You clutch your shiny new diploma and walk off the graduation stage in your cap and gown. Your time in high school is over, and you’re ready to start new adventures: a mission, college, or something else? The world is your oyster! But wait – what about all of those friends you left behind, who still have a year or more in high school? They want to know what you’re up to! We interviewed a few AHS Alumni to see where life has taken them since they stepped off that stage!

2020 graduate Ellie Maughn says that life is “so, so good right now!”. After spending a year studying psychology at BYU, she was called to serve a mission in the England Birmingham Mission in Swansea, Wales. “I can attest to everything people say about a mission being crazy, but the best thing ever! [I have] literally never been happier. There’s something so special about a mission – 10/10 would recommend.”

Maggie Crawford graduated from American Heritage in 2018, and is set to graduate from University of North Texas with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Drawing, Painting, Metalsmithing, and Jewelry Making with a Minor in Art History this coming May! She says that “In high school, I thought that college students magically knew what they were doing. When I was a freshman [in college], I would look at the seniors and think, ‘what experienced adults!’, but now I’m a senior and I’m just as unsure as ever! I’ve had to learn that how you accomplish great things is by screaming and messing up the whole way. Nothing is as rushed as people make it sound – it’s good to take your time.” 

BYU Piano-Organ Performance Major Nathaniel Bischoff graduated in 2021. Still making time for his other interests, Nathaniel has learned how to play the bass guitar and is a member of the BYU Ballroom Dance Company. His advice for current high school students is to “Laugh as much as you can. Put effort into your studies without letting it eat you alive. And stay close to God. That’s the most important thing. Without God in your life, your future is a frozen soil, clouded steppe, with no landmarks, flowers, and no change as far as the eye can see. He gives life meaning.”