As the seniors of Malden High School persevere through their last year of high school, many have to come to the decision of what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Some pursue further education, some join the military, and others settle down. For those seniors who know what they want to do for post-secondary education, an Instagram page, known as @malden24commits, was created.
The purpose of this page is to commend those who have made it this far and who will go on to achieve great things once the next school year comes around. The @malden24commits page on Instagram is run by Shuyi Chen, Social Media Coordinator for the co '24 and Lead Reporter for The Blue and Gold, and Keira Lin, another Social Media Coordinator for the co ‘24 and a GBL All-Star. The page displays many posts with a custom graphic design that contains an image of the student with the school colors of the college they are choosing to attend, and the major that they have chosen to study.
“I noticed a couple of co ‘24 college commitments whilst browsing through Instagram and realized that a lot of these accounts had the same design for every post,” stated Lin. And so, she “decided that I didn’t want that to be the case for our school as I wanted everyone’s college commitment post to be special. I also thought it could be a way to celebrate our class and our accomplishments and even motivate people to aim for top schools.”
Lin added that because “I am also passionate [about] graphic design as a side hobby,” she thought the activity would be “fun and something I could do in my free time in between classes and assignments.”
So far, a few people have already made the big decision of what college they will be attending in the fall and have picked a major to excel in. For example, co ‘24 Event Coordinator Tyler Edmond has already been featured on the page.
Having committed to UMASS Lowell and majoring in Nursing, Edmond believes that “this page plays a vital role in fostering a sense of school spirit and community by honoring the goals that our classmates have for the future, no matter which path they choose.”
He also stated “I am proud and overwhelmingly thrilled about having publicly declared my commitment to UMass Lowell in Nursing. I can relieve some of my senior year's burden by committing to where I would continue my education for the next four years, having applied to eight universities in October and been accepted to all of them.”
Senior Yuxin Zeng also shared her achievement on the page. Zeng explained that “the way I applied for colleges was a bit different from others as I did it through the Questbridge College Match,” a nonprofit scholarship program, “and the ‘match’ process follows a ranking of colleges and universities that I'm interested in attending.”
She decided to include Tufts University on her list as, “it was within proximity to my family and it has fairly decent engineering programs. I chose to apply with a computer engineering major as I'd taken an interest in computer science through my extracurriculars and classes but wanted a future career in both hardware and software.”
She attributed her choice to the Questbridge program, which “‘matched’ me with the highest-ranked school out of the schools that have accepted me–which happened to be Tufts!” Yuxin also stated that she believes the page “helps students celebrate each other's achievements and understand more about peers' future aspirations.”
Senior Aaryan Kumar recently committed to Boston University for Computer Science, “I have been studying computer science for years in high school and considering the classes they offer I felt like BU would be the perfect college for me. Thus, I decided to apply early decision to Boston University with Computer Science as my major.”
Kumar chose to submit his photo to the page as he was encouraged by a friend who helped run the page, “I learned about the MHS commits page because my friend runs it. When I first saw the page I thought that it was a really good idea. It gives students a chance to learn about their classmates and display their achievements to the school.”
As midterms pass and it seems as though time begins to accelerate during these last few months of the school year, the seniors come to a difficult decision to face. For those who are immensely proud of their decision and want to share it to their online community, this commits page is here to commemorate those who have managed to make it through these four years and leave content with the image they leave behind.
