“What happens after high school?” 

To answer the question, yes, there are a few vague Naviance stats or the occasional anecdotal story that we are supposed to follow. But our own students  could be the greatest answer. It’s time for them to take the lead.

As many face the task of thinking about our post-secondary education plans, seeking conversations from alumni is more difficult than it should be.

While Naviance is helpful when used to chart our plans toward college and careers, it reduces real Haven alumni to graphs, GPA, and SAT scores. 

We need more alumni voices. We need a real alumni network, a network that is more than numbers and scatterplots. It would be a valuable resource for students to engage and connect with graduates.

This would give students the opportunity to connect with alumni with similar interests or experiences, opening up more opportunities to branch out for students. It could even be used to give alumni chances to talk to interested students about their career paths.

Overall, a strong alumni network could be used to better facilitate beneficial conversations for students about their futures, and anyone could help develop it, students or alumni.

Another way to induce better communication between students and alumni would be introducing more alumni-run assemblies about both future planning and other relevant topics. 

The Panther Press has been interviewing noted alumni for ‘The Wall’ since 2022, but these features do not replace in-person connections.

Before the pandemic, the Wall of Honor served as a way to get to know some alumni through senior assemblies. Since then, no new alumni have been added to the Wall, so no alumni inductees have come in to give talks. 

Students go through the motions on Naviance, filling out career surveys and watching videos from community members about their career paths, but nothing can replace the invaluable insight alumni perspectives can add. 

That is not enough. We don’t need to know exactly what we want to do after high school, but it would be nice to at least know what life is like in the paths we’re interested in—and what mistakes to avoid. Alumni could help us with that.

Only Haven alumni can tell us how the classes at Haven ended up being harder or easier than the classes in college, or if going into the trades was the right decision, or that being in Haven’s band built skills that they use in their workplace every day.

The network could simply be a landing page with a list of alumni emails or LinkedIn profiles for students to access if they want to explore it. Participation would be optional, but some alumni would undoubtedly be willing to provide insight to students. 

Many private schools have entire networking systems, complete with the career paths of each alumnus and the ability to sign up as mentees to them. 

The process is much more difficult for public schools. While many private schools have entire departments geared towards alumni connections, Haven does not. 

However, it’s not impossible. Radnor High School displays its alumni hall of fame prominently on its website, with bios and career paths of all inductees. Many public schools also have more informal records run by students and alumni.

It doesn’t have to be an extensive undertaking for Haven staff. Small steps like reopening the Wall of Honor to inductees could greatly expand alumni connections. 

However, if we want a strong alumni network, students must begin before graduation and make it last a lifetime. 

If we want an alumni network, students and alumni have to lead.

Students want to be prepared to leave the Haven bubble. Alumni connection and engagement would help support the preparation. Building connections and finding good mentors plays a huge part in later success, and we can start learning those interpersonal skills today—if we’re willing to band together to do it ourselves.

Whether you are a senior who knows your exact career path or you’re happy to figure it out as you go, it will still be inspiring to kids ten years in the future to see that you can accomplish so much no matter what path you take.

Help us build something that you didn’t have here. Current students are ready to listen.

The unsigned editorial represents the opinion of the Editorial Board, which consists of the majority of student editorial staff listed on this page.