As College Week comes to an end, students on campus had a unique opportunity to continue their college exploration process with an HBCU panel during advisory on Thursday.

Students interested in higher education had the opportunity to visit with representatives from nine different Historically Black Colleges and Universities (or HBCUs), exploring college campus life, scholarship opportunities, and alumni’s personal experiences.

“My favorite part [of the event] is meeting all the HBCU alumni that come and help me with the panel,” teacher Yasmine Secrist said. “So, getting to meet people from Langston, Howard, Morehouse, Grambling, Prairie View. That’s so cool to me meeting people who also had similar experiences.”

For some students, the panel provided an opportunity to think ahead by looking at college through a different perspective: community.

“Personally, after hearing about the community aspect and just hearing about the networking opportunities and just hearing where they came from and how they got there, I think it could help me translate for later,” said junior Kyron France.

In addition, having panel members from such a variety of universities provided students the opportunity to hear different perspectives on campus life and career pathways

“I’m so happy that all these different people came out to share their experience at HBCUs,” HBCU alumni India Foster said. “I think it’s really important for high school students to understand that they have a variety of options. I saw a lot of people clapping and nodding their heads and agreeing. So I think that they took away some good gems and hopefully they, you know, take what they learned today and hopefully it influences their decisions for their future.”