Maddie Green from West Palm Beach, Florida, is a recent 2020 High School Graduate at the Kings Academy. Throughout her time in high school, she participated in both fall and winter cheer, as well as being a member of the Kings Conservatory--one of the best theater programs in the country. Going into high school, she had absolutely no clue what she wanted to do as a career.
"It wasn't until 11th grade when I chose to be an ITE (Intro to Education) assistant as an elective that I realized I wanted to be a teacher. I knew I loved working with kids, especially since I was a camp counselor for 2 years beforehand, so becoming a teacher was such an easy choice." When applying to different colleges, Green looked at colleges all across the country, but ultimately decided on Grand Canyon University, not only because of its education program, but also because it was close to her older sister, who attends ASU. However, once the virus hit and everything was put on pause, her plans ultimately changed. |
Maddie Green at graduation, with her graduation cap, and with her GCU gear.
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This is showing where GCU is located on the map.
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This is showing where Green currently lives.
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If you look at the infographic beside this, you can see just how big of a deal COVID has been to high school seniors and how it has affected their mental state. According to a survey of about 1,400 high school seniors, 32% say the pandemic has made them less likely to enroll in college, and similarly 40% of seniors who were planning to enroll in college say the pandemic played a significant role in their decision to even attend--this means both cases in which seniors either elected to stay home and take a gap year or semester, or changed where they were attending (Hiller, 2020).
Education has started to go to the back of these seniors minds. 70% of high school seniors say higher education is NOT worth the cost. This makes sense, as in Green's case, she is making a significant amount of money without having any sort of college-level degree (Hiller, 2020). Sustaining three jobs--hostessing for $12 an hour, babysitting for $12-$15 an hour and working at a pre-school for $10 an hour, at the moment there really is no need for her to go to school. This virus also affects parents views as well. Almost 50% of parents are reporting their children are changing their post-high school plan. Less than half of students, about 43%, were planning on going to a four-year college. It was also found that 36% of parents tapped into their child's college fund to help cover the costs because of the heavy financial strain caused by the outbreak (Jaschik, 2020). |
Senior year is already full of stress and pondering questions--Where am I going to go to college? Will I get into college? What are my friends doing? Am I doing well on my SAT's? So many normal questions But the high school seniors of 2020 had to deal with so much more added stress, having to miss these staple milestone experiences. They've lost their jobs which in turn dampens not only their paycheck and the amount of money coming in, but also changes their social interaction schedule which can be just as detrimental. This can induce fear and anxiety, which already was heightened because of the stressful climate they had going into the school year (Dowdy, 2020).
Licensed therapist Sharon Rinearson, explained her thoughts about how the virus has affected these high school kids. "It's no secret that this virus has had a major toll on these high school students. It's caused extreme levels of stress and mental health morbidity that have lead to depression and helped anxiety levels skyrocket to levels I haven't seen." |