Surrey High School graduation will take place at the school on Sunday, May 19, at 1 p.m.

Gilberg has attended Surrey Public School since preschool, making for 14 years inside the school’s walls. She said the thing that makes graduation bittersweet is she is going to miss all the friends she made within those walls, leaving them all behind as the next chapter to their lives begins.

In the fall, she will attend Minot State University for a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and rehabilitation. Her aspiration is to be an occupational therapist, preferably on the pediatric side.

“I like helping people, and I found that this is the best way I can help people of all ages,” Gilberg said.

Kaitlyn Reiter

The bachelor’s degree will require around four years, then she will have to do a clinical before considering her degree complete. A doctorate is next in her book.

She is thinking she may attend the University of North Dakota for her doctorate, but the college she attends will depend on where she is in her life when she gets to that point.

She would like to move away from North Dakota when she gets her doctorate degree. If she does not like it, she can always move back home. The two places she would choose to go would be south, near Arizona, or North Carolina.

Seniors were given a chance to job shadow at a place where they could potentially work in their desired field, and Gilberg shadowed a pediatric occupational therapist.

“I really enjoyed the interactions and how you could do therapy through play,” Gilberg said.

Reiter is planning on working with children, too, but in a much different capacity. She wants to become a speech pathologist.

She, too, wants to enroll at MSU, thinking she will have five or six years of study. Her first degree will be a bachelor’s in communication sciences and disorders, and then she will go for her master’s in speech pathology.

Like Gilberg, Reiter wants to stay close to her family. She is planning to stay at home for the first year or two before potentially venturing out on her own.

She is currently employed at Somerset Court as its receptionist. She already has experience working around the older end of those who need assistance with speech, so she wants to get acquainted with the younger end and help children who are having trouble.

After finishing her degrees, she would prefer to stay close to home. However, if an opportunity out of state presents itself, she will not turn it down.

Both Gilberg and Reiter took dual credit classes to finish their university general education classes during their senior year at Surrey High School. At MSU, they will jump right into the classes that will lead them to their careers.