When parents, older siblings and friends say that the four years of high school will go by in the blink of an eye, they aren’t kidding.
After four years of football games, homecoming dances, studying hard and playing school sports, the Class of 2022 is looking forward.
Just four months into the school year, seniors have submitted college applications, committed to play sports and set up jobs or other post-secondary plans.
They’re set and ready to go, but what about the underclassmen?
The freshman and sophomore classes are experiencing in-person for the first time, and juniors will soon be focused on applying to colleges and finalizing graduation requirements, but are still a year away.
Thinking about college might seem preemptive, but there are underclassmen with a plan.
“I have definitely started thinking about what I want to do after I graduate from AHS,” sophomore Ella McGinity said.
“I know I want to go to college and what I want in a school, but I don’t know what I want to major in yet or where I want to go, but at least I have a general idea.”
A general idea is much better than nothing.
No one expects a high school student to know where they want to go to college, what job they want after graduation, or to have already picked the major and subject they want to spend the rest of their life learning about.
Like McGinity, freshman Brian Bernard has an idea of where he wants to go, but not what he wants to study.
“My dream is to go to Ohio State University and play in their marching band,” Bernard said. Bernard plays the sousaphone and is a member of the AHS marching band.
“I am not too sure what I want to major in, but I know I don’t have to figure it out just yet,” he said.
Just thinking about planning the steps that could dictate the rest of your life is intimidating. Some people wait years and years to decide what they want to do, some think they know and end up changing jobs and fields years later, and a select few know exactly what they want to do and have for years. There is no right or wrong answer.
“I have been thinking about college and what I want to do after high school for a while now, but I don’t know where I’ll end up yet. I’m hoping to play D1 volleyball for any college and earn some money through it,” freshman Sadee Gedse said.
Getting recruited and committing to college to play a sport is another path some student-athletes chose to take.
If you love your sport and want to continue playing at a higher level, why not try to get recruited to play at the collegiate level?
“Volleyball has my whole heart and I’ve been working my butt off this season and during the club season, so I hope to try the recruiting process and get some offers my junior year,” Gedse said.
Along with her dream of playing collegiate volleyball, Gedse hopes to major in law or criminal justice.
“It’s fascinating to me how detectives find solutions, lawyers defend a victim and get justice, and I want to do that in life,” Gedse said.
When thinking about your future, the important thing to remember is that you have time.
While McGinity, Bernard, and Gedse all have a good idea of what they want to do in the years after AHS, they don’t know for sure.
With college applications just getting turned in and started, most of the seniors don’t even know for sure what’ll happen in the next four years.
It’s never too early to start thinking about it.