The After School Special
By Grace Schmidhauser
The hectic and anxiety inducing nature of deciding what to do with one’s life after high school is something that almost everybody experiences at some point in their life, and it can often be extremely intimidating. Though McCallum is a widely accepting campus that doesn't encourage rigorous or unfriendly competition against one another in the college process, it's difficult not to compare your own plans or goals to someone else's and often experience self doubt. A question that almost every senior is faced with on a day to day basis from peers, adults, and family is, “So where are you going to college?”, a question to which many don’t have an answer. And that’s completely okay. The fact is that everybody is suited to different forms of education, whether it be a liberal arts college, an Ivy League university, community college, or even learning by going out and gaining life experience, and the traditional college experience is not suited for everyone. Especially given that McCallum is a Fine Arts academy, our seniors are all pursuing different paths and alternate routes to their visions of success for themselves, and thankfully the environment in which we go to school is very encouraging of alternative learning styles and embracing one's instincts, whether it be going to community college, art school, or traveling the world.
By Grace Schmidhauser
The hectic and anxiety inducing nature of deciding what to do with one’s life after high school is something that almost everybody experiences at some point in their life, and it can often be extremely intimidating. Though McCallum is a widely accepting campus that doesn't encourage rigorous or unfriendly competition against one another in the college process, it's difficult not to compare your own plans or goals to someone else's and often experience self doubt. A question that almost every senior is faced with on a day to day basis from peers, adults, and family is, “So where are you going to college?”, a question to which many don’t have an answer. And that’s completely okay. The fact is that everybody is suited to different forms of education, whether it be a liberal arts college, an Ivy League university, community college, or even learning by going out and gaining life experience, and the traditional college experience is not suited for everyone. Especially given that McCallum is a Fine Arts academy, our seniors are all pursuing different paths and alternate routes to their visions of success for themselves, and thankfully the environment in which we go to school is very encouraging of alternative learning styles and embracing one's instincts, whether it be going to community college, art school, or traveling the world.
Senior Lev Baker, a guitar major and high level classical guitar player, is somebody who is considering one of these alternate routes. Upon graduation, he plans on taking a gap year and backpacking around Europe for two months on his own. A bold and brave choice, he plans on starting in Berlin and going through central Europe and Italy, France, and Amsterdam, to name a few. He’s a perfect example of the type of student who’s seeking to broaden their horizons after high school in ways other than college, and feels that the period right after high school is a great time to explore. “This is the only time I can do something like this- travel alone and backpacking without a specific reason. This this is my only chance to do that while I don’t have any obligations like work or school and my parents telling me what to do”, Baker says. While right now he’s planning on pursuing studying guitar performance following his gap year, he believes that his time in Europe could potentially change his perspective. “I’ll gain a lot of travel memories and maybe even figure out something that I want to do”, he says. Traveling is a wonderful opportunity to place oneself in the larger global context of the world and gain a better understanding of different cultures and regions of the world, and taking the initiative to do that right after high school is a fantastic potential option for people seeking alternative routes to finding themselves and figuring out what they’d like to pursue in their adult lives.
That being said, going to college is obviously a wise option for students to pursue after high school, and a path that many McCallum seniors are getting ready to go down in the fall. Senior Zoe Morgan will be attending Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado in the fall, and plans to double major in Outdoor Education and Recreation and Spanish. Morgan decided to leave Austin for college as a result of the realization that the major she was interested was a relatively rare one, and more confined to more outdoorsy states such as Colorado. She, like Lev, wanted the opportunity to broaden her horizons and get outside of Austin for a while, explaining, “I just like to move around a lot and I thought going to college somewhere different would be a cool opportunity to go somewhere new.” Going to university provides students with the opportunity to get out of their comfort zone and also be given the opportunity to study in the field catered to their personal interests, as opposed to the sometimes limiting public high school curriculum of strict course requirements in all subjects. Especially going to a liberal arts school such as Fort Lewis, students can also experience an education that is much less focused on standardized testing and more on what they want to do, something that Morgan is particularly excited about, saying “I’m excited for the learning aspect of college and so excited to go to school and have it not only be focused on testing, but actually have it focused on what I want to be learning”. This is a notion that is extremely attractive to most students, and especially because of our Fine Arts Academy, many McCallum students have very specific ideas of what they want to study in higher education, often based on their major within McCallum. Especially since universities are becoming more and more diverse every year with ever-expanding and increasingly specified creative majors, students are faced with many more options than they’ve ever had before, which presents endless opportunities to students everywhere.
