High school is the final step everyone must take before going to college. This is where you’ll be figuring out your path in life and working hard to be successful. However, you might be feeling nervous. If you’re a student who’s already a high achiever, you may also be a little overwhelmed. This can be a great opportunity to acknowledge those feelings of anxiety and use them to your advantage. Instead of putting nervous energy into feeding your stress, you can use that same energy to get excited about preparing and executing this transition. Here are tips to help you succeed in high school.
Decide on a Degree
The first step to being a success in high school is to figure out what you want to do before it’s time to graduate. Planning for college ahead of time can help ensure you have a smooth transition. As you go through high school, you should take the time to determine what you want your degree to be. This can be a bit difficult for some students as there are many degrees to choose from. However, most people are able to narrow down their options by using their passions. For example, if you enjoy guiding others, you can look into various teaching degrees. Or, if you’re into health and nutrition, a Nutrition Science Bachelor of Science might be what you’re looking for.
Aim for a Scholarship
College can be pretty expensive, especially if you’re pursuing a high-end degree. Even if you’re only settling for a BA, you don’t want the costs getting in the way of your studies. That’s why it’s important for you to get the highest grades possible while you’re still in high school. There are college scholarships that are available that are essentially free money to help you cover the high costs of tuition. You can easily go online and apply for one with a search and application platform, where you can find the match that meets your financial needs.
Don’t Just Learn for Grades
Learning is how we ultimately grow as a person, but some students tend to get a little too ambitious. As you go through high school, don’t take the opportunity for granted and only learn for the sake of getting good grades. That’s not to say you shouldn’t strive for a high GPA, but you should learn with the goal of enriching yourself. You can start by building relationships with teachers, getting involved in clubs, or committees, or playing team sports.
Use this time to begin to figure out who you are, and who you want to be as a young adult. The period of your life that spans from the start of high school through the end of college is filled with transition and all the choices that you make in those formative years are going to be what lays the groundwork for the next phase of life. This is not meant to scare or overwhelm you, quite the opposite actually. When you are aware of the fact that today’s efforts lead to tomorrow’s results, you can learn where your strengths and weaknesses lie, and determine a course of action that feels authentic and manageable.
Don’t Forget the Fun
While you will have expectations and responsibilities at this stage, you also are still in many ways, a kid. Don’t forget to infuse your days with things that simply make you happy. Learning how to nurture yourself and feed your own soul is something that will serve you well throughout the course of your lifetime. High school is also a perfect time to take sensible risks in terms of figuring out what you do and do not like. For example, buying a skateboard at sixteen and finding out you actually do not enjoy this activity is very low risk, unlike buying a house later in life only to find out you despise the floorplan. Take advantage of the opportunity to explore trial and error with little to no consequence.
Use High School to Broaden Your Skills
The skills you learn in high school will be used during your college career, so it’s important that you use the opportunity to hone them. Here’s a brief list of skills you should learn:
- Time management
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Good communication
- Active listening
- Leadership
- Self-confidence
Even after you graduate college and go on to get your dream job, you can also expect to be using them during it. Time management and critical thinking are especially important to master. Time management is how you learn to delegate tasks and responsibilities. Critical thinking is how you’ll be assessing situations and potential problems.
