Anna Kelm

Every junior is required to attend a meeting with their counselor in order to talk about future life plans.

Junior year is filled with many stressors. Some examples include maintaining a high GPA, visiting colleges, or planning your future. To help students through such a nerve-wracking time, counselors decided to implement a time where students can meet privately with their counselor and discuss what colleges they like, where they want to go (globally), and what they may want to study in college.

These meetings have been helpful for those who have an idea of what they want in a college. They may know where they want to be (East Coast, West Coast, etc.), the number of undergraduate students they want in a class, or what they want to study. But finding a college is still hard even if students know what they want. So, counselors being there as a support system can be very comforting. Junior Olivia Pellegrene knew that she wanted to attend a college on the West Coast, but she didn’t have much idea as to what college she could truly picture herself at. “I don’t really know [what college I want to attend] yet, but the counselor meeting was helpful with figuring some of that stuff out,” Pellegrene said.

Junior Sydney Campo knows the climate she wants to be in, as she wants to be somewhere she can ski. Her counselor was very helpful in helping her find options as to where she could go. “I was thinking Montana State, University of Vermont, Fort Collins, Colorado, somewhere where I can ski… And my counselor helped me find colleges like that,” Campo said.

Junior Lauren Backman felt this meeting was very valuable. She discovered colleges that checked all of her boxes in terms of what she wants in a school, and the meeting felt very reassuring that she has a plan for her future that she truly enjoys. “The meeting was instrumental in clarifying the major I’m truly passionate about, which in turn helped me think more deeply about the classes I need to take to prepare for college,” Backman said.

Junior year can be very intimidating because there are so many students who don’t have the slightest clue about what they want to do with their lives. That is normal, but it is still important for students to know that they have adults who will have their backs, no matter their decision. No one who replied to the survey sent by the Knight Errant said that this meeting felt monotonous or purposeless. They all agreed that there is a reason why juniors have to attend these meetings, and they had no complaints.