2022-23 Second Semester Bios and Blogs

It’s been awhile since we’ve posted, but I’m pleased to present bios and blogs for the second semester Help Desk students. We’ve enjoyed doing some different design projects with Sweet Home 3D and Photoshop, and currently we’re doing some work with drones now that the weather is getting a little better. Hope you enjoy reading about the new and returning members of the Help Desk!

Alex Bailey

Blog: (coming soon)

My name’s Alex Bailey, I’m a senior at BHS. I joined the class because I honestly don’t know that much about technology and would like to learn more about it for the future even though I don’t plan on going into a tech related field as of right now. I’ve always been an avid gamer so anything about game design this year is going to be cool to know, even though game design isn’t exactly a field I’d like to work in. Career wise I honestly am unsure of what exactly I want to do currently but I have a plan in mind for what I want to do after high school though it’s not 100% solid as things could go differently then I plan. Though for career paths I’d be interested in it’s mostly things related to history as I have a big interest in it, though being a teacher is off the board just because of how expensive it is to go to college and grad school and all that. Continuing off my interest in history that’s probably the most interesting part of me considering I collect Gas Masks as a hobby.

Alex Bailey

Blog: (coming soon)

Shefali Bakre

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/shefalibhelp-desk-2022-2023/home

Hello! My name is Shefali Bakre and I am a current junior at Burlington High School. My passion for STEM led me to join Help Desk. I’ve had more experience in science and engineering than software. I joined Help Desk to increase my knowledge in software and to broaden it. In this age, technological advancements are happening all around us. Learning more about computer science will help me navigate today’s world. The Help Desk program gives me the tools I need to learn more about technology. Last year, I learned about drones, circuit playgrounds, python, cybersecurity, CAD, and photoshop! I concluded my year with a final presentation on Biomedical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. I hope to be part of STEM in some way whether it be a doctor, engineer, or a scientist. I am glad that I am a part of the help desk because I get to learn more about technological advances in the world and join an amazing community with peers with the same interest as me. I’m looking forward to what this year has in store!

Lizzy Boulos

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/help-desk-22-23/home

Hi, my name is Lizzy Boulos. I’m a senior at Burlington High School. I am not the type of person that is into technology and understands it well, I enjoyed it much more when I was younger during the time period where I played video games. Due to me not knowing much about technology is the reason why I joined the class. I want to expand my knowledge about technology and maybe become more interested than I am now. Technology is also related to my future job which is radiology tech. Later I plan to go to school again to get certified in doing CT scans or MRI, in these jobs you take scans and use big complex machines to do so. Therefore in the future I will be needing to use technology just not the type we are learning in the help desk! Some other things about me is I’ll be moving down to Myrtle Beach for radiology tech school after high school and will be moving into an apartment with my sister which I’m very excited about.

Owen Britz

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/owenbritzblog/blog

I like playing video games, watching tv, and writing. I decided to join Help Desk because all of the electives I wanted to be in this year were all taken. Help Desk was the only one with room. I also thought that the class would teach me a little bit about computer science, a field that I don’t understand, but wish I was interested in.

My current career interests are to either study law to become a lawyer or FBI Agent, or to study international relations and security studies to become a CIA Intel analyst.

Three interesting facts:

I was born in Missouri
My mom and I have the same birthday
I am distantly related to Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch in the 1950s movie, To Kill a Mockingbird

Mitchell Casella

Blog:https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/mitchellcasellahelpdeskblog/home

I am a senior at Burlington High School and I took this class because I am interested in technology and how it is used. I also am interested in drones and seeing how they work and are used in the world today. Some of my interests are sports and video games and technology is used in both of those in one way or another. Hopefully this class will help me someday later in my life from having this class experience.

John (JT) Doherty

(coming soon): https://sites.google.com/d/1wX6ANBlyRzF0ybAX6K_AnJxF6eC8jcRb/p/1iuFkFykqmPygfnOCdjX0sXoRoWeIeHOM/edit

My name is JT Doherty and I am a sophomore at Burlington High School. I am interested in sports, video games, music, learning, lifting, and lots more. I play football and lacrosse for BHS, and enjoy playing fortnite with my brother in my free time. One of the various reasons that I chose to take help desk as one of my electives this year was because of the vast opportunities to learn about a variety of different kinds of technology. This class has proven to fit all of my interests and taught me so much about new kinds of technology.

