Catherine Burges, Reporter
@cburges_courant
Every year before winter break, last year’s seniors return for the Alumni Roundtable, an event that takes place at 9:15 in the Wagner Room on Friday, December 20. The Alumni Roundtable is an annual event organized by the PFA and the Board of Education, along with a variety of volunteers to help provide answers to questions many seniors will be having as they make decisions determining their choice of college and their future. This is an event that has lasted for over 20 years, progressing from a late-night pizza party to a collaborative discussion between current college freshmen and our seniors.
Head of the College and Career Center, Susan Carroll described the importance of such an event. “This opportunity allows college freshmen, whom we invite back to do two different things,” she said. “The first is a cross-section of students in their freshman year of college to participate in a discussion with the Board of Education about how they felt prepared for college level work. It’s an interesting conversation, and over the years some courses have been added to the high school curriculum based on this decision, such as various levels of AP Calculus and an AP psychology course. Then they go talk to the seniors and reflect on a year ago when they were finishing their applications and hearing back from colleges.”
The event even has a question and answer session, that allows the seniors to get the full scope of life on campus. “This event is really designed for an exchange of information between college freshmen and high school seniors,” Ms. Carrol said. “We really don’t want adults censoring the questions, or making a student feel uncomfortable about what he or she wants to ask. The college freshmen will be wearing their college sweatshirts, which makes it easy to seek one of them out if you would like to ask a private question.”
“The campus will be closed and we strongly suggest that our seniors participate,” said Ms. Carrol. “And furthermore, we strongly hope that when these self-same seniors, the Class of 2020, are college freshmen they will come back next year and continue the tradition.”
