Do you KnowHow2Go?

This is post 42. That’s significant because that’s all I get. 42 posts to talk college knowledge. Now really, I could go on about college forever and ever because you really can’t wrap college in words that fit in only 100 posts. And about actually getting to college, that’s a-whole-nother story, some of which I’ve tried to tackle in these blogs.

It’s a good thing though that the experts behind KnowHow2Go took the time to boil all that is trying to actually get to college into 4 simple steps. Getting to college is a process and not an event. It’s not something you just do in one day. It’s something that you can achieve after taking a lot of little steps toward a goal. The KnowHow2Go steps outline that process:

1) Be a Pain – tell people that you want to go to college, and ask them for help

2) Push Yourself – Challenge yourself. Take the tough classes -  don’t breeze by with the classes that don’t challenge you – they will not prepare you for college like harder classes will.

Aim for this: Take at least 4 of every class, and 5 if possible. Take 4 English, 4 Science, 4 Math, 4 Social Studies and 4 Foreign Language. Believe me, it’s worth it.

3) Find the Right Fit – There are tons of colleges for a reason: because there are tons of people with tons of different interests and tons of different things to be trained on. So there are tons of different colleges that meet all those different needs. Find out what you want to do, what you are interested in, what you like and dislike, and start from there in your college search. Try websites like collegeboard.com to do college searches. Don’t give up on getting a degree because the school closest to your house doesn’t suit you. There’s a school out there that will suit you, you just have to find it!

4) Get your Hands on some cash – Don’t think that your family’s money situation will determine whether you go to college. There is money out there to help you pay for college – whether it’s scholarships, grants, loans, or cold hard cash you earned and saved yourself, there are ways to pay for college. Remember, it’s an investment in yourself.

And if nothing else, I hope to stress that:

-Education costs – whether it costs time, effort, money, and/or a combination of it all. How much are you willing to pay?
-Education doesn’t just happen – it’s something you do, something you plan for, something you prepare for – and it’s NEVER TOO EARLY!!

Happy Birthday to me and Happy Father’s Day to Dad

Well, I’m home again this weekend. It’s Father’s day tomorrow, and we’re celebrating my birthday which was Thursday!

Do you have a summer birthday? I used to hate having a summer birthday when I was in school. You never got to have a little party at school, or be the birthday kid, or have your name on the announcements – unless they lumped your name in with all the other summer birthday kids. Wasn’t fun. Now, this year, I was at work on my birthday, which is the most fun place to be, but it was cool because my co-workers got me a birthday cake! So this year, my summer birthday was celebrated, and it was fun!

Today I hung out with some old friends. We’ve known each other since before kindergarten – that’s how it is growing up in a small town. They’re both married now, and in fact, my other good friend – there were four of us girls that all hung out together – is married too. Crazy how we all grow up.

You know how that is? Like when you leave school in May or June, and you don’t see your friends over the summer, it seems you can always tell who’s a little bit different when they come back to school in August. Sometimes the girls grow 4 inches, and for a while they’re taller than the boys. And then at some point the boys catch up to the girls in height, and then eventually they’re maybe 4 inches taller. I always thougth that was amusing.

Well, in my next year, I hope to be more active in my community. Maybe join some organizations. What do you plan to do for your next year? You’ve got the rest of summer to relax and think about some stuff. Then when school starts up again, what kind of student do you want to be this year? What kind of friend do you want to be this year? What kind of athlete do you want to be this year? It’s up to you, you know…

Summertime and the livin’ is easy…

This past week was rough. Got back from Seattle on Monday at 5pm, then drove north an hour to meet my parents who were watching my cats. Got home around 8pm after travelling literally the entire day.

Tuesday morning came fast. And I’ll tell ya – it was hard getting back into the swing of things at work. Well, schools out for most people now and summer’s definitely here. Weird thing is that it actually rained a whole lot more here than it did in Seattle…but that’s besides the point. Summer’s here: a little break from school, time for relaxation, no teachers, no homework. Sounds good.

