Making the Transition: How To Prepare High School Students for College (and Life)

As depicted in pop culture, college can be a fun and exciting time. However, it can also be incredibly frightening for high school students to think about. With so many factors to consider, it’s a teacher’s duty to help his or her students investigate different paths for growth as they prepare for higher learning.

Here’s a list of the top six ways to help your students better prepare themselves for a life outside of high school.

• Create a Community of Research Champs

  Thanks to the internet, many students aren’t entering libraries to do their research anymore. However, learning how to properly cite a source is still important. In the modern classroom, you should teach the ability to evaluate websites for authority, find the original source (as opposed to sourcing an article that reports on the source) and find in-depth content on the Web with tools like Google scholar. Any answer can be found with the click of a mouse, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good answer.

• Encourage Mature Conduct

  College professors tend to be far less forgiving than their high school counterparts, and this sudden jarring change can surprise many students. Try to develop a strict yet fair atmosphere that simulates a college environment by starting class on time, discouraging the use of cell phones and holding office hours for students should they require your assistance. Additionally, one of the most neglected pieces of college preparation is the social aspect of college. You should also encourage your students to further develop social relationships with their peers through student organizations or organized sports — both are excellent ways to connect with other students in college.

• Expect Independent Accountability

  Similar to the previous section, teaching students to be accountable for their work will prepare them for college life. When students are in a class of 200, professors won’t track students down to make sure they all turned in papers or projects. Maintaining a strict homework and paper policy is tough love: It might hurt to give your students zeroes, but they will quickly learn to be accountable for their assignments and turn them in on ti

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• Teach Budgeting Skills

  There's never a bad time to learn how to budget your finances, and high school offers a great chance to help prepare students for living on their own while at school. Teach your students about how to plan their daily finances and how to plan out large expenditures such as tuition costs. Helping them to search for government-funded student aid or academic scholarships is a great way to encourage all your students to think more about college — even those who may feel that they are unable to afford it.

• Implement Real World Experience

  While addressing real world issues like handling finances, encourage students to begin to look for real world work experience, which can help them begin to understand where their true interests and passions lie. Encourage your students to find summer jobs or internships so they can see just how appealing different careers are; this experience will help them to select their majors in college. Many sources suggest searching for junior year experience, when students are old enough to drive and work in most states. This is also a good time period as there is one final year of high school to modify any decisions before graduation.

• Discourage Discouragement

  Given the high costs of education these days, it's very easy for high school students to become discouraged when thinking about trying to pay for college. As a teacher, it's your job to encourage positive thinking and to help direct them toward additional options. There are many affordable choices for students, and many online college programs offer great opportunities for those struggling to balance work and school. Many higher level learning options exist as well, such as the opportunity to take advantage of an MBA program online. These and other choices are great ways to encourage students interested in undergraduate and graduate school but who worry about the financial and time commitments they entail.

It's never a bad idea to push your students to study hard and do well on standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT, but it's also important to remember that a lot more goes into college prep than a single test. Try out the suggestions in this article to help your students prepare for the transition from high school to college, and always remember that the lessons you help them learn today will better prepare them for the world of tomorrow!

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