High School to College Readiness: Unprepared Students - Essay Sample

Introduction

High school should prepare a student for college by offering effective learning. In some cases, it fails as the majority of student goes through the entire program for years but still come out not ready for college life (Cohen et al., 2016). Many students find themselves graduating high school, having no real or even a clear way to their success in college. It is because they lack the necessary readiness for the course of study in college since they majorly concentrate on completing the specified time from the random classes, which never benefits them. Consequently, the number of graduating students keep on escalating while only a few of them appear to be ready for college. The high school that I attended did not do enough in preparing the students for college, as depicted in my own experience in the evaluation discussed in this paper.

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Firstly, in my high school, the students were not helped in strengthening their executive function skills. The teachers should provide support to the students equipping them with readiness for college. They should have done it by organizing some projects by creating a special time for it while providing the deadline for planning. The introduction of these projects would hence help them enhancing their problem-solving skills while opening their mind and show them the things that they would find in college (Cohen et al., 2016). Lack of these skills made me struggle in college since I had not met such a project task before. I took a lot of time to understand the concepts since it was a new and hard thing for me to tackle at first because my high school did not prepare me for that.

The executive skills help students with the knowledge to complete their assignments through the decision making and problem-solving skills (Venezia & Jaeger, 2013). If I had learned that in high school, I would hence be able to plan and organize my time effectively in the completion of the projects, high schools should, therefore, equip their students with executive functions skills which will help them in having some basic knowledge required in college, that students in my high school lacked hence unprepared for college life.

Also, my high school failed to prepare us adequately in our social and emotional wellbeing. It did not focus on teaching the students on the existence of stress, anxiety, and depression, their causes, and how to avoid them. There are many challenges that colleges students go through, which they need enough knowledge on how to solve them, including lack of money, poor performance, and family issues. These challenges have become rampant in colleges since students were not prepared before, their existence, and solutions. As a result, the victims finally drop out of college, where some engage in alcoholic and sometimes losing their lives due to stress and depression.

For instance, when I was in my first year, I had many experiences of being stressed in dealing with the transition, and family issues pressed me. I was unable to handle this, and it affected my studies and relationship with others since I feared to share it with anyone. It hence affected me greatly, and I suffered depression for two months. My colleagues finally noticed my absence in class and helped me counselors, who helped me to heal and continued with my studies. My high school had not adequately prepared me on how to deal with such challenges; thus, I had to seek other means to tackle the emotional distress I experienced in college.

My high school also did not bring a true and clear picture of the college reality. Apart from academic lessons, the teachers should have taken time to enlighten the students about college life that await them. It would help them understand the freedom that is in college where they would make their own decisions without their parents. I had a problem in handling my finances while in the first year since my high school did not adequately prepare me for financial management, socialization, and trust that are needed in college. I spent everything I was given in a few weeks without any plan resulting in many struggles throughout the remaining term, where I learned in the hard way to have discipline while spending. Also, I was trusting everyone because I lacked such exposure before, until when those I called friends stole my computer. Naivety affected me until when I learned from my own experiences since no one briefed me on how things go in college. High school should have created enough time to enlighten us about college life, and with those life skills, I could not have experienced such ordeals in college.

The high school setting denied us an opportunity to participate in activities that are related to the career paths chosen in college. They would have created such time for us to understand our careers and how to connect with the right people in the field (Cohen et al., 2016). The earlier exposure wound has oriented us adequately on the courses we chose later. If we had practiced this in high school, it would have opened doors to suitable opportunities like internships, which would help us enhance our skills during and even after college. As for my experience, I was not well conversed concerning what I did in college since the high school syllabus was somehow out of context. High schools should prepare their students for college through strengthening their executive function skills, offering social and emotional learning, teaching how to network, and also providing them with the information regarding college reality. With that knowledge, the students are hence able to go to college and pursue their studies.

Reference

Cohen, M., Lingenfelter, P. E., Meredith, T. C., & Ward, D. (2016). A Coordinated Effort to Prepare Students for College. Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(17). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ755415

Venezia, A., & Jaeger, L. (2013). Transitions from high school to college. The future of children, 117-136. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1015237.pdf