Preparing for college is an exciting part of growing up. Your last school year is almost over, and you are looking to make a smooth transition into college. It doesn’t matter if you went to a public or private high school or a collaborative charter academy; chances are, you may need a bit of extra help to get through your college admission process or even choose your major. To prevent getting lost in this process, there are a couple of things you can do to make it worth your while.
Here are five tips to help you transition from high school to college.
1. Know yourself and your interests before choosing your degree.
Before going any further, it’s important to know yourself. This includes your personality, interests, goals, and even where you would like to live. Knowing what makes you happy is necessary to help take the right measures to get to where you want to be. You can get help for this by completing personality and career tests, as well as speaking to your closest friends or family members that could know you better than you know yourself. Although they may have a lot to say, remember to stick to what you think is the right choice for yourself and live up to it. If you check each of these items, chances are you’re ready for the next step.
2. Find a mentor or counselor that can help you with the transition.
Along the same lines of speaking with someone close to you, you can choose to speak with a mentor, professional counselor, or instructor that can guide you in the right direction. These professionals will pinpoint better ways to create a career path you can be happy with based on different aspects of your life. These counselors can suggest programs or degrees based on your skillset, abilities, and preferred work environment. For example, they will take into account if you excel at critical thinking or technical skills and recommend computer science programs or network engineering courses.
3. Make friends with people who have similar interests.
Next, you can start making friends with people who share the same interests or soft skills as you. This is going to help you have a better insight into what your university or college choices are in the field that you choose. Additionally, you can discover other subcategories in your field of interest. The point of networking with different people is to find what you like faster and pursue it, whether it’s an IT career as a network manager or any other high-demand career path.
4. Sharpen your studying and reading skills.
When it comes to college, you may want to know now that you will have to read a lot and study a lot, and often both simultaneously in short periods of time for quizzes and exams. So to better prepare yourself for this, you will want to sharpen your skills by studying after hours or getting into the habit of reading in your spare time, for instance. Doing this will help develop aptitudes that will be useful in your college years.
5. When in doubt, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help. This can be applied to your educational, professional, and personal life. If you don’t understand something, chances are that someone else shares the same concern as you. Also, your question could help solve a present issue that may have not been addressed yet. So whatever your concern is, don’t hold back on asking the right people at the right time.
Feel free to apply all of the steps above to have an even smoother transition from high school to college.