Anthony Elkins

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/anthonyelkinsblog/home

My name is Anthony Elkins and I am a senior here at BHS. I take many computer science classes because I know this is the future for our world. Some of my interests include football, lifting weights, and going out with my friends. I haven’t really thought about what I want to do with the rest of my life, but I hope it includes something with health and fitness. I want to go to school for business but I’m not too sure what branch.

Shae Gallagher

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/sgallagher2023-help-desk/home/blog-posts?authuser=0

My name is Shae Gallagher. I am a senior at Burlington high school. I am interested in music. I like listening to it. I also enjoy playing it. I play piano and guitar. Technology has been a helpful tool while I learn how to play new things. I am also interested in nature. There are so many aspects to it that interest me. I took Help Desk to get a better understanding of important, new, and fun tech-related devices and programs. I believe it is particularly important to stay up-to-date on new technology because it plays a role in many everyday routines. Technology is always changing and updating. It is easier to keep up with these changes when you already have a strong understanding of the prior version. When I am finished with school, I want to be an environmental scientist. Technology could be a helpful tool to understand the environment and how it is always changing as well.

Grace Gerbrands

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/help-desk-2023/home

My name is Grace Gerbrands and I am a senior. I am interested in things such as photography, travel, environmental science, nature, and animals. I decided to join the help desk because I wanted to educate myself on the basics along with the more advanced parts of technology, especially with computers. I enjoy using technology to document parts of my life and getting inspiration through others’ social media. I want to go to college for environmental science and help find ways to be more sustainable and protect our planet. With today’s technology, these more sustainable ways of living include lots and lots of technology. Being able to know more about technology will benefit me and broaden my knowledge on the topic.

Ahmad Kiswani

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/ahmad-kiswani/bio

Hello my name is Ahmad Kiswani and I am a Senior in Burlington High School my interests include sports as in Wrestling and MMA while also being really involved in Gaming and technology. I truly decided to start a help desk as I really craved a game design class as all my life I’ve been playing games with creative game design and wondered how they were made. Some of my career interests are definitely more centered towards economics but I would still love to learn about technology and how it’s applied.

Gunnar Larson

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/gunnarlarson/home

My name is Gunnar Larson and I am a junior at Burlington High School. So far this year I have been extremely intrigued by our stock talk because it got me thinking I should be investing more often. I have also been interested in using Sweet Home 3D as well because if I wanted to I could potentially build my dream home on that program. The technology article I found is by the company Beazley’s and it helps people overlook why the availability of cyber security jobs will continue to grow in the future. It also explains how the pandemic made it easier for cyber criminals to perform online threats and attacks.

Ryan Kane

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/helpdesk/home

My name is Ryan Kane, I am a senior at Burlington High School. This is my first year at the Help Desk and I am excited to use drones and robots. I play golf, hockey and lacrosse. My favorite video games are NHL 23, Rocket League, and Minecraft. I joined help desk to get a better sense of the technology I use on a daily basis, and how to fix any problems that might occur when using any device. I know a decent amount about coding and fixing devices that aren’t working, but my knowledge is only continuing to expand. I am interested in sales and real estate and would love to pursue that as a possible career. I’m excited to learn more about technology in this class.

Nolan Lopes

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/nolanlopes-helpdesk/home

Hello, my name is Nolan Lopes. I am a junior at Burlington high school and graduate in the year of 2024. I am interested in lots of different technology related things such as architecture, drones and trading. I decided to join this class because throughout the year, I’ve heard we cover things that suit my interests. I also had friends that took this course and said that they enjoyed it, so I decided to try it out myself. For career interests, I want to get into the business field and hopefully integrate technology into my job as well. Either architecture or trading stocks/cryptocurrency seems the most appealing to me. Lastly, an interesting thing about myself is that my activity outside of school is playing baseball.

Dustyn MacKinnon

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/dustynmackinnonblog/home

My name is Dustyn MacKinnon. I am a senior at BHS. Things that I like to do are play video games like Madden, 2K, NHL, and Call Of Duty. I enjoy video games because of the competitiveness it offers and it takes your mind away from everything. I also enjoy playing Lacrosse and hanging out with my friends and family. I decided to join help desk to learn more about technology and AI. I find it very interesting how technology works and wanted to take a deeper look into it. I also wanted to learn more about drones and how drones work and how to fly them. I also joined help desk to be able to help people with technology if they need something fixed. After high school I plan on going to college and pursuing a career in business. I’m not exactly sure what I want to do in business yet but I will figure it out.

