By: Ta’Kirah King and Ellen Hurd (Senn First Years)
As a first year student at Senn High School, college may seem far away. Many 9th grade students know very little about college and their future beyond high school. That’s what March to College aims to change.
Senn high school wants its students to be aware of the decisions they’ll have to make in the future and wants them to feel more confident about their future. March to College helps them discover interests and unmask the mystery of college, and have some fun doing it!
We talked to a few first year students the morning of March to College to get their predictions about how the day would go.
Leo Sharkey said, “So I’m definitely, hopefully going to learn more about some college colleges and colleges in general that I didn’t know previously. I’m excited to learn about what is college, how does it work? What am I going to do? And just everything about college.”
Marielis Alvarez said, “I think it’s just an experience. Like, I guess I’ll be more aware of what choices I have for college and just like I guess I’ll know what to do I don’t know like it’s just like an experience that will benefit me in the long run just in general like I don’t think in just one specific thing.”
The day started with Freshmen heading down to the auditorium to receive their schedules for the day. These “lessons” included different selected courses from ways to go about choosing a college, information on how to get scholarships, career readiness, and job aptitude tests. Several more fun courses were also included, such as poetry.
Special guest speaker Sherman Dilla Thomas spoke about his
experience working for ComEd and his current occupation as a Chicago Historian.
At the end of the day, we asked students how they enjoyed March to College and if it was beneficial. Here’s what they had to say.
Kathy Phan said, “I enjoyed March to College because I learned quite a lot. And I got to see some friends I don’t have a lot of classes with.”
Myah Farrow said, “I didn’t know you could use coding, like the kind of stuff we learned in middle school, to program an entire drone. It seemed pretty fun.”
March to College was a great way for 9th-grade students to relax and sit in on interesting lectures, while also thinking about their future and what they want to become. Now we can officially say the mystery of college is at least partially solved!
