Since the early days of our childhood we’ve been faced with the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As the children we were, common answers included crazy ambitions and ideas. But as we get older, the question becomes much more important. Everywhere you go students are preparing for college applications and deciding their career paths. Some students may still feel uncertain about the road that lies ahead of them. To help solve problems like these, West High students can turn to our college and career coordinator, Ms. Stover!

   Ms. Stover’s primary responsibility is “to support students as they’re figuring out what to do after high school,” she explained. As the college and career coordinator, Ms. Stover helps students with college applications, college essays, personal insight questions, and trains students to use the college and career readiness software, Naviance. Ms. Stover also works with the academic counselors to plan events like college visit field trips, and communicates with college representatives to organize visits both virtually and on campus.

   “Typically students come to me asking about what they need to do to get into a particular college that they’re interested in if there’s a certain one on their radar, or if they are wanting to pursue a particular career path,” Ms. Stover shared. Ms. Stover provides students with guidance and advice for figuring out their next steps. It’s one of the things she enjoys most about her job: working with students and being able to help  at such an important time in their lives. Previously an English teacher, Ms. Stover’s work shifted from evaluating student work to purely helping them out with questions about their futures. “I like that one on one interaction with students and just being able to help them,” Ms. Stover expressed.

   Nowadays, deciding on the direction of the future proves to be a difficult process for students. While the pressure can get tough, Ms. Stover’s main piece of advice is to “know your options!” While you may feel pressured to find a four year college and get accepted into “sweatshirt schools,” Ms. Stover emphasized, “there are many other options out there to be successful and to land where [you] want to be.”