As the seniors are approaching their final semester of high school, they are deciding on which college to attend, if any at all. This process is something we have been preparing ourselves for since the beginning of high school. Someone who makes this daunting task less difficult is our guidance counselor Sara Davis. Davis explained how she helps seniors prepare: “Helping high school seniors as a counselor can involve various aspects, from academic guidance to college and career counseling. The preparation of working with seniors really starts when they get into high school and helping them explore classes and having them find a career pathway that works for them.”
Davis helps during the senior year with college applications, resumes, essays, scholarships and financial aid, career counseling, standardized testing, decision-making, transition to college, and emotional support. This help from Davis allows the seniors to feel comfortable with the process of getting ready for college. Although this may be a stressful point in all our lives, Davis is there to help smooth it out and not make it so stressful. Even when you are not the senior graduating, there are still some struggles that go along with it all.
When asked what some of the struggles are when preparing the seniors for graduation and college, Davis expressed, “The biggest challenge I see is trying to help students that may not know what they want to do and that it is OK not to know”. Many seniors feel stressed when people ask them the question “What are your plans for after school?” Some are not even sure if they want to attend school. Davis's role then is to help guide the students to figure out what they are innately good at, what they can improve at, and what their talents are.
As the seniors are coming into their last semester of high school, Davis is also a part of guiding everyone to graduation. Her role is to support students during the graduation process. She helps make sure that students have the appropriate credits needed to graduate. When graduation time comes around, Davis deals with the monitoring of the students' scheduling and transcripts, which ensures that the students are on track to meet all of the graduation requirements. She also helps with transcripts and documentation, allowing the students to get any college classes they took throughout their high school years onto their transcript and transferred to the college where they have been accepted.
As the final semester comes around, it is important that we have the proper guidance as we enter the next chapter of our lives, and Sara Davis’s help makes it much easier for us all.