Los Alamos High School 2019 graduate Brandi Weiss. Courtesy photo
By BERNADETTE LAURITZEN
Los Alamos
Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series highlighting Los Alamos High School graduate Brandi Weiss and her master’s thesis on adolescent risky behavior in Los Alamos.
As you are growing up in a town, you may not realize how the things you see and experience affect you in the moment. You may also never dream that the seed of experience planted might later come to define a portion of your future. It could then lead to you educating the very community that played a role in raising you.
Enter Chamisa Elementary School student Brandi Weiss from Mrs. Goen’s class, who strived to “Put your best foot forward.” Weiss worked her way through middle and high school, involved in Speech & Debate and more, graduating in 2019.
Those same efforts continued as President of the College of Health, Education, and Social Transformation (HEST) Ambassador at New Mexico State University (NMSU), VP and Treasurer of Alpha Kappa Delta (Sociology Honors Society) and Treasurer of the Sociology Graduate Student Organization.
On Friday, she will graduate with honors, obtaining her M.A. in Sociology.
“Growing up in Los Alamos, I know how unique my upbringing was compared to so many others in the state. As someone who was raised in Los Alamos, I saw both a lot of good but also a lot of really sad things happen to youth in the community that I called home,” Weiss said. “I witnessed firsthand how my friends struggled because of the lack of awareness that adults in the community had for us. Often, our mental well-being was ignored.”
Weiss decided to create her thesis involving adolescent risky behavior in Los Alamos. She believed it would be beneficial to the community and give meaningful value to the surveys they took in high school. The surveys are the YRBSS, (Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey). They are completed roughly every other year in grades 6 through 12. A sample population was collected, while one year a census was done of the same population. A census is every student, in the same grades, in all Los Alamos Public Schools.
“It was time that these issues were finally talked about and researched further. But not only for mental health awareness but for drug and alcohol use as well,” she said.
Weiss actually would use the data from her own contributions in both ninth and eleventh grade. The data is always available as a public record from https://youthrisk.org.
The questions range from safety, violence, alcohol use, physical activity, food consumption, concussions, sex, family, relationships and outlook on life. The 2023 questionnaire is available online here.
While it appears that some people get upset with certain questions, the truth is the overall collection looks at behaviors and resiliency. When we know whether youth have coping mechanisms and support, the outcomes often fare much better. It is the same for adults, we just lose the ability to collect the data.
Weiss went on to present her findings at the 95th annual Pacific Sociological Association Conference and during research events on campus. She returned to New Mexico on April 4 to defend her thesis, which was accepted and published by the University.
Weiss has a 4.0 and received awards for research, creative contributions, exceptional accomplishments in Graduate Leadership, and contributions to teaching, outreach, and service endeavors from NMSU and the Graduate Student Council. She was also nominated as the top candidate for the Sociology Department for a school leadership award. She won the Academic Excellence Award given by the Sociology Department and College of HEST.
Note: The second article in this series will focus on the research and data Weiss collected for her thesis presentation. The numbers for feeling sad or hopeless, not just for Los Alamos, but statewide are often staggering. What we do or rather do not do with the data, may be more staggering.
