Five years after throwing their graduation caps into the air and leaving Chamblee High School, these college graduates are looking back at their high school years. Although their high school experience got interrupted by a global pandemic, many of them still remembered their time at Chamblee fondly.
“I built really strong friendships in high school, and I just have so many memories of laughing about inside jokes and hitting the Vintage Pizzeria down the street after school,” said Catherine Cossaboom (‘21).
Cossaboom graduated from the University of Virginia and [is now] getting her Masters in research.
Chamblee has been a school known as having a highly diverse student population.
“The [diverse] community that we had at Chamblee really created a good environment to be in,” said Molly Silverman (‘21).
Silverman recently graduated from University of Georgia and is now working as a medical assistant in a pediatric office, and, in May, she will start at physician’s assistant school. Now that these graduates have finished their four years of college and are moving on in life, many look back at their high school years and the choices they made along the way that shaped who they are today.
Because their junior and senior years of high school were almost completely online, most graduates didn’t have many of the big events such as prom or football games.
“I remember a lot of the smaller things, like watching The Simpsons in Coach K’s AP Psych class, or reading King of the World with Dr. Demer,” says James Hardy (‘21).
James recently earned a degree in Public Policy from Brown University.
Throughout high school, students are offered a multitude of core and elective classes to choose from, one of which is joining the school’s newspaper class.
“One of the best choices [I made in high school] was taking Journalism, which teaches you how to engage with other people and learn more about your surroundings,” said Iris Tsouris (‘21).
What started out as an outbreak in China in late 2019 while these students were in their junior year, COVID-19 ended up shutting school systems down on March 13, 2020. All in-person classes switched to online assignments and zoom classes within a week. What people thought would be a short time working and schooling from home blossomed into a year of online school and quarantine.
Finally, on March 11, 2021, students had the opportunity to come back to school with masking and social distancing policies in place to ensure student health and safety.
“It was scary because everyone was so uncertain about the situation, but it was honestly enjoyable in some ways because the pace of school changed so much,” says Lucy Roberts (‘21).
According to College Board, the pandemic had significant effects on education, including a significant drop in college readiness and retention rates for highschoolers.
“I didn’t feel prepared [for college] until my senior year of high school,” says Eyddies Rios (‘21).
Even still, Chamblee is ranked third in high schools in DeKalb County School District, with a graduation rate of 84%, and a ranking of #27 in the state of Georgia for college readiness.
“Chamblee was so academically rigorous that lots of things felt easy compared to it once I was out of high school,” said Roberts.
Due to school mainly being online for half of the graduates’ high school careers, they did not get as much face-to-face interaction as other classes.
“Socially I wasn’t as prepared for college as I thought I would be,” said Silverman. “It’s hard going back to in-person [schooling] for anyone, no matter how social you are.”
Going to college involves many new changes, people, workload, and independence.
“It’s definitely a huge adjustment because you’re changing the entire structure of your life; you’re living in a communal environment,” said Tsouris.
Such conditions led these students to try new things in college.
“I just ended up doing a lot of things I didn’t expect,” said Cossaboon. “I went to Utah for a week my first year on an outdoor service trip, and I slept on the ground at eight degrees fahrenheit.”
When these opportunities arise, college students are exposed to new things, and their hopes and dreams for life can change.
“I always thought I wanted to be a doctor,” said Silverman. “My sophomore year, I found out about the physician’s assistant profession and realized that is what I wanted to do.”
Although most students choose to stay in the country for college, Roberts wanted something completely different.
“I ended up going to university in the Czech Republic,” said Roberts. “When you apply to universities in Europe, they don’t look for anything that American universities look for. All I had to do was take an entrance exam, which involved reading and analyzing a philosophical text.”
In foreign countries, schools put foreign applicants through a process called nostrification: an evaluation in which schools determine if your previous education is on the same level with the country’s education. Since Roberts didn’t know she wanted to go to college outside of the United States until later in her high school career, she worked to meet all the marks that American universities look for; however, colleges such as the one she attended in the Czech Republic had different requirements.
“If I had known this was the path I wanted earlier, I could have saved myself a lot of stress,” said Roberts.
While in college, Roberts taught English to other students. She felt called to do something more fulfilling, but the job market wasn’t exactly in her favor.
“It took me eight months to find another job; it honestly is just luck,” said Roberts.
Overall, the college graduating Class of 2025 has had an overall decline in the employment rate in comparison to the graduating Class of 2024 according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
“I thankfully found my job before graduation, but we have the highest unemployment rate since the recession,” said Hardy.
However, not everybody fresh out of college have been as lucky finding work.
“Many of my friends and family have shared the difficulties of finding a job due to their lack of experience in the work field, or AI replacing some jobs,” said Rios.
Many graduates are also trying to obtain higher education after their four-year bachelors program, but this comes at a high price.
“I wanted to go to graduate school, but my funding was cut in half, so I had to find another solution,” said Tsouris. “I applied to many service jobs, and I was placed [to work for the] Iowa City government.”
Five years ago, Cossaboom and Tsouris were staff members at Chamblee’s Blue and Gold newspaper. In their staff bios on the Blue and Gold website, they were asked where they hope to be in five years. Cossaboom said, in 2021, that in five years, she hoped to be traveling across the country, running math circles, writing columns, and turning math into a performance art to empower girls to take on the world’s problems.
“I have traveled around the country and the world. I’ve spoken at so many conferences, I also ran an organization for women in math at the University of Virginia. But this grand vision I have of turning math into performance art, whatever that meant to younger Catherine, is not all the way there yet,” said Cossaboom.
As for Tsouris, she said that in five years, she hoped to be caring for a herd of cattle while making art in an obscure Swiss village.
“Well, I’m not caring for a herd of cattle. I am caring for one cat, and I’m still making art. Although I’m not in an obscure Swiss village, I am in Iowa, which can be considered obscure, I think,” said Tsouris. “In my opinion, I have fulfilled my five years quote just in a slightly different way.”
As these CHS alumni reflect on the past four years in college and the previous four years as highschoolers, they are able to see just how much Chamblee High School impacted them.
