Back To School

About a week and a half ago, I got the opportunity to return to my high school for the first time in twenty years - and not just to visit, but to speak to a class about social media. If you ever have the opportunity to do the same, I highly recommend it. Despite all of the changes over the years -- both to the school and me -- as I walked through those doors, there was a flood of memories and it was as though only weeks had passed. 

High school can be awkward and challenging at times, but it's also a formative period where the pieces just begin to fall into place as you start that transition into your adult self. You begin to see some glimpses of clarity through all the unfamiliarity. For me, high school was when the Internet first became a thing and I learned that no longer was I constrained to the small town I lived in, but I could now talk with people who had similar interests wherever they lived in the world. I couldn't believe there were hundreds - even thousands - of people who could quote the same horror movies verbatim as me! I didn’t have to tailor my interests to those of the people within close proximity of me if I wanted a place to belong. And if I had a hunger for knowledge about anything, I could feed that curiosity. My interests and passions grew exponentially at that time. It was these early days of bulletin boards and forums when I knew this was where everything was headed and that nothing would ever be the same. Bulletin Boards ended up being the precursor to social media. 

And now here I am. With a wife I met almost ten years ago and despite despite living 800 miles apart at the time, thanks to social media, were still able to connect over a common love of puns — me making them, and Aimee rolling her eyes at me making them. And here I am, also lucky enough to have a career centered around something I love to use and truly believe in having the power to change lives. After all, I’m living proof of it.

So to be able to return to my high school and then talk to students who looked just like me twenty plus years ago, and show them that they have every opportunity to turn a passion into a career … man, that warmed my soul. The students were engaged, asked amazing questions, and I genuinely saw them look at something they used every single day in another light. I’m so proud of Kettle Moraine School District and Tom Neave for offering a class around social media from the business and marketing side. There are a number of colleges that still don’t offer this level of teaching and experience. So the fact that my former school is one of the schools leading the way for the next generation to go into college with a leg up, it just makes me so proud to come from there.

Try it some time. Reach out to your old high school or your college and see if there’s an opportunity to do the same. You just may have an impact on a student you’ll never realize. And I promise you that you’ll leave feeling motivated and invigorated.