Grads look to the future
Thirty-four students set to attend ceremony on Saturday
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Thursday, May 28, 2015
INUVIK
The future is looking far closer and, perhaps, a little intimidating for the 2015 graduating class at East Three Secondary School.
Karly King Simpson, left, Danya Harrison and Shannon Baetz are among the 30-plus students graduating from East Three Secondary School on Saturday. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
|
More than 30 students are scheduled to attend the graduation ceremonies May 30 at the school, and in the process take an irrevocable step into assuming the responsibilities of adulthood.
Three of those students - Karly King Simpson, Shannon Baetz and Danya Harrison - from the Sunchild program took a few minutes to speak to the Inuvik Drum following official photos and a rehearsal May 25.
King Simpson, known for her multi-sport athleticism and bubbly personality, said she is both excited and a little uncertain about what the future will hold.
"I'm just super, super excited," King Simpson said. "I can't wait. I've been excited for, like, three years to graduate. So I'm super-pumped."
A fellow graduate shared the feeling.
"I'm an older graduate, and I'm pretty nervous and excited at the same time," said Harrison. "I'm just really excited to actually graduate."
King Simpson said she will be attending Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, B.C., to study fisheries and aquaculture.
"I toured the program last year with the trip we went on with the school," she said. "I was really interested in it, so I thought I'd apply.
"My mom is happy about it," King Simpson added. "She wanted me to go to B.C., so she likes it. As long as I go to school, she's OK with it."
As to what the future holds beyond that, and whether she will return to Inuvik to live, King Simpson was blunt.
"I have no clue. I don't know what I want to do," she said.
Harrison said she's planning on attending Aurora College and taking the new personal support worker program.
She has her eyes tentatively set on a career in the health services sector, possibly as a diagnostic imaging technician at some point.
"I want to be in the field of health care," she said. "I'd like to be an ultrasound technician at some point. I have three small children, and I know there's a need for a permanent technician here."
She was the sole graduate determined to make a future for herself here in town.
Shannon Baetz, a talented hockey player, was more ambivalent.
She's heading to Edmonton for her post-secondary education, although she hasn't settled on a major as yet.
"I'm going to take general studies and get the courses I need," she said. "I'm thinking of criminology, maybe later on, as something, or maybe in sports."
She has an abundance of ideas of what career she might select, with being a pilot high on the list.
"I have a bunch of ideas, but nothing I'm too sure about," Baetz added. "I don't have any plans of coming back here, but I probably will at some point, I think. I'll probably miss it, so I won't be gone forever. I grew up here, so I'll always come back."
All three of the young women said whether to stay in Inuvik or not hadn't been much of a topic of conversation amongst their classmates.
"I definitely do see a future here," Harrison said. "All of my family is here. I'll go off for school, but I'll come back."
King Simpson and Baetz said they had many common memories of high points during the high school years, including the afternoon a few years ago where they cut all of their classes to just hang around the school.
"No one really noticed," they added with a laugh.
