“It’s really important for me to follow my dreams,” said junior Brenna Schwartz.

What do you want to do with your life? Ever the scary question, students had a chance to go to Brighton’s annual College Night to help make that question seem not so intimidating. On Monday, Sept. 27, colleges arranged pop-up tables all around the cafeteria for students to visit and gain information about their college options.

Heading  into College Night, some students already had an idea of what they are looking for and sought to find a college that fits their interests.

“I’ve always known that I wanted to go into art, ever since I was little,” said senior Lexi Minor. My whole family is very artistic, so that is something I’ve always known I’ve wanted to do … I know I’m very lucky for, because I know people who really aren’t sure what they want to go into … The fact that I know makes me feel a lot better about it.”

College Night presented some of the possibilities for a wide range of interests, including the arts, with colleges such as College for Creative Studies (CCS), Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD), and Kendall College of Art and Design present. 

With clear goals already set, Minor said, “The nice thing is that now I kind of have … my array of schools that I could go to, and I can compare prices.”

College Night gave students a chance to discover programs and professions they weren’t even aware of. As students discover more programs, the senior counselor, Mr. Jeffrey Miner, said, “It opens [student’s] eyes and almost like makes it real, like ‘oh, I’m really gonna do this, like these are real people and they’re trying to get me to come to their school and I could live in this dorm’ … it’s not just an abstract concept anymore, it’s like this is really gonna happen and then they get excited about it and it kinda gives them a little incentive to keep going in their applications and all that stuff.”

“I’m not really sure [what career I want to go into], it kind of changes all the time. This week I’m thinking of something with math, maybe like NASA would be cool,” she said.

Schwartz gives an additional point of view on where to go with college and careers in the future saying, “I would rather learn more than get a degree with a good college name on it. I’m really just looking to explore my learning fields.”

As a person who is interested in studying abroad, she can narrow down her search to colleges that offer to study abroad:

“I’m really interested in Kalamazoo College right now because they have really good study abroad programs,” Schwartz said.

Student-athletes keep in mind their sport when on the college hunt. Varsity girls golf captain, Amelia Gatti said how doing a sport, “narrowed it down to finding someplace that fits my golf needs as well as my academic needs, which has made it a little easier to find places to go and [find] someplace I could go with playing a sport that will help me also keep up with my academics- that will help me achieve my goals in both- my academic and athletic pursuits.”

College Night was there for so many students, with different passions, goals, priorities, and more, but it had a single commonality between all:

“It may spark something in them,” said Miner.