As the Class of 2025 prepares to graduate, it is time for the Class of 2026 to stop saying “I’m just a little kid.” It’s the end of junior year, and it’s time to think about what to do next. But you should already know what’s next, it’s senior year. We still need to focus on the educational aspect of finishing our high school journey. Before the seniors leave our campus, here is some advice they have for the Class of 2026.
Senior Deborah Shiferaw said she started her research journey the first semester of junior year.
Shiferaw said the first thing you should think about is what you want to do or what you should major in. There are many options out there like community college, joining the military, jumping straight into work, or going to a four-year university.
Senior Jesse Cardenas talked about the benefits of going to community college. He said some of the benefits are that community college is less expensive so that you can figure out what you want to do since you’re not paying for regular college tuition.
The Rancho Cucamonga High School counselors can help students with this process. RCHS counselor Ms. Kelli Cardenas advised that if students plan to attend college, the first thing they want to do is research fields they might be interested in. Students can take career quizzes and get advice from others.
Cardenas emphasized that finding a major isn’t the most important aspect because students can always change it when they get to college. However, it’s a big thing to consider when choosing what colleges to apply to.
Senior Nicolette Bell said going into her senior year she made a list of the best schools for her major, and that’s how she narrowed down her pros and cons list.
Students will also be advised to take SAT before December to be able to put it on their college application. Many students prefer to use Khan Academy and or go to an in person SAT tutoring center.
“I prepared for the SAT using Khan Academy’s curriculum and honestly I feel like it helped me a ton,” senior Elysia Trocio said. “Schoolhouse.world is a tutoring website that offers SAT boot camps for Math and English, and those really helped me study.”
Lastly, during summer is when students should build up their resume with extracurricular activities to try to stand out to colleges. However, it is important to not overload yourself.
“The key to balancing it all is consistency, breaks, and SLEEP. I cannot recommend anything more to balancing everything than prioritizing sleep every night,” senior Bobby Erickson said. “Our brains are literally pushing everything into storage while we sleep, so if we neglect it, we’re forgetting a TON of what we’ve learned that day. When I actually started getting sleep this year, I locked in and balanced my life WAY better.”
