Amphi High students prepare for college, jobs

In a computer lab at Amphitheater High School, seniors were focused on their screens, each filling out a college application with the help of teachers and advisors.

“I definitely feel more prepared and ready,” said Mackenzie Chamberlain, who is applying to Arizona State University and Pima Community College to study criminology.

Across the campus at Panther Hall, students were moving from one station to another, receiving information about jobs, participating in mock interviews and hearing from human resources directors about what they look for in a candidate.

“I want to see how it feels to get ready for whenever I start working,” said Venuste Imanirumva, who is a senior but not graduating this school year. He eventually wants to go to college to study aircraft engineering and work part-time.

All Amphitheater High seniors participated in either filling out college applications or learning job interview skills as part of the school’s effort to support students after graduation.

The college application portion of the event is part of a statewide campaign by the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education to get high school seniors to attend college.

Nearly 50 schools in the state are participating in the Arizona College Application Campaign, or AzCAC, including some Tucson-area schools. The campaign provides framework for schools to host events such as this one.

“Our mission was to actually make this into a celebration,” said Glenda Arffa, assistant principal at the high school, who organized the event.

The University of Arizona’s “Bear Down” fight song was playing as students filled out their applications. Businesses donated gift cards to offer to students as incentives.

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The event was Thursday, but the process began six weeks ago, Arffa said. The school’s staff along with advisors from universities provided resources on what documents and information the students will need to fill out their college applications.

About a quarter of Amphitheater High’s students lack Internet access at home, and some students are first-generation college students with no help from parents, she said. This campaign was necessary to create a “college-bound” culture, she added.

There are also a lot of myths about going to college, Arffa said. Some students think they can’t go to college because they can’t afford it and don’t know about scholarships and federal financial aid.

“We’re trying to blast those myths,” she said.

The school hoped to change that by being a part of the statewide campaign, and took one step further to include job training, mock interviews and guest speakers for seniors who are not graduating on time or don’t want to go to college.

The school wanted to provide “somewhere for all the kids to go to learn a valuable skill,” Arffa said.

Imanirumva, the senior who went to the mock interview, learned some of those valuable skills. He said he learned about what kinds of questions interviewers ask and what he should do and not do.

Chamberlain, the senior who wants to study criminology, said the application process would have been a “disaster” without all the help she got from the campaign.

“I do think it makes applying a lot easier,” she said.