Lucas Marcassoli

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/bhs-help-desk-blog/home

My name is Lucas Marcassoli, but I mostly go by Luke. It’s my first year at BHS, so I am a freshman. This is also my first year taking any help desk classes and it’s my second elective of the year because I took a half year of business. Some of my revelvent hobbies and interests are general coding in basic programs like Scratch and Unity, modeling softwares and game design. I joined technology integration because I find technology very interesting and seeing as it’s getting more and more important in everyday life I wanted to be educated on it and be able to use it effectively. And for my career interests, I’ve always been interested in coding and general game making. I have tried before to make games and combine all aspects of designs I’ve

learned. I think it’s a very fun creative outlet even if the final products don’t always come out functioning. I also thought it would be fun to try a help desk class as my second elective,because I had heard it was an interesting clase where we got to learn where you are able to code and such rather than being told how to code.

Laura Meng

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/haiyimeng-helpdeskarchives

My name is Haiyi Meng, but I mostly go by the nickname Laura. I am currently a freshman at BHS (2026). I use technology everyday, from learning to leisure activity. I joined this class to learn more about the technology I use so often. I also joined the help desk because I wanted to explore different types of technology that I haven’t used before as well as different applications for that technology. I am interested in engineering and design because I like to think of ways to make something efficient and look good visually. Some other hobbies I have are cooking/baking, dance, listening to music, and watching videos.

Will Morrison

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/wills-blog/home

Hi, my name is Will Morrison and I am a sophomore at Burlington High School. Things I’m interested in include watching and playing sports like hockey, basketball, and golf. I also throw javelin on the track team. Outside of sports I like to play video games. My career interest is business. I joined the help desk because I wanted to try something new and because I’ve always been interested in different types of technology.

Emily Mozzicato

https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/helpdesks2/about-me

Hi, I’m Emily Mozzicato and I’m a freshman at BHS. Interests I have are sports, spending time with friends and family, and video games. I enjoy playing video games with friends during my free time. But something I never thought of was how do/did people make these? So I decided to join Help Desk so I can get into more on how video games work and as well as learning more on technology by itself.

Joan Nayiga

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/joan-nayiga-/home

My name is Joan Nayiga. l am a Senior at Burlington High School. lt’s my first year in Help Desk. l would like to learn more about computers and video game design. l wanted to try Help Desk because it seemed cool. l like to work with computers and fix technology. When I graduate, l want to become a nurse or a vet.

James Sarkissian

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/jameshelpdesk/home

My name is James Sarkissian and I am a freshman at BHS. My interests are playing video games with my friends and running. I have 2 dogs. One is named Bowser and the other one is named Brownie. I am currently on the track team. I like watching the Celtics. I joined the help desk so that I could learn more about computers. I find game design cool. I do not know much right now but I am hoping to learn. I am hoping to pursue a career in game design.

Jayce Singleton

Hi, My name is Jayce Singleton. I am now a senior at Burlington High School. I am interested in video games and technology. I am also interested in sports and how technology can be integrated into it. I decided to join help desk so that I can expand my knowledge on technology and help others who know less than myself. In the future I want to go somewhere in the business world, most likely sales to start and having some knowledge on technology can only help me in the long run. I play 2 sports, baseball and hockey and I’ve been playing them all my life. Throughout this time I have learned many life lessons along with how technology and sports go hand and hand. Over the years I’ve seen technology integrated more and more in sports and in everyday life around us. There’s no way around it, so you have to grow with it. That’s why I thought it was important to take a class like this to put me ahead of what others my age get to experience in technology.

Matthew Smith

(bio coming soon)

https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/matts-blog/home

Briana Ssozi

Blog: https://sites.google.com/bps121.org/helpdesk22-23/home/how-it-was-used

Hello, my name is Briana Ssozi. At Burlington High School, I am a junior. I really love watching shows on Netflix that include any genre, and I’m also constantly reading and listening to music. It’s my go-to activity when I’m free. I’ve recently developed an interest in technology, despite having no prior experience. Despite my lack of experience, I am eager to learn about technology and all of its possibilities. I joined a help desk to gain more knowledge and experience with technology. This is an incredible opportunity for me. I can learn about technology while also assisting others with their technical problems. In the future, I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, and a computer scientist.These jobs are super interesting to me because they help people while also making our society a better place for us to live.