Clubs are one of the things that define a person’s high school experience; they are a great way to meet new people, unwind after a long day of school, and further one’s knowledge about a topic. 

But how are clubs operating now that school is online?

One challenge the clubs have been facing is adjusting their activities to fit the needs of students during online schooling. 

“We’ve had to come up with shorter, easier recipes because we want it to be fair and easy for everyone. Somebody might not be able to get all the ingredients for a recipe, or it might be hard for beginners to bake something complicated online,” junior baking club president Hannah Kim said. 

Likewise, robotics has been adapting their learning targets because the club is very dependent on doing hands-on work. 

“There are numerous different aspects of robotics that we can’t cover this year. For example, we can’t do any building or wiring in person,” junior robotics club vice president Serena Sherwood said. 

To cope with this setback, the robotics club has begun participating in software, design, and media activities. 

Another dilemma is deciding how clubs will participate in competitions this year.

“Our biggest challenge so far has been trying to sort out exactly how we can meet and collaborate virtually. Competition math is a team endeavor, so I predict it will be a bit of a challenge to adjust our preparation to an online format,” junior math club president Rose Maresh said. “Also, since we don’t know exactly how online competitions will work, we will need to be flexible and innovative in our preparation.”

Sherwood added that all competitions are set to be online this year, but there is still ambiguity surrounding how they will play out. 

With all the uncertainty regarding the future of Liberty’s clubs, only one thing is certain right now: clubs must be equitable. Clubs have been stressing the necessity of this because some students may not own certain resources that are usually provided by the school at meetings. 

“We want to make sure that everyone can join clubs and be able to feel treated as equals, which can be hard in person but even harder online. This includes us not holding elections right now and using materials accessible to everyone,” Kim said. 

Despite the circumstances that the pandemic has provided Liberty, the clubs are finding ways to make their meetings just as fun and productive as they would be if they were able to meet in person, giving Liberty students a chance to connect after the school day.