Many students attending Bear River want to take their education to the next level. At our school, the kids think bigger picture and aspire to receive important jobs, such as doctor, pilots or even astronauts. Yet many attendants have no idea what the recommended courses are in order to achieve their dreams.
Somebody students around Bear River can count on to help them figure things out is counselor Katrina (KC) Wachs, who claims “We offer a huge variety — especially for such a small school — of college preparatory classes.”
A few things she advises to make it into four year colleges include a foreign language and keeping grades high. Wachs says “Make sure you take a language other than English, and always just do well academically.” What’s very important to make it into universities and UCs is to become a big part of your high school, not only academically, but to join clubs and other activities. After all, according to Wachs “UCs are looking for a well-rounded student. It’s extremely competitive academically, so they are looking for a very high grade point average.”
She also let it be noted that “They’re (colleges) looking for kids at the top of their class, but they’re also looking for kids who get involved in their high school.”
Bear River offers a lot of college/career preparatory classes, whether it’s Spanish for college, psychology to become a counselor, or ag classes to get experience in the trades. After all, Wachs makes the claim that “most of our classes are college prep!”
But college isn’t the only path that Bruins can take.
Senior Caleb McGehee, knows there isn’t one path that is right for everybody., “It depends on the student, for a lot of people trade school is the path to take, but sometimes a four year, UC, or a (state school) are better.”
McGehee, claims that credentials aren’t everything, when he claims “work ethic is more important than credentials 100 percent, credentials show that you did something. Work ethic is different, it’s better.”
Yet college can still be a good and achievable option, after asked if university’s expectations are too high, McGehee, claims that “not particularly, everybody trying to apply to them, they already conformed to those already set standards, so there’s no reason to raise or lower them”Although it’s achievable, students make many mistakes trying to achieve this, McGehee, explains that “Students just take a gap year, thinking they’ll make some money and go off to college. But a lot of times they’ll take another gap year and then they get lazy and decide that college isn’t needed and that they make enough money already.”
Senior Lawrence Herrera believes that students might not get where they want to go.
“Many students may lose track of their goals because they set them aside and not do the steps now that they need to in order to get there, and they just completely forget about it,” Herrera said. “But once the time comes around they just don’t know what to do.”
But you can still make it past high school, nothing is out of reach, Herrera continues “Stay organized, know what you’ve got to do, and execute it.”
So stay at it, and take the steps you need to take, and accomplish your goals.