of the Help Desk at Burlington High School. I am a Senior this year. I am an expert in MacBooks and I love learning new shortcuts for functions on the keyboard. I enjoy trouble shooting problems with the MacBook. I will try to fix as much as I can as quick as I can! I try to keep up with educational apps in order to make it easier for me to keep organized in school. I want to pass on the information I find to others through the Help Desk blog. There are tons of ways to keep documents and research for history and English on the iPad. My goal this year is to discover new ways to make other classes just as easy. I love math and science. Chemistry is my favorite type of science. It reminds me of a puzzle! Once I graduate, I plan on going to college for engineering. My favorite seasons are a tie between the Fall and the Winter. I love apple picking and Halloween.  In my free time, I love to hang out with friends and snowboard. If I could pick any dream job, it would be engineering snowboards.  There is actually a lot of math and science that goes into snowboarding. The angles of the sidewall and the composition of the board are designed to do certain things while riding on the mountain. I do a lot of volunteer work and I am very personable. This is my second year volunteering at a local hospital. I do a 5k walk every Thanksgiving day morning. I also volunteer at a 5k for childhood cancer. I am very excited to help people troubleshoot their problems this year at Help Desk.

Hammad Sadiq- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member 

Hi, my name is Hammad and I’m a senior here at BHS. I am a Pakistani American. I am very involved in my studies and in extracurricular activities. I academically challenge myself by taking a rigorous course load, mostly honors and a couple of AP courses, as I believe in challenging oneself to reach one’s highest potential. While I do consider myself studious, I am still very much involved in activities outside of school. I do indoor and outdoor track and field at a J.V. and Varsity level, and am a distance runner. I am also involved in a variety of clubs. I am an assistant editor for yearbook club. I am the president of the devils playlist club, which is a club that produces content in the form of articles relating to all things music. I am bilingual, I speak English and Urdu, and because of this I served as a translator for two foreign students and helped them to transition into an American high school. I am interested in education as well, and served as a teacher’s assistant to my English teacher. I greatly enjoyed being part of the teaching process. I was responsible for grading quizzes, and making some as well.  I am also a volunteer teacher’s assistant at the Learning Cottage, which is a preschool/daycare and was responsible for organizing and carrying out the instructor’s activities. I also am a member of National Honor Society, and have been exposed to multiple volunteer opportunities. I welcome these opportunities, as I derive pleasure from such service. My interests lie in all things technology, and science. My friends can attest that I am a know-it-all when it comes to technology. I am very familiar with windows OS and can resolve a variety of problems. I am also familiar with many issues with iOS and iPad devices and can resolves them. I am fairly familiar with adobe software such as Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator I have always loved science, and as a result I plan on majoring in biotechnology and minoring in education in college.

Cat Hoyt- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

Hi my name is Cat Hoyt and I am a senior at Burlington High School. This is my first year in the Help Desk and I am really excited to have the opportunity to assist my classmates with any difficulties they may have with their iPad or any technology. I’m in period six help desk for the first semester of the year and period three for the second. In addition to many of the other students running the help desk, I take challenging, high level classes and participate in many other extra curricular activities as well. I am captain of the soccer team, president of the best buddies club, was inducted into NHS alongside the first group of only 13 of my peers sophomore year, am a member of the TED club and did a talk last year and I actively participate in various other clubs and sports as well. I am passionate about volunteer work and just the overall concept of helping people and I volunteer a ton. I  think that I am really approachable so people will feel comfortable coming to me for help and I am really excited to be a part of such an innovative and valuable opportunity here at the high school.

Jhymon Moodie, Class of 2016, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

My name is Jhymon, and I’m a member of the Help Desk. I’m a junior in high school, and I enjoy helping people with their technical needs. I’m Jamaican and I love spicy foods, but I love things like pasta and pizza, but who doesn’t? I play basketball, football, and I enjoy producing, playing, and singing music. I’m just your average kid. I like going outside and talking with friends. My favorite professional sports teams are the Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots, Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs, and I have a lot more teams that I am very fond of. I enjoy being outside and traveling. I want to go to various places like Dubai and Seoul. I’m very social and easy to talk to, so if you need something, I’ll help you out to the best of my ability. My specialties are Android devices, iPads, and Windows, and Mac.

TJ Horgan- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

I am a senior at BHS, who joined Help Desk hoping to use my experience to help other students with technology-related issues, as well as learn some things of my own in the process. I am the president of the Student Council Executive Board, as well as National Honor Society, and I am also the editor-in-chief of the BHS paper “The Devil’s Advocate.” I have been fortunate enough to enter BHS in 2011, the first year of the iPads, and I believe that familiarity can be especially valuable when assisting those new to an iPad. I am interested in majoring in the field of broadcast journalism in college, which ties into technology soundly, as reporting is becoming done with less and less people. In a world where there is a gargantuan emphasis on maximizing efficiency, technology is and will continue to be a staple of our daily lives.

