Before I post for this week I want to write about my experience 2 weeks ago at the Teen coalition. I have been meaning to post this for a while now.
I went in on a Tuesday afternoon and the students were busy at first. After a few classmates and I helped them organize some papers, they were free to do whatever they wanted. A senior named Patrick came over to John and I and said he had a question about college. He wanted to know what he should expect when hes in college. It seemed like he was looking for a simple answer but I said wow that's a big question. Looking for a good way to start answering that question I asked him what schools he was interested in. He was trying to choose between Northeastern and Umass Amherst. We talked about the differences between the two school and what he should look into before deciding, like financial aid and his interested major. John brought up a very important part of college life, time management. I was very glad that he brought this point up because if someone talked to me about this before I got to college I may have done things very differently. I really struggled with time management my freshman year and I made sure to explain the negative effects to Patrick. We talked for a while about dining hall food, working out, class work and roommates. I tried to give him examples of my experiences so he could relate. This whole experience just made me think back to when I started college and how little I knew going in. I hope that we helped him by taking to him about college and I think it will make a difference when he gets there. Also, I'm glad he felt comfortable coming to us to ask about this and I hope we will get more questions like this the next time I go.
Cassandra,
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you have such a great experience going to the LCHC! I know that it has been extremely beneficial to me, too. The last time that I was there I was with a group of students that were working on a teen pregnancy awareness and prevention event at the school. After we did that, I was just talking with a few of them and they were asking why people from our class had been coming. I explained to her that we were volunteering but we were also seeing what we could learn from them. She seemed surprised and said something like “what you can learn from us? I bet we would learn a lot more from you!” It struck me because I bet she really isn’t learning more from me! I know it’s been a great experience and it is truly amazing how much we can learn from this great group of kids.
Casandra! I loved your post because I had such similar ideas when I went on the college visit with them to Umass Amherst. They kept asking all these big picture questions that they wanted one or two sentence answers for but in reality one could spend a day explaining them. "What is dorm life like, what happens if we do not like our major, what if we want to go home on weekends." This experience really put things into perspective for me. Teenagers do not have an easy life like some of us think they do. one of the hardest things to be in the world is an American teenager.
ReplyDeleteI just want to chime in here about my visit with the Teen Coalition group to UMASS Amherst. It was a great experience, I wanted to get to know the teens. Truly speaking they didn't really have questions for me. They seemed to understand everything which I seriously doubt. Cassandra, as you mentioned in your blog, time management is one of the biggest pieces of the big picture (of college life!!). I feel the student should me given a mock routine experience. In this mock routine, they should visualize themselves doing their errands, going to classes: one after another, eating their meals or planning to pack some along, doing their homework and last but not the least doing some recreational activity. If they run by this routine in their heads or put in on a piece of paper or on a powerpoint, it will make them understand the importance of time management. I tend to make a list of "things to do", I still do it the traditional way of writing since I am not so much into techology, yet. But in any case, the point I am trying to make here is that the students would truly benefit if they planned their days on campus, ahead of time. I truly feel it can get extremely overwhelming if they have to run from one building to another across campus, do homework, stay healthy and maintain their peace of mind at the end of the day.
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