On January 28th, AHA juniors took part in “Jump Start Your College Planning Day”. This event has been hosted by the College & Career Center (Ms. Kjorstad, Mrs. Proctor, and Mrs. Kelly) for 18 years. The administration suspends junior classes because of the value this day has in forming student opinions around college and deciding where they would like to attend. Most importantly, it announces the crucial College Portfolio assignment which sets up students for success in their senior year. The day, though divided into seven periods, consists of various classes including Admission Review, Essay Writing, Find Your Fit, Job Fits, Naviance Exploring, and Resume Building. Each station has a variety of persons manning them with many representatives from different colleges, allowing students to establish connections. A representative from Xavier University ran the Admissions Review seminar in which students looked over three different resumes for a competitive college and determined the admittance criteria for each of the students. Similarly, four representatives from the University of Minnesota, Alexandria Technical College, Lake Superior College, and St. John’s and St. Benedict’s College ran the Find Your Fit seminar in which students could ask questions of both two year and four year programs.
College representatives were not the only ones in attendance as AHA alumni gave presentations on various careers that they have held throughout their lives in the Job Fit Interviews. Here, students asked questions of the alumni and heard their fascinating stories, which may help to inspire future majors and career paths. The last three stations, Essay Writing, Resume Building, and Naviance were run by representatives from St. Thomas, St Olaf, Kjorstad, respectively. These crucial stations taught students life skills in writing a good college essay, resume building and structuring for both jobs and schools, and how to effectively search for colleges. Though all important, AHA students found that the Essay Writing class was most helpful as it taught them to think outside the box in regards to the traditional essay topic, as well as to add their own unique personality into the paper. Even though the graduation date of the class of ’26 is a good way away, College Planning Day set up the next graduating class with tools to go forth from AHA onto higher education.