Michael Seleman- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

Hey all! My name is Michael Seleman and I am a senior at BHS. Over the past three years at BHS, I have been well invested in both my academics and school involvement. I am originally from Egypt, I where I lived for only a year before coming to Massachusetts with my family in 1998. Since my freshmen year at BHS, I have involved myself in several extracurricular activities, including BHS Soccer, Science Olympiad, Students for Environmental Awareness, and NHS. Just recently, I was a finalist in the school-wide Poetry Out Loud competition in which I placed 3rd. But amid all my extracurriculars, I have not lost sight of the importance of my passions/interests, one which is technology. I am constantly exploring the world of technology looking for new tools and methods that can might benefit my classmates and me. Consequently, I consider myself an advocate of the use of technology in schools. In addition, I have begun to take interest in the coding/computer programming and am currently exposing myself into several different computer languages. Technology, just in general, fascinates. That being said, I’m more than excited to be a part of the technological integration and innovation that the BHS Help Desk is working towards!

Kristin Johnson- Class of 2015, 2nd Year Help Desk Team Member
My name Kristin and I’m a senior at Burlington High School. This is my second and final time taking Help Desk. I joined Help Desk my sophomore. After high school, I plan to major in Computer Science, where is still to be determined. I have always enjoyed working with technology and consider myself to have a vast knowledge about all different aspects. I am a duel season athlete and also the hurdling captain of the girls Track and Field team. If you ever need tech help come down during 7th period and I’ll be here to help.

Mehul Patel- Class of 2015, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

My name is Mehul Patel. I live in Burlington, MA. I am in twelfth grade in high school. I am in many clubs here in Burlington high school like the robotics club and chess club. I have alway liked math and science so I decided I want to become a Mechanical Engineer, and Computer Science. I plan to go to college after high school.  I have volunteered at American Red Cross for blood drive and volunteer in the doctor’s office at Lowell General Hospital. I like to watch the NFL, and my favorite teams is The New England Patriots. This is my first year as a member of the help desk. I am very excited to assist people with their technical difficulties.

Nathan Rippin – Class of 2015, 2nd Year Help Desk Team Member
Hello, my name is Nathaniel Rippin. I am currently a senior at Burlington High and a fourth year member of the Help Desk. I excel in Mac, PC, iOS, hardware, and troubleshooting. I can create videos, screencasts, and app-smashed solutions to education problems. My height helps with mounted projectors and seeing above the problem. Besides Help Desk, I am in an Instrumental Group and in the Boy Scouts. I love to camp, play instruments, find the next big thing, and help others. I am also the Head of Business for the high school robotics team, DevilBotz. I have used my leadership skills acquired in Help Desk to build a boardwalk at my high school for my Eagle Project.  I look to help those who need it and to teach innovative ideas from projects to classroom management. Follow me at @Escape_thenate.

Demetrios Stefanidis- Class of 2016, 1st Year Help Desk Team Member

My name is Demetrios Stefanidis and I am a junior at Burlington High School. I like to play basketball and I run track for the high school. I enjoy helping out those who are in need of assistance. I also enjoy all types of sports and am an avid follower of the NBA, NFL, and MLB. I support all the local teams, especially the Boston Celtics and the New England Patriots. Anytime someone needs help with their iPad or computer, I will help you as best I can.

Mira Mehdi- Class of 2015, 2nd Year Help Desk Team Member

Hi, my name is Mira and I’m a senior at Burlington High School. This is my second year doing Help Desk. I am really fortunate to have been given the opportunity to be a part of the Student Technology Integration class. I will work to find the best approach to addressing or solving a problem for students and teachers. I am hoping to major in a field that has to do with either technology or film. My interests include dance, guitar, photography, and video making. I took dance lessons for a while, ever since I was five, but quit last year to focus on my school work. However, it is still a big hobby for me. I recently bought an acoustic guitar; I have been taking private lessons and have been learning new things everyday. Last year my ILE (Individual Learning Endeavor) was photography. I bought a camera and created tangible evidence to show my learnings. I have been making films ever since in junior high and really hope to continue with it when I’m older. My favorite apps are Notability and Google Drive. Both apps allow me to do virtually everything, although Notability has an up in advantage because it allows me to draw anything free hand.

Prateek Rana- Class of 2015, 1st Year Team Member

Hello, my name is Prateek Rana and I am a senior at Burlington High School. This is my first year taking Help Desk and it is extremely exciting to be able to interact with all of the other students and staff members in the school. Besides just helping other people with their problems, I also love learning and putting myself into different and challenging situations. Anyway, I have many passions that have developed over my life. During school, I am mainly involved in two clubs: Robotics and Chess. I started Robotics in my sophomore year after my passion for coding was ignited from taking C++. In addition to C++, I have also taken Visual Basic and am currently taking Web Design and AP Computer Science A. Anyway, my role in Robotics is that I am part of the programming team and help in developing the robot code every year. Even though I’m part of the programming team, I am always learning new technological features along the way that help augment my skills. As for the Chess club, I have been a part of it ever since freshman year and have been playing the game my entire life. During my freshman year, I was placed at the lowest board in competitions, but through my effort and determination, I rose all the way to the first board and became the captain this year. I have also won many awards for being in the chess club such as best player in the league. Outside of school, I have volunteered at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center as a patient assistant and won a certificate for my services. From all my accomplishments, I have gained a major amount of experience in helping others, especially in technological area. Overall, my ambition this year is to gain even more knowledge and try to educate people more about technology itself.