Briarcliff HS Alumni Return to Share Paths to Success

From Syntax PR: Briarcliff High School juniors and seniors were treated to a special visit from 18 alumni on Nov. 23 as part of the school’s 4th annual Alumni Career Experience.

Each graduate provided a unique perspective on their post-high school experience and current students soon learned there was a common message: everyone has their own path.

“This is an amazingly diverse panel,” said Meredith Safer, the school’s coordinator of counseling. “Their paths are all very different.”

The alumni provided brief summaries of their educational and professional lives since leaving BHS, which ranged from attending Ivy League institutions to dropping out of college to start businesses and pivoting to studying to become clergy. The current and former students later broke out into smaller groups to share ideas and ask questions.

Samantha Kahn (BHS ’10) said she struggled to find her career path, transitioning from business to becoming an actress.

“It’s really okay to have different strengths and weaknesses than the people around you,” she said.
Many of her fellow alumni echoed that sentiment.

“You can reinvent yourself in college and the workforce,” said John Silligns (’07), who said he wasn’t the strongest academic student in high school. Now he works in investment management.

Siblings David Kim (’07) and Laura Kim (’09) joked about how different they were in high school. David, who also said he wasn’t a strong student at BHS, attended SUNY Albany and then went to law school at Georgetown University. Academics came more easily to Laura, who attended Harvard University. She is now a management consultant.

David encouraged the students to take time to “self-reflect” in college. His decision to attend law school led him to a career as a corporate attorney.

“It’s all about the last thing you did,” he said.

Photos courtesy of Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District