MOBILE, Ala. — Seniors at B.C. Rain High School recently got a crash course in adult life at the school’s first Senior Fest, where local entrepreneurs and career professionals sat on panels and fielded students’ questions about money, jobs and what comes after graduation. The event, built around the theme “Food, Future, Finances, Freedom,” ended with lunch from food trucks and time for classmates to celebrate together.
Organizers said they hope the inaugural Senior Fest becomes a yearly tradition at the Dauphin Island Parkway school and that the idea spreads to other high schools in Mobile County.
Real questions, practical answers
The panelists, a mix of business owners and professionals from a range of fields, answered students’ questions about obstacles they might face once they leave high school and how to get past them. Topics included building credit, managing money and the variety of career paths available, including jobs that do not require a college degree.
Marissa Davis, a junior who serves as a student ambassador, said the discussion raised subjects she had not considered before.
“It showed us things that we need to think about. Something that I didn’t think about was like credit, and something that I didn’t think about was like jobs that don’t require going to school. So, it just showed us, like, different perspectives of adult life,” Davis said.
Senior Jabar Armstrong said he would like to see the event continue.
“All the Black excellence up here, I think they should continue on and every year we should have this because it’s some good information out here,” Armstrong said.
Lessons for a future entrepreneur
Armstrong plans to attend college and later start his own business. He said he understands that entrepreneurs face setbacks, and that one piece of advice from the panel stuck with him: failure is part of the process, as long as you learn from it.
“Never be afraid to go do it and fail, to always take a lesson from what I failed at, so not just to take the L, take something, learn from the L,” Armstrong said.
That message echoes guidance small business advisers commonly give new owners. Many new businesses go through early stumbles, and owners who track what went wrong and adjust tend to be better positioned the next time. Free resources for aspiring entrepreneurs in the Mobile area include the Alabama Small Business Development Center network, the U.S. Small Business Administration and local business incubators such as the University of South Alabama’s Innovation Portal.
Connecting students with their community
Teacher Demetria Hendrix said the goal of Senior Fest was to show students how many people in their own city want to help them succeed.
“I just wanted them to be able to connect with community partners and let them know that it’s a lot of people right here in Mobile, Alabama, that are willing to pour into them and make sure that they’re successful,” Hendrix said.
Events that bring working adults into schools can give students something a textbook cannot: a chance to ask direct questions of people who have recently faced the same decisions. For students who may be the first in their families to navigate college applications, loans, a first apartment or a business license, those conversations can make the next steps feel more manageable.
The four F’s: what students heard about
The event’s four-part theme gave a framework for the topics that matter most to students about to leave home. While the specific advice varied by panelist, the themes line up with the questions many graduating seniors face:
- Food: Learning to budget for groceries and meals, and in this case, sharing a meal from local food trucks with classmates.
- Future: Choosing a path after graduation, whether that is a four-year college, community college, a trade, the military or going straight to work.
- Finances: Understanding credit, budgeting, saving and avoiding debt that can be hard to escape.
- Freedom: Handling the independence and responsibility that come with adulthood.
Credit basics for new graduates
Davis singled out credit as something she had not thought about, and it is a topic many young adults first encounter only when they apply for an apartment, a car loan or a credit card. A few basics can help:
- A credit score is a number, commonly on a scale from 300 to 850, that lenders use to judge how likely someone is to repay borrowed money.
- Paying bills on time is one of the most important factors in building a strong score.
- Keeping credit card balances low compared with the card’s limit also helps.
- Everyone is entitled to free copies of their credit reports, which can be requested through AnnualCreditReport.com, the site authorized by federal law.
- Landlords, insurers and some employers may look at credit history, so a good record can make life easier well beyond borrowing.
Alabama students already get some exposure to these topics. The state requires high school students to complete a Career Preparedness course that covers academic planning, career development and financial literacy before they graduate.
Careers that do not require a four-year degree
The other topic Davis highlighted, jobs that do not require more years of school, is a growing focus for educators across the region. Many well-paying careers in the Mobile area, including skilled trades, maritime and shipbuilding work, health care support roles, logistics and manufacturing, can be entered through apprenticeships, short-term certificate programs or on-the-job training.
Mobile County Public Schools offers career academies and career-technical programs at its high schools, and community colleges in the area, including Bishop State Community College in Mobile, offer technical programs and workforce training for graduates who want to move quickly into a job.
About B.C. Rain High School
Ben C. Rain High School, known as B.C. Rain, is a Mobile County Public Schools high school on Dauphin Island Parkway in south Mobile. Its teams are known as the Red Raiders, and the school’s colors are red and gray. In 2023 the school opened a new on-campus stadium named for Ben Glover, a longtime teacher, coach and principal known in the community as a “Parkway legend.”
The school counts among its alumni several professional athletes, including NFL offensive lineman Rodney Hudson. The Red Raiders compete in Class 5A football.
Looking ahead
After the panels wrapped up, students lined up at the food trucks and spent the rest of the time with their classmates, adding another memory to their final year of high school.
For organizers, the measure of the first Senior Fest will be whether it returns next year and whether other schools follow. They have said they would like to see the event held again at B.C. Rain and at other high schools across Mobile County.
