AVID Excitement, Part I: A Peek at the Future

(Keep an eye out for Part II on the North Marion School District website!)

By Jillian Daley

North Marion Middle School students are already mapping out their careers in seventh grade!

The Middle School’s new elective, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), encourages students to create college and career goals. Seventh-grader Eman Hussein says that, because of the AVID Elective Class, she’s now realizing she could have a career in interior design, and she dreams of attending Otis College of Art and Design in California. 

“Once I joined this class, they said: ‘you could become successful in life,’” Hussein said. “It made me happy thinking I could have a good future.”

One of the strategies has been affording the seventh-graders in the class the chance to explore potential careers through guest speaker visits and field trips. Since AVID is designed to inspire students to achieve their greatest potential, college is a major focus. The students traveled to the University of Oregon in Eugene on Feb. 18, Oregon State University in Corvallis on March 4 and to Oregon Institute of Technology’s campus in Wilsonville on March 18. 

If the idea behind the college trips is to inspire Landry’s seventh-grade AVID Elective Class to think about their future and to learn all that’s possible — it seems to be working.

“They help us find colleges that we are interested in and help us get ready for our life ahead,” AVID student Jedediah McGee said.

Exploring Their Future

AVID student Katelyn Buchnoff — who dreams of becoming a therapist, a lawyer, or a dental hygienist — said that she loved visiting the U of O and seeing what the people and the classes were like.

“I’m excited for any field trip, and I also like viewing all of my options,” Katelynn explained.

Seventh-grader Star Hernandez’s favorite part was strolling through the vibrant green campus at the U of O. She now plans to attend either George Fox University in Newberg or the U of O, and to study early childhood education.

“I’ve always loved being around little kids, and I also like helping people, so I thought teaching little kids would be a great way to do both,” Hernandez said.

AVID student Xenia King is inspired to attend veterinary school at Purdue University in Indiana, and the class helped her figure out her goals.

Without her AVID class, she said she “probably would have been unorganized” and would not have known what college she “wanted to go to until high school.”

These visits also showed students what being on a college campus is like, and seventh-grader Bryan Morales said he especially loved the U of O.

“It had VR [virtual reality], so you could see the whole campus,” Morales explained.

Now, he’d like to be a business major there and, someday, a lawyer. He was not the only fan of U of O.

“The U of O, that was really cool,” noted AVID student Brianna Burgess. “It’s a really big campus. I didn’t expect campuses to be that big, but it was still really fun.”

She’s looking for a college where she can explore her budding interest in 3-D printing and digital art. 

AVID student Trenton Righter, on the other hand, was all about OSU and the broadcasting major that’s available there. He says that AVID has changed his life already.

“I feel very lucky,” Righter said. “Before I came here, I was focusing on being a professional baseball player. Now I’m focusing on broadcasting and writing and all the teachers, including Ms. Landry, helped me with that.”

To share stories on the North Marion School District, email Communications Specialist Jillian Daley at jillian.daley@nmarion.k12.or.us.