As a college student, I’ve been told countless times that I need to be constantly networking. When I first heard of networking, I was already in my first year if college, and I was already expected to know quite a bit more than I did about how and when to network. I didn’t even know what the word meant at the time, and I definitely didn’t know that it was supposed to help me get a job.

When I began doing what I thought was networking, I didn’t see the point. I thought it was just me talking to as many people as humanly possible and talking about myself so that they or someone they knew would offer me a job. I didn’t realize how far this was from the truth until I encountered people who actually knew how to effectively network in a way that didn’t seem like they were pitching their abilities to every person with a job they met.

I’ve come to learn that there’s much more to networking than talking about myself, and it’s not a one-way street. Really, it’s just beginning and continuing dialogue with people in order to benefit yourself and them in any way possible. It’s the assumption that the more people you know, the more you can do. If you think of yourself and every person you meet as a door, it makes sense that the more you open, the more you’ll find, and those doors usually lead to even more doors within. So start opening your own doors. Start networking.

1.  Talk to your guidance counselor

The first place you should always start when looking for advice related to careers is your guidance counselor. Not only are they great resources for helping you find a career path and a way to pursue that path, but they’re also capable of connecting you with others who might be able to help you pursue your dreams. Talk to them about what you want to do after high school, and they might have contacts who could help you on your way.

2.  Talk to alums

Alums are a great pool of people to connect with because they already have a connection to you. They’ll be likely to want to help you because they’ve been in your shoes and can probably identify strongly with the obstacles you’ve faced while in school. Ask your guidance counselor if there are any alums working in the field you’re hoping to pursue, and start a conversation via email, LinkedIn, or even Facebook or Twitter.

3.  Use social media
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Even though you’ve probably only used social media for “social” activities so far, you should start converting your profiles from social to professional outlets. You can connect with virtually anyone on social media, and that includes people who are doing jobs that you want to do and looking for people like you to help or hire. These days, everyone is contacted via social media with professional questions and requests, so don’t feel like you can’t strike up a conversation of Facebook or ask a question on Twitter. This is more and more acceptable as long as you present yourself in a professional manner and you’ve cleaned up your profiles. LinkedIn is the best way to initiate communication with professionals because it is a social network specifically designed for professionals, so I would suggest using it if you’re comfortable. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account yet, it might be worth making one, if only for the purpose of networking because it allows you to search for companies, people, groups and causes and start a conversation on a platform that is designed and intended for networking.

4.  Talk to teachers

If there are teachers with whom you’ve spent a lot of time throughout high school, make sure they know what your career plans and goals are. They might be able to help you or know someone who can, and they’ll be likely to search for someone, consulting their own network of professional connections, if you have a close relationship with them.

5.  Talk to your parents and their friends

Talking to your parents about their own jobs, especially if they relate to your own career plans, can be exceptionally helpful. Parents tend to meet a ton of people in their everyday lives whether it’s at work or the grocery store, and the number of people they have access to might surprise you. They might have a friend who could help you or they might know someone who they could befriend to help you make them an acquaintance of your own. I see this happen all the time with my parents, including a few days ago when my dad told me he’d met a famous author while working on a contracting job. It wouldn’t seem like a general contractor would run into many authors, but it happened, and it happens frequently (even if the person isn’t famous, your parents could easily run into someone who works for a company you’re hoping to find a job at).

6.  Follow up with every new contact

Once you start talking to someone, don’t stop. If you meet someone and have a great conversation, it will mean nothing if you don’t follow up with them afterward. Send them a short message on any social media platform and let them know you’re grateful for their time and support. You might even have a question or two that you didn’t think to ask before, and this is a great time to ask. Asking questions is also an easy way to continue talking to a person and reminding them that you’re there every few months so that they don’t forget who you are and that they might be able to help you someday.

7.  Put yourself out there

If it’s nerve-racking to think about introducing yourself to complete strangers on a daily basis, you’re not alone. It can be awkward at first, but the more you do it, the easier it will be, and the more confidence you’ll gain in your ability to begin and continue a conversation.

8.  Be yourself, and be genuine

When you’re meeting someone for the first time, don’t feel like you have to play yourself up. Just talk like you would to anyone else, and don’t feel like one conversation will make or break your entire professional life. Each person you add to your network is interested in understanding you, as a person, and your personality more than your accomplishments because your personality will be what they remember most. They won’t remember that you’ve logged 50 community service hours or had an awesome job last summer, but they’ll remember who you are and what you’re like.

9.  Articulate a clear goal or ambition. But don’t pitch yourself

The biggest mistake to be made while networking is using a pitch. Most of the time, unless you’re at a career fair or somewhere where people are actually looking to hire you, people just want to have a normal conversation. They want to know more about who you are, and they want you to ask about them as well. If you start a conversation with, “Hi, these are my career goals, and this is why I’m awesome,” that conversation will, of course, go nowhere. Instead, just start with a simple hello. Tell the person your name, and tell them why you’re excited to meet them. Make it about them, and they’ll be more inclined to make it about you.

