Athens Academy held its most recent alumni panel on January eighth, featuring five recently graduated alumni and Coach Josh Alexander as moderator. The college alumni panels serve the purpose of showing high school students what their life after four years may look like from the view of familiar former students. While the aim is to be informative and helpful, sometimes alumni panels are more humorous and charismatic which begs the question: are alumni panels worth it?
One of the biggest challenges is creating an alumni panel that resonates with all of the Upper School students. A senior is looking at college in their immediate future, while the concept of college admissions is more of a long-term concern for a freshman. While senior Weston Smart found the experience beneficial, he understood that this consensus may not be felt by all.
“I can see how the alumni panel could feel redundant and unimportant to younger kids like freshmen and sophomores,” said Smart.
That is not to say the panel fell flat among all younger classmen. Freshman Emma Drennen explained that she really enjoyed parts of the alumni panel that were less focused on the technical aspects of college.
“I really enjoyed the alumni panel,” said Drennen. “I thought that the inside look on college life and the transition from Athens Academy to university academics was interesting to listen to.”
In comparison to past panels, this year’s panel was lighthearted. School Headmaster John Thorsen, explained that one way to analyze panels was to compare memorable soundbites.
“In the past (panels), I think of Jackson Scruggs talking about Vanderbilt and how he was worried about going and he was making straight A’s at the time,” said Thorsen.
For this year’s panel, Thorsen most memorably recalled an alumnist’s comment on her college’s food being unpleasant, which highlights this year’s more humorous tone.
I feel Athens Academy is a successful democracy, in that the school administration listens to student feedback and adjusts to what the students find most helpful.
“If there are ideas that students have, broach them, share them, and hopefully we can make it become a reality too,” said Thorsen.
Mr. Thorsen and Emma Drennen had some suggestions that could help future panels resonate more with students.
“I would have made the overall experience a little shorter because it did become a little repetitive after a while,” said Drennen.
“I do think we probably need to go back to advisories and say, ‘what questions do you want to ask and what’s on your mind?’ That way we focus on topics compelling to students,” said Thorsen.
Events like the Alumni Panel also have potentially unseen symbolic impacts. Students can envision themselves, for example, in the shoes of college athlete Austin McGee or Harvard student Nina Rutledge. Seeing their success is a key goal of the panel. Overall, alumni panels serve the purpose of being inspirational.
