Career and college adviser Krystal Brier sits in her narrow office, fingers typing quickly  over her keyboard to replying to student emails. She turns to take a drink of her water before replying to another email.

Fort Osage acquired a new college adviser for 2018-2020 school years. Ms. Krystal Brier is here to help students on the path toward achieving their post-secondary goals. Ms.Brier is a resource not only for college, but she said she is here for any goals students may have after high school.

“My goal is to help students discover themselves, find their passion, life purpose and take action,” Ms. Brier said.

Her role at Fort Osage is to connect with students and guide them in any way she can. College advisers are a relatively new resource for students at Fort Osage. Our previous college adviser, Ms. Payton Covert was here for the 2016-2018 school years.

“I think I would’ve benefited greatly from a college adviser in high school,” Ms. Brier said, “we are very useful resources.”

Senior Drake McGowan was impressed with Ms. Brier’s presentation to his English class.

“Her slideshow was cool to watch, she seems really nice,” McGowan said.

One of Mrs.Brier’s goals this year is to get more scholarship money for class of 2019, than class of 2018 got last year. Class of 2018 at Fort Osage received over $3.8 million in scholarship funds.

“My plan to beat last year’s amount is to advertise scholarships and show students scholarships of which they aren’t aware,” Ms. Brier said.

She encourages students to apply for any scholarships they qualify for. They can visit her web page at tinyurl.com/foadviser and follow her on Twitter at @FortOAdviser for information on scholarships.

Senior Ariana Napier visited Ms. Brier to aid her in college application.

“She is a great help with guidance over my future plans,” Napier said.

Ms. Brier is available anytime during the school day or after school with an appointment.  She is enjoying Fort Osage thus far.

“I really like it here,” she said. “The students and staff are awesome.”

Ms. Brier turns to look at her screen again, but remembers something. She grabs her phone to make a reminder Tweet to students about an upcoming college visit. Then it’s back to her computer screen to navigate to her college adviser website to update information.