Every year, HHS welcomes new students and staff members into our school’s family. This year, our school’s guidance department has gained a new member — Aimee Thomson.

You may have seen emails from her in your inbox and if you didn’t recognize her name, she is HHS’s new College and Career Counselor. Every day, she meets with students, mostly juniors and seniors, to assist in the process of planning future college and career paths.

Thomson spoke of her passion for counseling and college and career planning, but she did not start off her own academic career with this path in mind. As an undergraduate student at Rutgers, Thomson studied computer programming but quickly found that she disliked it. Eventually, she found an interest in college admissions and started building her career from there.

Later, as a student herself at Rider University, Thomson worked with prospective students during the admissions process and found herself enjoying her newly chosen path. She went on to work in admissions at Rider for seven years and even traveled to different parts of the world to work with international students.

Most recently, Thomson worked at Delaware Valley Regional High School in New Jersey as a counselor for six years. But what made her choose Hillsborough, aside from it being greater in both size and diversity than her last school, was the unique combination of guidance and admissions opportunities offered to her.

Thomson spoke passionately about how she enjoys all parts of her position here at HHS. She enjoys her larger-scale responsibilities like planning and scheduling events like college visits,  but she was sure to include her appreciation for the more nuanced parts of her job — meeting directly with individual students and figuring out the schedules that work best for them in developing their futures.

For all students at Hillsborough High School who are in the process of figuring out what to do in the future, it is a great benefit to have a College and Career Counselor so passionate about every part of her job who is always just an email away.

In preparing for these coming years, students and families may be dealing with a great deal of stress and nerves, but Thomson encourages us to always reach out if we need help, but above all to just breathe.

“Things are going to work out the way they should,” Thomson said. “Even if it doesn’t seem like it on October 31st.”