Seriously, it does sound good. You know what I’m going to say though don’t you…I’m going to suggest that you do something. Yep you’re right I am!

If you haven’t already thought about summer and gotten any academic enrichment plans underway, then it may be too late to do academic camps and colleges and other programs, but it’s never too late to visit the library and read something…

Now, academic camp. There’s a term you’ve probably not thought about a whole lot. Let me tell you though: you should look into it. The summer affords lots of opportunities to practice what you learned during school, improve upon it, or teach you new things. Now I know some of you have summer jobs, which might make these camps impossible. I want to challenge you to think otherwise: these opportunities can pay in scholarship dollars much more than you can earn during the summer working.

Some camps focus on science, some on math, engineering, some reading, or writing. You name it, there are camps that focus on it. Here’s one - it’s pretty intense sounding. One way to find out about these camps is to look into colleges that are close to where you live or that you might be interested in attending. Lots of colleges hold camps during the summer to show students what kind of work they can expect during college. Look at all these camps at George Mason University! Or how ’bout all these at Ohio State!

So while it may be too late to take advantage of programs like these this summer, DEFINITELY keep them in mind for next summer! They seriously are worth it! This summer, think about some stuff you might be interested. Check out some of these camps and find out if there are some close to where you live. Pick out a few books to read this summer, too. Believe me, your future self will thank you.

Summer in Seattle

I decided to take a little trip. Well, it wasn’t as spontaneous as the phrasing suggests – it was quite calculated. Nevertheless, I’ve taken a quick haitus from my job after a very faithful run during this last school year.

I just arrived back in Seattle via an Amtrak train ride from Vancouver. Here’s the whole picture: Went to Seattle ’cause I’ve never seen the Pacific NW region of our country. I thought I’d do a little sightseeing while in Seattle, so I booked the Amtrak to go up to Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada.

Vancouver was beautiful! Mountains and water were everywhere. There were seaplanes everywhere, too! The colors were vivid blue and green, and different from my daily routine, I actually spent some time out in nature – I took a tour that took me across a very high-up rope bridge and then up to a mountain called Grouse Mountain.

Back in Seattle now, I’m actually staying in a hostel. Which isn’t the greatest situation for lack of privacy, but it’s pretty cheap – about $25/night! A hostel is something you might take advantage of when you’re in college and get a chance to study abroad. Hostels are like a no-frills version of a hotel (even when you thought a hotel didn’t have much frill). Basically, when you stay at a hostel, you pay for a bed and that’s it. Most times, a room in a hostel has at least one other bed, and usually more, and if you’re travelling alone, you’d definitely share that room with other people you don’t know. The plus side though, is that the other people are usually a lot like you: exploring a new place, don’t know people around, looking for advice and tips on the new place, and of course a little (or a lot) adventurous.

I stayed in lots of hostels when I studied abroad during college. I lived in Salzburg, Austria for 6 months during my Junior year of college. Study Abroad programs allow students to take classes and earn credit that they need to have at another school in another country. They get to learn what it’s like to live in that country, learn about the people, the culture, the area. It’s definitely an opportunity everyone should look into – whether they think they can afford it or not. There are lots of resources out there to make such opportunities a reality, and there are a lot of different programs to fit everyone’s needs. There are short trips and long trips – for example, I went to Paris for 8 days – a short-term study abroad program, Salzburg for 6 months, and there are other programs that go for a whole year.

It was travelling to Paris during my sophomore year that really sparked my love for travel. Up until then, I had only been on a plane one other time in my life, and I’d definitely never left the country. I thought it was going to be pretty rough trying to fit in somewhere that I didn’t understand the language. But I found that it was really cool! After 8 days in Paris, I felt I was finally beginning to get the hang of how some stuff worked there, but then the trip was over. This left me wanting to learn more, and travel some place for a longer period of time – I couldn’t wait to plan my next trip somewhere else and figure out a whole new place!

