It’s been a pleasure to see the energy and focus that students and faculty have brought with them this week. A highlight was the excitement of classmates and teachers seeing each other again after a long break. Another highlight was seeing the hugs and the joy of recent Moravian Academy graduates returning to campus while their colleges are still on break. 

On Thursday, January 9th, students in 10th and 11th grades talked with Moravian Academy alumni who are juniors in college right now. We form this panel each year for current students and this year’s format with smaller groups yielded more questions from students and what seemed like a lot of “straight talk” between students and alumni. They talked about navigating the search process, what’s important about preparing to succeed in college, and their favorite advice on how to make the most of the Upper School experience at Moravian.

The perspective from these current college students, who graduated from Moravian Academy in 2017, cut through some of the common but often misleading narratives that students hear about college. Here are three standout observations that the recent alumni mentioned about their transitions to college.

All the alumni confirmed that the academic expectations and the work loads at Moravian Academy made their transitions to their colleges seamless in terms of academic challenges. What they mentioned as the greater challenge was adapting to the freedoms of directing more of their own learning. One alumna described it in these words: “remember that no one is really going to be telling you what you need to do or watching you and checking your decisions, so it’s really easy to either do way too much or do way too little, and both can be troublesome.” The alumni talked about finding that a majority of what they are learning is happening outside of the regular courses and that navigating what you spend your time on can be challenging since you have to build your own schedule, including clubs and activities and internships. They said that they found, in comparison to their peers at college, that they were ready to meet this challenge right away because they were so well prepared in terms of managing a demanding workload. An alumnus summed the difference up by saying “there’s a whole lot less that you have to do but there is a lot more that you’ll want to do.” For me, it was especially encouraging to see the nodding heads from the 10th graders, who experienced the open-ended assignments of FIRE last year and may have wondered why it was uncomfortable.

A current Moravian student asked the panelists how to narrow down their list of potential colleges. The alumni each went to this immediate response: find a Moravian graduate who’s at that school and reach out to them. One alumnus said, “Even if you don’t know them personally, I guarantee you they will reply and probably will offer to talk to you at length and sit down and spend time with you on a visit. They will tell you what their experience is really like and you’ll be able to relate to it.” Several of the alumni said that what they heard from other Moravian alumni was some of the most helpful advice they received. I loved hearing that Moravian Academy students take care of each other even after graduation!

And given the chance to talk openly about the transition to college, many of the recent graduates reflected on what had worked for them that had not worked for many of their peers at college. They talked about being disciplined about using the campus fitness centers and being confident on day one to talk to professors and advisors with their questions. They talked about intentionally stepping out of their comfort zones on their new campuses to make lots of different kinds of friends right away. They talked about getting sleep and being in charge of their schedules instead of letting themselves be ruled by stress. “Just because you can wear sweatpants every day does not mean that you should,” one alumna said, “put some effort into your appearance.” And some of the best advice I heard all morning: “Learn to do your laundry. Some people let it get gross.”

The day was capped with an afternoon reception for young alumni and seniors (Classes of 2015-2020) at Benigna House.  Attendees had the opportunity to catch up with one another and reconnect with Upper School faculty.

Iman Braich '17 (Lehigh University)

Erin Campbell '17 (University of Rochester)

Shabaig Chatha '17 (University of Pennsylvania)

Michael Gibson '17 (Amherst College)

Rachael Kraft '17 (Vassar College)

Daniel Moreno '17 (Princeton University)

Hanna O’Connor '17 (Mt. Holyoke College)

Catherine Ryczek '17 (Hamilton College)

Haley Schierwagen '17 (University of Rochester)

Rachel Schuchman '17 (Penn State University)

Oliver Scott '17 (University of Southern California)

Mya Tucker '17 (Lehigh University)