On Feb. 27, Alison Stotts, a member of the Mission Hills graduating Class of 2018, visited MHHS and provided plenty of valuable advice rooted in her experience here in addition to her journey after high school.
Stotts stated that she had a higher GPA and that one of the reasons she could maintain this academic focus was her involvement in clubs at Mission Hills.
“PLUS was a really good experience because we were able to sit down and communicate with [or support] each other and just say ‘Oh, I’m really sorry you’re going through that. How can we help?’ I am AP was fun as well; it definitely helped me with my AP classes [and] I made a lot of really great friends there too,” Stotts said.
Stotts works in the medical field and also deals with hiring. However, as a student at MHHS, she had a few different jobs and gained a great deal of insight into the workforce and about balancing school and work.
“I worked at Coldstone—it was my first real job. It was actually not horrible to manage [because] I would try to find a job that was willing to let you do part-time or even evening shifts. I definitely would say having either a physical planner or a planner on your phone—something to remind you how to keep track of things—would be really important [for school and work],” Stotts said.
Notwithstanding the challenges that come with AP courses and subsequent academically advanced material in tertiary education, Stotts has had a successful past year after graduating from college in 2023. One of the reasons she says propelled her toward this promising future was the support she received from teachers at Mission Hills, whom she wished to shout out in her interview.
“Mr. Bingham definitely helped me through quite a few of my rough patches—he saw me at my worst and at my best. Mrs. Markgraf is really great as well, she was also there for me to let me talk to her about things. Mrs. Soto was also there when I was really sick and she definitely made me feel okay to express myself and let her know how I was doing. All of the teachers here were really great,” Stotts said.
As lovely as it was to see revisit previous experiences at MHHS, one important takeaway from Stotts’ background and life up to this point is that through perseverance and the proper seeking out of help—which is easier due to the resources provided at Mission Hills—academic and practical challenges can always be overcome.
