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Volume VIII - Edition IIDear Reader,
Capping off a year of Centennial celebrations on the hill, Volume VIII, Edition II marks the final edition of The Podium for the seniors on the staff as well as the first century of Belmont Hill. In one of our longest and most varied issues to date, Edition II features intriguing articles highlighting some of the most important events of today as well as key historical topics. As always, we remain committed to sharing as many student voices as possible and we are proud to share that Edition II contains essays from a record fifteen students. We begin with “History on the Hill,” where Jaiden Lee ‘26 takes us on a journey through the school’s past, focusing on defining moments in the story of Belmont Hill. Once again, our op-ed competition yielded an impressive student turnout with a total of fifty submissions. Winners wrote about several potent issues including the Israel-Hamas conflict, American politics and the EV market, among others. Edition II features three research papers as well. Max Glick ‘24 analyzed the role that Stanford University played in the creation and growth of Silicon Valley. In his Monaco Prize-winning essay, Mark Price ‘24 dives into several conservation policies in the United States and how they have affected American bird populations. Finally, Alexander Chen ‘27 examines the history of citizenship in the United States. As always, history teachers nominate many more papers than can fit and we have placed some of those titles in the nominations section. We sincerely appreciate the contributions of the History Department to making this publication a success. This edition’s data analysis focused on the 2024 presidential election. In their article, Ernest Lai ‘25 and Wesley Zhu ‘25 found out that the majority of students and faculty are unsatisfied with the prospect of another Biden vs. Trump general election and would like to see a new candidate. Finally, Brandon Li ‘26 explores the failures of Ron DeSantis’s campaign and Mikey Furey ‘25 lays out how Ukraine has changed modern warfare tactics. In our eyes, Volume VIII, Edition II is a landmark edition of The Podium. Filled with historical insight, political analysis and voices from around school, it marks a bold step in the path that The Podium hopes to take in the future. Overall, we are incredibly excited to share Edition II with you. Thank you for picking up a copy and enjoy! |