In keeping with a Florida Council of Independent Schools mandate that member schools take stock of the success of their alumni during their college years, the Saint Stephen’s Alumni Office distributed a survey last summer to the SSES graduating class of 2017. The survey was designed to ascertain how many members completed their higher education within four years, and to elicit alumni opinion on the effectiveness of our college preparatory curriculum. The bulk of the class was slated to graduate from college in 2021, but no one could foresee when this group headed off in fall 2017 that a pandemic would impact their campus life and upend usual timelines for graduation for many.

The Class of 2017 included 78 graduates and, as of September, 72 had responded to our survey. To date, 42 class members graduated from college in or before 2021. Three alumni graduated in just three years. Thirteen members of the Class of 2017 transferred from their original college destination. This higher-than-usual number of transfers undoubtedly reflects the impact of COVID-19.

All of the graduates distinguished themselves during their college years. Some of the highlights include:

• A Penn State alumnus graduated with a 3.99 GPA and is now pursuing a master’s degree in Enterprise Risk Management at Columbia.
• A former Falcon will attend Harvard Law School next fall after graduating from Columbia with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science.
• A University of Tampa finance graduate now works at PricewaterhouseCoopers as an Anti-Money Laundering Analyst.
• An alumna graduating from Princeton with an A.B. in Public Policy now works in Washington, D.C. as a financial analyst at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• A grad from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) with a degree in art history and Middle Eastern studies who is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia.

Among those who are still pursuing their degrees are a Georgetown student who plays football and studies sociology and theology, a former SSES thespian who is now a junior at New York University majoring in theater after a two-year hiatus, and a mechanical engineering major at USF who is the chief engineer for Bulls Racing Formula SAE Team.

Look for a complete rundown of where the Class of 2017 is now in the fall/winter edition of Saint Stephen’s Magazine, publishing in December.