By: Ashley Chen
Naviance is a college and career planning tool that assesses students’ interests and strengths with potential careers and helps students make the right and informed decisions about choosing careers, according to Principal Francis Rojas. Naviance was introduced this school year after being in discussion in MUSD for about two years, Rojas said.
In addition, Naviance tracks where students go to college, and gives the school reports of who actually went where and whether or not it aligned with what they chose, Rojas said. This helps ensure that the courses MHS offers are geared towards schools such as UCs, he said.
“[We want] to make sure that we prepare you with the skills to survive and succeed in college,” Rojas said. “We get a lot of that information and it helps us understand how we should create our educational program here, not only at the high school, but also the district.”
The school held Naviance College Night on Oct. 10 to answer any questions about Naviance, Naviance Coordinator Jonathan Mach said. More importantly, they wanted to show students and parents statistics about why there is a failure in people to apply to schools that should be applying into, Mach said.
“We don’t want people to not apply to colleges outside because it’s expensive,” Mach said. “College, period, is expensive… But you have to understand that college is an investment for your life.”
Naviance College Night was not a well attended event, Mach said. About 50 people attended, but considering how many people in MHS will be applying to college, there should have been more, he continued.
“[When publicizing Naviance,] I went into every single Economics and Government class,” Mach said. “I sent out flyers. I put a telephone out. I put a parent out. I put a newsletter out. How would I publicize [Naviance] better? That’s something I have to ask kids because I want kids to come. It’s awesome.”
If Naviance had been introduced earlier, he probably would have used it, Senior Anthony Ngo said. He is not particularly interested in additional information about colleges since he is already predetermined about where he wants to go, Ngo said.
“I think the main reason reason why I am not using Naviance is because now that I’m already a senior and the fact that college apps have already started, I already know the kinds of information that I need to get into colleges I want to,” Ngo said. “I feel Naviance would be a good college device for younger students to figure out what colleges they want to go to and how they can achieve their goals.”
Naviance sounds pretty interesting and useful considering she intends on going to college, Junior Melanie Lin said over Facebook Messenger. However, the school has not told juniors about Naviance, she continued.
“I can definitely see [Naviance] benefitting the student population,” Lin said. “With [Naviance, students] can become a lot more knowledgeable about these aspects of college. I think a lot of people tend to be a slight bit clueless when it comes to which colleges to choose to apply to because they haven’t researched enough to know exactly where they want to go.”
MHS is lucky to have Naviance, and he is glad that MHS was able to implement it this year, Rojas said. The longer you wait to implement, the more we get left behind, he continued.
“Let’s get a head start [on career planning] so we don’t waste our time because remember: college, you’re paying for that,” Rojas said. “If we can prepare you better when education is free, then it’s more effective for your families and also for your futures.”
The school plans on having another Naviance meeting at the end of October or November, Mach said. “If you have ideas on how to get seniors or their parents [to attend please let me know,]” Mach requested. “You don’t even have to be there. Just your parents have to be there because they can help you out with the financial aid part. So just get them to go.”