Well, in a few minutes, I’m about to head out a comedy show. That’s another cool thing about hostels – they plan social events for the people staying there. I’ve already met three German guys, an Australian couple, and a guy from Cincinnati. I’m looking forward to meetin new people and having some good laughs, hopefully!

Graduation Party Season

Today’s the big hoop-lah for my brother! Graduation party at my house – and actually, it’s a joint graduation party because my cousin and my brother are in the same class. So before guests start arriving, I have a little bit of time to relax.

My gradaution party was this same day and time 5 years ago – strange to think about it. I remember thinking, ‘huh, so I’m done with school…weird’…. and then greeting lots of people I didn’t really know but who must have been friends or family of my parents. It was sorta surreal I guess – like it takes soooo long to finally get to graduation, and then when you get there it seemed almost anticlimactic. I didn’t feel any different. I was the same person I was four days ago when I was in school. Except now, people were congratulating me and telling me things like ‘it’s your time to shine’ and I get to ‘go out and find my way’ or all that stuff. Sure, I thought…thanks for coming, really, but I’m hungry and I haven’t gotten to eat at my own party! And I actually never did get a bite to eat at my party.

After that, I had the summer to think about what it meant that I was actually moving out and going to college. Looking back, it meant way more than what I could ever write down. For one thing, I went on my first flight, left the country for the first time, and as the first person in my family…graduated from college as the first person in my family…And it was pretty cool.

And now it’s my little brother’s turn! Our paths will be different, but he’ll learn just as much as I did, if not more, I’m absolutely positive of it!

My other brother has come home from the Air Force, so it’s a family affair – congratulating the middle brother graduating one phase and getting ready to jump into another phase of his life.

Can you see that day for you? Crossing the stage on graduation day? Listening to all the graduation cliches, and then waking up the next day knowing something about the rest of your life could be a little different? What do you think? How do you want that next stage to look?

Well, as for me, the next phase of my life right now consists of greeting a lot of people I still don’t really know, and some I do…and most importantly: snagging some food!

Congrats to all those graduating this season!!!!!

Don’t Let Senior-itis Get the Best of You

I can tell: senioritis is in the air. That’s not to say that it hasn’t been in the air for seniors (or for other students too, sometimes) for oh, about the last school year. You know senioritis? That thing that seniors get when they know the end of the school year, and their whole high school career, is sooo close, and they just don’t want to keep trekking? I think it gets even the best students.

I have three brothers who are all younger than me. One’s all graduated and in the Air Force; the next one is 10 days away from graduating and definitely has senioritis, and the third brother, he’s a junior, and well, I think he may have senioritis, too. I’ll tell you what I tell them: Don’t stop! Keep going!! It’s so worth it! Don’t give in to senioritis – you can beat it!

Alright so that was the pep talk…here’s why: As a senior, you may think it’s over and colleges don’t know your last quarter grades anyways – which sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t…but regardless, it’s important to always stay disciplined and on top of your work. In three months, you’ll be in college or on your own. You won’t have another first day of school where your teachers will check in and make sure you have your assignments straight. You’ll be in a situation where you’re the only one who checks in on yourself. If you think it’s hard now to stay focused, think about being in college with no rules, no curfew, no teachers, no parents – it’s all on you. And I know I’ve talked about this before, how it’s important to develop good habits and be disciplined, but I don’t think I can stress it too much.

I know when I got to college, at first I thought it was a breeze. But then the reading started piling up, and then mid-term tests started and I realized that I wasn’t very good at prioritizing and doing the work I needed to do to be successful in my classes. Without structure imposed by a school day, by teachers, parents or whatever else, it’s hard to set your own boundaries and priorities. Which is why right now is great exercise in that discipline that makes good students and successful people. So there’s your challenge: don’t slack off during your last weeks of school – make them count!

Finally: Ridin’ in Style!

