Seniors pursue interests at annual Senior Choice Day

College+bound--+Seniors+attend+a+college+visit+at+the+University+of+Connecticut+%28UConn%29.+UConn+was+one+of+several+schools+that+seniors++could+visit.

Ursula Fraley

College bound– Seniors attend a college visit at the University of Connecticut (UConn). UConn was one of several schools that seniors could visit.

Kristy Pan, Managing editor

Seniors participated in the annual Senior Choice Day on October 14. The event has been a tradition at the high school for the past six years. There were no classes scheduled for seniors that day, and they had different choices on how to spend their time.

“Generally, Senior Choice Day provides seniors with a variety of options, both career and college-oriented,” School-to-Career Coordinator Kristi Ohanesian said.

Activities planned for students included college trips organized by the high school or visits to a college of their choice with their parents or guardians.

Senior Sarah Popolizio visited Fordham University in New York with her family and met with one of her friends who attended school there.

“I really enjoyed Senior Choice Day. I hadn’t visited all the colleges I wanted to, so Senior Choice Day was a great time when I could visit without worrying about missing school…Applying and picking the right college is difficult. But actually visiting the college can really aid in that process,” Popolizio said.

Seniors also had the option to stay in school to attend career talks focused on health sciences, business and finance, arts and media and information technology and later spent time to work on college applications.

According to Ohanesian, 42 students attended job shadows, 72 students attended college visits with school counselors, 106 students visited colleges with parents, and students that didn’t choose any of these options attended career talks and college workshops.

“Sometimes, students don’t have college work to do, but they do want and go and maybe explore a career interest, so they can either shadow a family member, a relative, someone they know…If they don’t know someone, in the field they are interested in, they could come to us and arrange a shadow,” Ohanesian said.

Senior Megan Go attended the Business and Media Career talk and later went on to shadow one of the speakers, MPression Marketing Group Owner Michelle Stanish.

“Even though you’d think there wouldn’t be anything interesting [at the career talk], there were people at the panel representing a broad spectrum of business-related careers including, finance, marketing, sales and much more, so there was bound to be something you would be at least a little bit interested in,” Go said.

Aside from senior activities, the day was eventful as freshmen students attended a social studies presentation, sophomores and juniors took the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test and National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.