The Senior Seminar Experience

Nevie Smith ’19, Contributor

On the second day back from winter break, all members of the senior class each attended “Senior Seminar”, 20-minute breakout sessions led by past students of Country Day, in the hopes of informing the current class of 12^th graders what to expect once getting to college. There were a variety of about 15 topics to choose from, ranging from what it’s like living in a big city to working on an EMS, studying abroad, and student volunteering. The goal of each seminar was to give the seniors a little more information about college and all the wonderful opportunities that are available once getting there. The morning started with a lovely breakfast in the cafeteria, followed by a five-seminar schedule.

My first seminar was advice on navigating the big city in college and beyond. Although I don’t plan on attending school in a place like Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York, I still found the information useful, because not only did the advice align with living in a large city, but also living on your own and independently, something extremely important for surviving college anywhere.

From there, my next session was geared toward those who hope to continue volunteering in college like I do. I learned that there are endless amounts of opportunities to do volunteer when you get to school, and there are different kinds of clubs and groups for different causes. I found this seminar really helpful because I really want to continue to help those in need after I leave Country Day, and after leaving this session I realized how easy it will be to do that in college.

The next senior seminar I attended was all about entrepreneurship and business, something I am considering studying at college. I loved this session because it was extremely informative and it was led by someone who actually owns their own company. Even though I’m not sure if I definitely want to keep learning about this in school, I learned that there are different opportunities in that realm outside of class for business things in college.

Then, I went to a session dedicated to helping make those difficult decisions in college. For someone who really has no clue what she wants to do, this seminar was EXTREMELY helpful because I made the realization that I will figure everything out and no decision I make will be a mistake. I liked this session also because it was very discussion based and was aimed towards people in a similar situation as me.

Lastly, I attended a senior seminar about studying abroad, led by an alum who spent time over the summer learning in both Spain and Ireland. I was excited that I got into this session because I’m planning on studying abroad in college, and he warned about things I never would have thought about before leaving and also gave more general information about the idea of going to school in another country.

I would say that the Senior Seminars this year were very educational and achieved their goal of helping calm and inform all the seniors of the wonderful things to come in college. During this stressful time for us, it was nice to hear from people who have been in our exact situation that everything will work out and that there are so many amazing opportunities for all of us when we get to college. Although I know there will still be some shock and adjustment in going to college at the end of the summer, I feel like I’m a little more prepared and know what expect when I get there.