The Student Executive Council (SEC) started the year with a bang after receiving positive feedback for their organization of this year’s first assembly held on Sept. 1. “I thought it was awesome,” senior Priya Ghose said. “I think that it’s probably one of the best assemblies I’ve seen.”

SEC members also applauded themselves for the positive response. “It’s probably the best opening assembly we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Student Activities Director Lisa Hall said. Senior Student Body President Daljeet Virdi, who is serving his first year on the SEC, agreed. “I thought that it was a success,” he said. “It was engaging and informative.”

According to Virdi, students and teachers generally had positive feedback with the exception of some negative comments concerning the theme “Fisherman’s Wharf.” “Some people don’t like the theme,” Virdi said. “[But] I think that they were too fast to judge it.”

The first assembly traditionally consists of skits, introductions to certain faculty and SEC members and a video unveiling the Homecoming theme. This year, SEC had a week and a half to prepare for the assembly, which was more time than they had in previous years. According to senior Student Body Vice President Scott Baer, extra time and effort paved the way for increased student approval. “We planned [the assembly] more than previous years,” he said. “We spent more time working on the skits. We wanted to start the year off on a good note.” Hall agreed that extra preparations helped with the running of the show. “We spent a lot of time practicing public speaking skills and rehearsing our skits,” she said. “The SEC and I were trying to make it run more professionally.”

According to Ghose, SEC’s efforts were not overlooked, and the skits were one of the assembly’s highlights. “I thought that they got the point across,” Ghose said. “They were really funny because they had new skit ideas.”

Students also agreed that the Homecoming video, which revealed this year’s theme to be “Through Time and Space,” helped with student ratings. “I really liked the sense of humor,” Ghose said. “[I liked] the green screen, and the script. It was fresh, new and funny. The movies in the past years kind of copied each other.” Senior Videographer Mark Monroe, who scripted, shot and edited the video in five days, agreed, saying that the large amount of effort put into the short time frame showed. “[Making the video] was really stressful,” Monroe said. “It actually all came down Monday night. [But] it’s much better than last year’s.”

Monroe, who was also one of the videographers last year, said that part of the reason this year’s video was more lauded than previous years is because of the SEC members. “Everyone was super easy to work with,” he said. “Everyone had more fun.”

Working as the only videographer this year rather than collaborating with a partner, according to Monroe, may have also helped with the video. “It’s much better [working alone], and it makes more sense to me,” he said. “I was more organized.”

Some say that this assembly will affect how students perceive future ones. “I’m likely to pay attention instead of bringing homework or something to do,” Ghose said.

Ghose also had some advice to the SEC. “Keep [the assemblies] humorous,” she said. “Don’t redo assemblies. It’s kind of repetitive.”

However, Baer said that SEC has little control over the content, though it will try to make assemblies more interactive. “Generally, we get to choose what we want to have in the first assembly,” Baer said. “We don’t get to choose the overall topics covered in others.”