Two weeks ago Juniors at Watertown High School were introduced to TOWN Mag in their SSP classes. Students read TOWN stories and took the time to answer survey questions. We’re excited about the feedback we received and think it will be helpful for not only TOWN Mag but WHS and the community in general. It’s important to us that we understand the thoughts and aspirations of current WHS students and not make assumptions. Thank you future alumni. Also, thank you to Michelle Baim and Nicole Lewis for allowing us this opportunity!
We asked if students had any comments or questions about TOWN Mag and this was one of the questions that stood out to us. We'd love to answer it.
“Why did you care enough to make this? It seems strange for random adults to care about some angsty teenagers.”
We care because even though we are random adults, we were once angsty teenagers. Except we didn't have a resource to tell us what was out there in the world after WHS, we didn't have a variety of role models who stuck around town and we truly didn't have a clue what we were getting ourselves into. We've seen graduates live life to the fullest, pursue careers that we would never have been exposed to at WHS, live around the world, and follow their dreams. But we've also seen graduates spend a ton of money transferring schools, change majors and take extra classes, fall down and not get back up, become unemployed after receiving a very expensive degree, or go into extreme debt. We realized that if we had heard any of these stories while we were in high school we may have made different decisions or we may have been more motivated and inspired. These stories aren’t shared to younger generations and we decided they needed to be. As a community we need to learn from each other.
We sat in those same seats staring out the same windows while the teacher spoke in the front of the classroom, having no idea what was about to come next.