The student body at Akins was given the opportunity to become a part of a new tradition recently.

Focus On Your Future was a day for students to explore their options on what to do after their time in high school. It’s main focus was to en- courage and inform students on what it takes to make it to college and the people behind this event created designated areas around campus to fulfill this idea.

“I found all the colleges really interesting [and had the] chance to look around and see which colleges had the best medical major since that’s the career that I want to get into,” freshman Heidy Fuentes said.

College and Career Counselor Sarah Simmons wanted to reach beyond the juniors and seniors she typically reaches so students will begin thinking about college sooner.

“I really wanted there to be a school-wide event so everyone on campus had just one day to think about life after high school,” Simmons said.

Throughout Focus On Your Future Day most of the campus was surrounded by college representatives of all sorts, including admissions and Akins alumni who are currently attending college. Students had the opportunity to have a look into the different programs and benefits that each individual college had to offer.

“It was a good experience for me. It made me start thinking about what college I want to go to,” sophomore Fernando Gonzalez said.

One of the greatest impediments for students to attend college is their fear of paying for college. So every student attended a session in which Ivanna Crippa from Breakthrough Austin, explained how to “make it rain” with scoring scholarships, grants and subsidized loans for college.

“I found focus on your future helpful because I didn’t know that we had to fill out a FAFSA in order to get scholarships,” junior Stephanie Calleros said.

Crippa explained the basics of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which all students must complete to be eligible to receive “free money” to pay for college.

“Every year I have students that they’re like ‘Oh, the FAFSA is for poor kids,’ or ‘I don’t need to do that, my parents make too much money,’ or ‘I don’t want to do the FAFSA, they are only going to offer me a loan.’ What they don’t know is if you don’t fill this out, yeah you won’t be offered a loan, but you’re also going to miss out on scholarship, grants, and work study,” Simmons said.

Former Akins students Malcolm Canada and Yolanzo Moore came back as motivational speakers after playing college basketball and graduating with their college degrees this year. Canada shared his personal story about the troubles that he went through as a kid and how he overcame a rough life and took too long to focus on his grades.

“It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized it was too late, it was done. By the time you try to get your grades up senior year it’s too late,” Canada said.