Students Look Toward Future at College Fair

Annie Escalona sat on the basketball bleachers chatting with her mom, a stack of college and military pamphlets nearby.

The 17-year-old had dreamed of honing her designing skills at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, but the idea of her daughter living on the Los Angeles-based campus was too much for her mother. It scared her, Elizza Escalona said.

In the end, Annie decided that something closer to home would be more fitting and lucky for her both FIDM and California State University, San Marcos had booths set up during the Murrieta Valley Unified School District college fair Monday at .

“They (the college fairs) help a lot,” Annie said. “They kind of make you decide exactly what you want because you see a whole range (of options).”

For Rachel Keller, decked out in a green University of Oregon T-Shirt and flanked by a group of chatty, energetic friends, that option is becoming a Duck. The VMHS senior visited the Eugene campus recently and fell in love.

While Rachel has her eyes set on one specific campus, her friends are more indecisive. Pointing to the mountain of colorful pamphlets cradled in her arms, Kalani Phillips said she checked out many of the booths at the college fair, such as the Universities of California, San Diego and Irvine, but had yet to decide on one school.

At least 42 institutions were available to students at the fair, including local Mt. San Jacinto College.

While college may be the first choice for some students, others might go the military route. Students crowded around the military booths at the college fair, which included the U.S. Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy.

But as Army Staff Sgt. Nelson Avalos explained, choosing the Army doesn’t mean forgoing college.

“Some people think of the Army and just think of war,” he said. “We give them an option. We’re very versatile.”

Avalos said he uses the college and job fairs he hosts throughout Southern California as an opportunity to educate high school students on the multitude of options available for young men and women through the military.

Soldiers receive money for tuition assistance and can learn a variety of career-based skills through the military, he said.

Lucas Skinner, chatted with Avalos while filling out an information card. The 17-year-old junior, has his sights set on a military career.

“My parents are totally against it,” he said, explaining that the idea worries them. “(But) I always wanted to fly planes. I always just thought the military would be the way…it’s something bigger than me.”

His family isn’t anti-military, Lucas said, it’s just that for them the military was something they were forced into through the Vietnam draft.

“For me though, it’s different,” he said. “I want to do it.”

Taylor Cassidy is also setting up her road map to the future. The VMHS junior already knows that she wants to major in pre-medicine, attend medical school and become a family practitioner.

Taylor and her mother picked up brochures from the Azusa Pacific University booth after chatting with Alexandra Born, the flaxen-haired recruiter. 

During their talk, Taylor was excited to learn that four times a year prospective students can spend the weekend in the dorms and experience the school firsthand.

“I really want to do it,” she said, looking at her mom.

Stephanie Cassidy, who also has a son in his senior year, said the college fairs are ideal because they allow you to actually converse with individuals from the various schools.

Even better, she said, it that some institutions, such as Azusa, send their own students as representatives.

“My boss always says that we have more credibility than him,” said Born, the Azusa Pacific student manning the VMHS booth.  “(He says) ‘you’re living it.’ ”