The Lynbrook ASB Student Wellness team hosted an online webinar on April 30 titled “Are Lynbrook Graduates Ready for College & Adulting?”, inviting Lynbrook students and alumni to address what to expect and the skills needed for life after high school.
The webinar covered topics ranging from alumni’s post-high school experiences to the preparations that current Lynbrook students need to fulfill to live on their own. The panel of speakers included five current seniors who shared how they developed independence while living with their families. The majority also shared that they did not experience pressure when searching for jobs. Since Lynbrook students generally have access to many resources, the alumni believe that it is better for students to obtain degrees for jobs that suit their interests instead of being motivated solely by money or peer pressure.
“It’s better for you to do something that you are passionate about,” Lynbrook alumnus Keerthana Babu said. “Especially in the Lynbrook community, there is pressure to major in specific fields. However, at the end of the day, if you have a degree in, for example, computer science, you will most likely be pursuing work in a similar field. If you don’t want to do that, then just having a degree isn’t going to help your employment, and it’s better to do something that you’re both good at and enjoy.”
The majority of the panelists were found and chosen through the survey, while some current students were contacted in person by the Student Wellness team. Drawing from their individual experiences, three alumni from the Classes of 2019 and 2023 joined the panel and shared an array of tips for students and parents on navigating high school and college. For example, they recommended that students actively reach out to college professors for opportunities such as internships and research that may be difficult to find elsewhere. They also advised students to set boundaries and allocate personal time since being constantly surrounded by people, especially while living in dorms, can be overwhelming at first.
“One thing I learned is that there is great diversity in what opportunities Lynbrook students take after high school,” senior and student panelist Aakash Choudhary said. “That was really interesting since you often hear very similar stories or you’re in your own bubble, but it’s good to step back and see all the interesting things people can do and experience.”
After high school, the alumni noticed an increase in the amount of free time they had. They especially emphasized the summer after graduation as a time to relax before college. They noted that in college, students would have the time to pursue many nonacademic activities of their choosing, find their passions and build new valuable relationships.
“At first, I didn’t really know what to do because having so much free time was foreign to me,” Babu said. “Over time, I started figuring out my hobbies and what I want to do for myself. I started joining a few different clubs for fun and spending my free time without focusing on productivity.”
The alumni shared that the environment transitions to become less competitive compared to high school. High schools, and Lynbrook specifically, is especially rigorous, oftentimes resulting in additional pressure and stress for the students, but college tends to be less competitive and offers a more supportive community.
“I had to get accustomed to the fact that people in college are less competitive,” Babu said. “You’re not really directly competing with your peers because we are all doing different subjects and have different goals in mind. I felt like people were a lot more collaborative and came into friendships looking for mutual benefits and to have a good time, rather than seeing friends as mere competition.”
In the transition to living alone, the alumni spoke about managing aspects of life that, having been taken care of by parents in the past, are frequently overlooked but crucial to consider. They highlighted basic skills, such as cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry, that students should learn on their own. One thing that an alumnus emphasized was finding healthcare and arranging appointments with doctors, which many students likely haven’t done on their own before.
“There’s always things that your parents do for you that you take for granted,” senior and Student Wellness team lead Gio Cabaltica said. “When you go to college, you realize you have to do all these little things to live a healthy life, including finding time to eat a meal, buying groceries and taking care of yourself when you’re sick.”
A few weeks before the evening of the panel, the Student Wellness team sent out a survey to Lynbrook students, parents and alumni to gather data about different topics that the webinar addressed. After collecting much of the information, the team crafted questions for the panelists to discuss based on the trends shown by the data. One discrepancy was that only 56% of the students surveyed felt that they were prepared to live on their own — a belief that was shared by 70% of parents.
Although the Student Wellness team has hosted mental health panels in the past, this was their first panel focused primarily on college and adulting. After seeing the success of the webinar, the team hopes to approach more college-related topics in the future.
“We hope to cover college applications or other college-related topics next year,” Cabaltica said. “We’re also trying to host in-person in the auditorium, where people can go up to microphones and ask questions.”
