Starting in the middle of the 2018 – 2019 school year, Ms. Lauren Ficker came in as our new and official College and Career Advising Counselor. Ficker helps the senior students with getting ready for life after high school, and the different paths that every student can go down. She also conferences with the juniors and other grades in order to educate them on what they can do after high school, and helps them narrow down their goals. 

For Ficker’s own goals, she wants to stay in education while making bigger systematic changes. “I like working one-on-one with students and individually with what they want to do, so I think I might do that for a little while longer, but eventually I think I do want to get to the bigger problems of how can we make a solution for a lot of students at once – for different problems that they have,” said Ficker.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Truman University, and after graduating, she started working at an ecommerce company afterward. After working there for a while, she went back to Truman to further her career and education, and worked as an admissions counselor. “I traveled to different high schools, went to college fairs, recruited students to go to Truman… I was kind of in this realm a little bit. I went to high schools that had college advisors with the program and one of the advisors, while visiting their high school, told me about the open position,” stated Ficker.

This is her first full year at HHS, and she has been able to really connect with students this year, as well as lead the College Ambassadors – a club with juniors that helps organize and set up college fair events and help the college counselor. She has reached out to students to plan out what they should prepare for after high school, and has given advice to all of the students.

“Ms. Ficker has been very helpful in helping me decide what I want to do after high school. She has made sure that the decision I have chosen is the one that I truly want. Ms. Ficker has also helped provide me with information that I need to go on the path that I desire,” said senior Jamielou Rottnek. 

However, Ficker isn’t just the HHS College and Career Advisor, she has a variety of interests and outside activities that she does. She is currently still getting her education with the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse online and is graduating this May. In her free time, she likes to read, as well as go on hikes. She would like to travel the US and go to all of the national parks, especially those in the West. Furthermore, she has a cat named Luna that is “super cute, she’s super fat, she’s not super social…” 

Although she doesn’t have much free time, she tries to spend it doing the most she can in the day. The unexpected course in her career brought her to HHS in order to bring clarity to students, and she has seen many new career options and aspects to life. Ficker is still figuring out how she wants to go forward with her career, and she is very thankful for having the opportunity to be a college and career counselor for HHS.