This month’s  busy one, I’ll tell ya that. Last weekend I went home, this weekend I’m home, and the days in between have been pretty busy, too – chock full of college tours. At work, we’ve been giving 8th graders tours of different campuses. That’s right – it’s not too early to check out a college campus in 8th grade.

So I’m at home this weekend because it’s my mom’s birthday. And I was home last weekend because it was mother’s day – seriously, my mom has a pretty good month of May. Also going on this weekend is Prom for my two brothers who are still in high school, and probably a ton of other high schoolers around the state. But most exciting of all is that today I drove home in my brand new car!!! Well, it is used, but it’s new to me. Today I took what I feel is a very grown-up step and I put down a down-payment and bought a vehicle. I’ve grown out of my Neon-driving days – and I put my time in too, I drove it for 7 years! If you ask me, and I’m feeling much more professional in my new ride.

So coming home in my new car sorta over-shadowed the fact that I need to get Mom a birthday present, but I think I’ll make it happen. Now, believe you me, I wouldn’t be driving a new car if I hadn’t made a plan on how I was going to be able to afford it. Just like to you have to make a plan for the classes you want to take and the type of student you want to be in order to be successful after high school, you also have to make a decision on what type of money saver or spender you want to be.

Are you the type who spends any money you get right when you get it? Or do you save some of it? Or all of it? Have you ever really thought about having a plan with your money?

Well, guess what?! Just like it’s not too early to think about college planning, it’s not too early to think about your money in middle school or high school, either! A while ago some 6th graders and I had a pretty good chat about money, and making a plan for spending and saving. Even if you’re planning on buying a car in the near future, it’s still important to use a plan for your money – there must be something you’d really love to buy at some point!

With these particular 6th graders, we talked about how much it would cost to pay for college. Do you ever buy candy bars? Or pop? Or maybe fast food if your school or house is close to a restaurant? Or maybe some really cool pair of shoes for school? Or maybe your mom or dad buys you new shoes? Do you buy a snack after your school lunch with your own money?

What if instead of buying these things, you just saved it?

Well, let me put it this way: College costs a lot. In fact, it costs about 480 pair of really cool shoes (assuming the shoes are priced around $50).

So how can saving now actually help?

Well, say you buy a candy bar and a pop every week for a whole school year. Not bad, right? As in, you’re not being totally unhealthy, having a candy bar and a pop just once a week. So that costs about $2/week. Well, over a school year, that’s $72.

Sure, that can’t buy you tuition for college, but it could definitely buy you a new pair of shoes for your first day of college. Or it could buy you your first text book for college – yep, in college you have to buy your own books! What if you saved that much – $72 – each year until you graduate? If you’re going into 8th grade now, that’d be $360, which would probably cover all your books for the semester with some moola left over.

How about this one: I’m not sure how many Big Mac fans there are reading this, but just as an example, say you bought a Big Mac meal once a week. That’s about $6. Maybe you can think of other stuff that costs you about $6 bucks a week. Well, if you didn’t buy that Big Mac meal each week for a school year, that’d save you $216. And again, for example, if you’re going into the 8th grade right now and you saved that money each week, you’d have $1080. Now that would definitely carry some weight when you get to college. You could use to buy a laptop, a book bag, new clothes for school, books…you get the picture.

Need I go on? Point is: If you want to obtain something – for me, a new car – you have to plan for it. New cars don’t just fall out the sky ’cause you want one. Or a college education. You gotta plan and prepare.

What do you wanna be when you grow up?

I ask myself that all the time – “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Even though I have a job and I graduated college…It’s something we have to always ask ourselves. At least I think so, in order to avoid waking up one day when I’m 40 wondering what I’ve done with myself and why I’ve got the job that I have. I know that’s hard to swallow or even think about if you haven’t even graduated high school, I really do.

On Thursday I asked 7th and 8th graders the same thing; and I asked them to think pretty hard about it, too. I know it seems early, but middle school actually isn’t too early to think about what life will be like after high school. There are so many things you can do with the talents, skills and interests you have, it’d be nearly impossible to really decide what one (or a few) things you want to do when it comes down to graduation time.

