After spring break the school year starts to wind down. For underclassmen and juniors, it is a push to the end of the year. Though for seniors it is a whole different story. They don’t get to come back after their summer break. They have to do something new, something different because they are no longer high schoolers. Most plan to attend four-year colleges, join the military, land a job, or take a break after their long four years of high school are over. One thing is for sure when you become a senior, you need to plan for your future.
However, some students have been preparing for after high school for longer than others and have already started working towards their future goals.
“I plan to go to the State Tech College of Missouri for heating and cooling,” senior Caiden Kern said.
Since junior year, Kern has gone to Northland Career Center to help him towards his future goal of working in heating and cooling. NCC offers opportunities for students to learn and prepare for their future.
“NCC is great,” Kern said. “There are a lot of things to learn in two years, but NCC really prepares you to work in the field.”
This extra experience before leaving high school can help students be more prepared for their future. This gives students an advantage, making them look more desirable for jobs and internships as well.
“Right now, I am universally EPA certified so I can actually go behind someone’s house and work on their heating and cooling,” Kern said.
Even without NCC, students have also had many years to prepare for the future through the sports and activities they partake in. High schoolers who participate in sports work hard to have the chance to become division athletes in college.
“I have known since I started playing softball that I would [commit somewhere],” senior Addy Schlake said. “I started playing when I was 5 and I had always dreamed of playing D1, so I was always going to camps and trying to get recruited.”
Currently, Schlake is committed to the University of North Dakota for softball.
“I met [the coaches] when I was an eighth grader and they saw one of my practices and one of my games and from there, I liked the coach that had talked to me,” said Schlake. “So, I went to some camps up there and saw the campus and just stuck with them until I was a junior when I committed.”
Being committed also helped Schlake become more prepared for her future through her already getting the chance to be acclimated to the college softball life.
“I could definitely see myself playing softball with them coaching me,” Schlake said. “It just felt like a second home up there and all the people were really sweet and nice to me.”
Whether committing to a sport or working in NCC, preparing for your future is a very important thing. After high school seniors experience a whole new life and need to be better equipped. So get out there and prepare.