Taking Learning Into Our Own Hands

I’m sure every student in high school has asked themselves, at least once, what is the point? As students, we ask ourselves when we’ll ever need to use quadratics, or why we must learn about the mitochondria, and of course, teachers tell us it’ll be important for our future. However, are they really preparing us for life and what’s to come?

Whether you go to college or not, having an education is crucial for most jobs. Not to say you’ll necessarily use all the information you learn in high school, but everything learned may help you climb higher to success. This year though, I’ve met a lot of students going off to college who aren’t completely sure how prepared they really feel. The big question here is, how well is high school preparing us for college?

High school is majorly more lenient than college will ever be. Late assignments, test retakes, and grades over all are much easier to sway now than they will be in college. Another huge problem is studying. After asking around, I’ve come to the conclusion that most high school students consider skimming over old notes and 15 minutes of reading before class as studying. Typically, this works out for them, because tests aren’t quite as difficult as teachers make them seem and retakes are often available. Doing this in college, however, will get you nowhere but failed. High school students go into colleges expecting retakes and short study session to get them by, because that’s what they learned in high school, but the reality is that they will find themselves terribly unprepared.

Now for those people who choose not to go to college, high school still isn’t going to teach them all that they need to know. Jobs and careers are just one part of being an adult, but there’s also taxes, managing bank accounts, etc. Although there are classes like government and social studies, students still find themselves in the dark when it comes to living life independently.

So, now the big question is, what can we do to change this? How can we prepare ourselves for the life we want to live after we graduate? It’s time to take our knowledge, preparation, and independence into our hands instead of relying on everyone else to hand us the knowledge. The first step to being an adult, living independently, is taking learning into our own hands instead of waiting for someone else to prepare our future for us.