So Thursday for one of my middle schools was Career Day. Actually, it was a pre-Career Day, because next Friday is going to be a Career Day where people’s parents or family friends come in and talk about different careers. Thursday was to get the brain juices flowin’ so people would have an idea of what they might want to learn from different professionals.

So here’s what we did – and you can do this too (I’ll give you some websites to check out). We did this in a big setting in a gym, but you can do this at home, too. First everybody read through some questions like, “Do you like to be in charge of group projects?” Then they ranked the different things they like to do. Eventually, through a scoring system, students got to search through different tables chock full of careers. Once they chose a career they might like to try out, they learned how much money they’d make if they chose that career in real life. Equipped with a monthly salarly, based on their career choice, each student visted stations where they had to deal with life costs – education loans, groceries, utilities, rent, and transportation costs.

Everybody learned about how much it costs to live on your own after high school and how much education is required for different jobs, and how much money people can make in different jobs. What do you think? Could you figure out how much life costs and how much you would make in different careers? Check out knowhow2go’s career section. Here’s a game you could play to think about what life might be like after high school. Now I gotta tell you, this one does have a lot of info to read through…it could be fun to do with a parent to help you understand all the info. Or you could check out this chart (and the whole website) to see how different careers require different amounts of school.

And even if you don’t check out any of these websites, at least do your self  a favor and just think about it. What are you interested in? What are you good at? What do you want to prepare for when you grow up?

Apples to Oranges

Well, it’s financial aid award letter time. Yeah, that’s a mouth-full. Now for those of you who are in middle school, yeah this is a little technical, but it’s still good to know about. When I went to college, all this was new to me and my family, so it was tough to decipher. I’ll just go ahead and give you a heads up now.

When people go to college, most times they probably can’t afford the whole sticker price. So they fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) – which I’ve talked about before. Now, when people fill that out, they can send the result (EFC – Expected Family Income) to the schools they are interested in. When the schools get that EFC, they know how much money they should try to make available to you – how much money “to package” for you. They call that ‘putting together an award package’, which is made up of financial aid.

Now like I’ve talked about before, financial aid doesn’t mean free money, it means money that is available for you to use, whether you have to pay it back or not. So, when a school puts together an award package, it definitely could have Federal Loans in it, along with any grants or scholarships you qualify for and were awarded.

So during this time, when people have applied to more than one college, they can compare Financial Aid Award Letters to see which place could be the most affordable for them, since some award packages will have mostly loans, some will have loans and grnats, and some could even have no loans and all grants and scholarships – or any other combination of financial aid, of course – you could say it’s like comparing apples to oranges…

I had to explain all this to my mom and brother, too – he’s going to Hocking Community College in the fall. Believe me – this stuff can be confusing, but there are people out there who can help you. Here’s one really helpful website: www.finaid.org.

EXPLORE your options

What’s up with it being beautiful during the week and not-so-great on the weekends? It was great this week, and then today it was misty and gray and just not nice outside. Not fun.

Well, today, we held a big event where we talked to middle school paretns about their kids ACT scores. Did you know even in middle school it’s not too early to take an ACT test??

There’s a version of the ACT for middle schoolers called the ACT EXPLORE. It’s pretty helpful because it only asks questions that should be prepared for – it’s not like to you have to answer high schooler questions about stuff you’ve never seen before.

And then, when you get the results back, they tell you about what score you’d get when you do take the test in High School.

So for example, let’s try this out: Say I take the test as an 8th grader and my scores predict that I’ll get a 19 in high school if I just continue doing school the way I do it, or if I just keep going to school but don’t try any harder. Now say I want to go to Ohio State where the average ACT score is 27. I might have a 19. That doesn’t really work. So I know now that I’m gonna have to work on some stuff in order to make sure that when I get into high school, I can really shoot for a 27 on my ACT.

It’s pretty helpful when you think about it – it kinda gives you some pieces to work with in the college going puzzle.