As McCallum seniors prepare to head off on their journeys, whether it be staying in Austin or jetting across the country and world, many mixed feelings are bound to arise. Being faced with leaving home for the first time ever for most can be an extremely intimidating thought, and the complete shift in their routine and daily life can be a scary prospect. “Even though I’m excited to leave home, it’s terrifying to think about not being home and not seeing my parents and my little sister every day,” Morgan says with a tinge of fear in her voice. “It’ll be a very big change in my life”. But even though fears are a normal part of getting ready to leave home for the first time, most seniors feel at least almost prepared to be an adult and live on their own. Along with fears come the titillating excitement of living on one’s own without rules and restrictions of parents, and having the chance to meet new people and learn and grow. Every single McCallum senior is prepared in their own unique way to embark on that journey, whether it be through gap years or college or good old fashioned life and job experience, and fantastic opportunities can arise for anyone and everyone who’s willing to take the leap into their adult life, in whatever way that may be.
That being said, going to college is obviously a wise option for students to pursue after high school, and a path that many McCallum seniors are getting ready to go down in the fall. Senior Zoe Morgan will be attending Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado in the fall, and plans to double major in Outdoor Education and Recreation and Spanish. Morgan decided to leave Austin for college as a result of the realization that the major she was interested was a relatively rare one, and more confined to more outdoorsy states such as Colorado. She, like Lev, wanted the opportunity to broaden her horizons and get outside of Austin for a while, explaining, “I just like to move around a lot and I thought going to college somewhere different would be a cool opportunity to go somewhere new.” Going to university provides students with the opportunity to get out of their comfort zone and also be given the opportunity to study in the field catered to their personal interests, as opposed to the sometimes limiting public high school curriculum of strict course requirements in all subjects. Especially going to a liberal arts school such as Fort Lewis, students can also experience an education that is much less focused on standardized testing and more on what they want to do, something that Morgan is particularly excited about, saying “I’m excited for the learning aspect of college and so excited to go to school and have it not only be focused on testing, but actually have it focused on what I want to be learning”. This is a notion that is extremely attractive to most students, and especially because of our Fine Arts Academy, many McCallum students have very specific ideas of what they want to study in higher education, often based on their major within McCallum. Especially since universities are becoming more and more diverse every year with ever-expanding and increasingly specified creative majors, students are faced with many more options than they’ve ever had before, which presents endless opportunities to students everywhere.
As McCallum seniors prepare to head off on their journeys, whether it be staying in Austin or jetting across the country and world, many mixed feelings are bound to arise. Being faced with leaving home for the first time ever for most can be an extremely intimidating thought, and the complete shift in their routine and daily life can be a scary prospect. “Even though I’m excited to leave home, it’s terrifying to think about not being home and not seeing my parents and my little sister every day,” Morgan says with a tinge of fear in her voice. “It’ll be a very big change in my life”. But even though fears are a normal part of getting ready to leave home for the first time, most seniors feel at least almost prepared to be an adult and live on their own. Along with fears come the titillating excitement of living on one’s own without rules and restrictions of parents, and having the chance to meet new people and learn and grow. Every single McCallum senior is prepared in their own unique way to embark on that journey, whether it be through gap years or college or good old fashioned life and job experience, and fantastic opportunities can arise for anyone and everyone who’s willing to take the leap into their adult life, in whatever way that may be.
This is well-developed and a good read but does this version reflect your revision that we talked about. I would like to consider posting this as a web story and something of a graduation preview. Ada wrote something similiar and I thought we might integrate/combine the two stories to get more students covered.
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