Welcome to this month's edition of the College and Career Corner! In these newsletters, I hope to let you know about upcoming opportunities, highlight great things students are doing, as well as provide resources to support your students' college and career readiness at home.

If you have questions or would like to connect, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me!

Steph Munkachy

College and Career Coach

(they/them/theirs)

Email: s.munkachy@mcaabhm.org

Phone: 205-582-8737

Sign up for a meeting: https://calendly.com/s-munkachy

I aim to make our College and Career program at MCAA responsive to student and family needs. Let me know what types of programing you would like to see this year, and also share if you would like to help out! Please access the Spanish language version of this form here.

This year we are continuing our lunchtime career conversations, called Career Café! In these events, we have professionals join us during our HS lunch period (11:45 - 12:25) to speak with students who register in advance to learn from our visitors. We have many talented parents and community members connected with MCAA, and I would love to invite you to join us for these sessions as a speaker to share about what you do, and about your professional journey. Check out our list of themes below and reach out if you would like to present-- or if you provided your information in the previous Family Needs Assessment form I will reach out to you!

• September: Arts, A/V, and Communications
• October: Food, Agriculture, and Conservation
• November: Business, Management, Marketing, and Finance
• December: Construction, Skilled Trades, Policing, and Fire Rescue
• January: Human Services, Education, and Hospitality
• February: Health Sciences
• March: Technology and Engineering
• April: Mental Health

Senior year has officially begun, and I am SO PROUD of our Senior class for all the work they have done and for beginning the year on such an amazing foot! I will be meeting with all students one-on-one over the next two weeks to get a sense of their goals, needs for support, and to let them know that they have someone in their corner to help. Senior year is a busy time, especially in the fall, so having explicit conversations with your student about their interests, plans, and goals is important now. Here are some topics you may want to discuss:

• Their college and career plans
• Your family's financial situation, and what type of funding they will need to find to support their goals
• Their ACT scores, and whether and how they should retake this test
• Their academic achievements or needs. Grades matter all the way up to May, and contribute to their GPA, college acceptance, and graduation status
• Work/life balance. Many students may have a job after school or be taking on challenging courses this semester, and mental health and self care are important while striving toward academic and financial goals.

Please check out this Senior Calendar document for important upcoming deadlines, events, tasks, and celebrations for the year. I will continue to update this as more events are confirmed. If you would like to schedule a meeting with me and your Senior, please do not hesitate to reach out.