10.  Don’t skip the small talk

Even though it might seem like there’s no point to a conversation that includes mostly small talk, there is a point. Small talk gives people an indication of whether you’re friendly, positive, genuine, and likeable, and they have to know whether they like you before they know whether they want to help you professionally. So don’t feel like you’re wasting time by talking about everything but the reason you wanted to meet them. If they have to end the conversation before you’ve asked any relevant questions or gained any new information, just tell them you had some questions for them and that you’d like to keep in touch. Offer your email address and ask for theirs, and don’t be worried about how much time you spent on seemingly useless talk. If you get a contact, it’s not a waste.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are some things you can do to make networking easier and less stressful? Where do you network most frequently?

In a previous post, I talked about several tips to help you study effectively. However, I never talked about how you should actually be studying. There are several studying methods that are widely used, and most of them require help from someone or something else, whether it be flashcards, someone to ask questions or list vocab words, or games to help with memorization. The best studying method will vary by subject, so what works for one class might not work for another. No matter what method you choose, be aware that there are countless resources available to help you online.
Websites designed to help students study all have different approaches and offer different forms of assistance, and some are more helpful than others. Below, I’ve listed five websites that I have found helpful in the past and that I prefer to other websites I’ve tried. Each offers different studying methods as well as unique features that can make them more helpful than others when studying for different subjects.
 
1.  GoConqr

GoConqr offers several different methods of studying, which is ideal if you have multiple subjects to study for. When you create a free account, you can create flashcards, mind maps, quizzes and slides, and share them with other users. The website hosts a huge database of information generated by users, so every set of flashcards, slideshow, quiz, etc. created by other users will be available to you to use as well. While this database of content hosts fairly general information that might not all apply to what you need to study, you can also create groups to share information more easily with students who are studying the exact same content as you. GoConqr is also a great website because it allows you to set goals and events and see your progress as you study.

2.  Quizlet

Like GoConqr, Quizlet allows you to create study tools like flashcards and practice tests, and with the information you input, the website creates study games for you. There is a large database of public study tools created by other users just like on GoConqr, but these are generally more specific and less helpful than on GoConqr because sets of information are typically created for specific chapters of a book covered in a class. Because of this, Quizlet is really only useful for inputting your own information or connecting with a group of people in your class to create and share information and study tools.

3.  Study Blue

This website’s main function is collaboration. Just like Quizlet, the information created by other users is very specific to classes and chapters, so creating content individually or in groups is really the best way to use the site. You can also chat in groups, save notes, and track your progress as you study. There is also an app available for Study Blue, so you can track your progress and send messages to groups more easily.

4.  Study Stack

Study Stack is primarily a website for creating flashcards. You input your information just as you would on all of the other sites, and it will generate flashcards that you can flip through and track which answers you know and which you don’t. The cards that you press the “don’t know” button for are set aside and will repeat once you get through the set so that you can spend more time on the ones you don’t know. This is my favorite site for flashcards for this reason because I like to review information more if it’s difficult for me to remember. The site also builds several games based on flashcard sets, including hangman, crosswords, matching games, and more. As with the other sites, you can use information provided by other users, but it’s most helpful for creating your own flashcards.

5.  Study Guide Zone

​Study Guide Zone is completely different from the other four websites. It’s not made for collaboration or inputting information or providing any flashcards, games, or other memorization tools. Instead, this website is simply a resource for taking practice standardized tests, including the PSATs, SATs, ACTs, LSATs, MCATs, and so many more. If you’re gearing up for a standardized test, this is the place to go. They break the tests down into parts so that you don’t have to do them all at once, which is super helpful, and they explain what each part of the test will entail and how much of the test it is worth. I’ve used this a few times to study for the SATs, and I’ve begun using it for the LSATs, and, if nothing else, it gives you a feel for the test’s format, which is crucial to know before you actually take the test so that you don’t waste any time and you know what to expect.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What websites or tools do you use to make studying easier and more effective for you?

When you leave high school, you’ll probably realize that you didn’t spend enough time thinking about what comes next. Even if you’re a senior making plans for after graduation to work at a certain company or travel somewhere, there are things that you should be doing before you leave this chapter of your life behind for good. Even though it might not seem so finite now, everything you know about life, yourself and your friends will begin to change the more time you spend outside of school. So while you have the chance, do these last few things to ensure that you make the most of your last few months or years of high school.
 
First, you need to be able to survive independently in the real world, so get a handle on these four things before you leave high school and begin your independent life. Whether you leave home right away or not, these will be things that you’ll be expected to know and do once you are officially an adult.
 
1.  Learn how to cook healthy meals

Although you might not be leaving home right away, you should at least start learning how to cook and making a list or cookbook of recipes that you know you’ll want to make in the future. Starting now means that you’ll have a better chance of making healthy meals for yourself and of knowing how to make them cheaply.

2.  Know how to do your laundry

By the end of high school, if you can’t do your own laundry without turning everything pink, you’re going to have a rough time being on your own. You need to know enough about washing clothes that you can survive without going back home to have your professional clothes washed every weekend by mom or dad.

3.  Understand how to manage your finances

The extent of most people’s knowledge of finances is how to check their account balance and swipe a credit card. You should know, though, how to open accounts and deal with banks in person, apply for and cancel credit cards, write a check, and budget money. All of this takes time and experience, but if you start your professional life without any idea of how to budget money or open a savings or checking account, you’re going to be in for a difficult ride.

4.  Know how to find and apply for jobs

It seems obvious that you need to know how to look for a job once you set out to get one, but a lot of people have no idea where to look or how to apply. It’s always good to ask an adult for help with this one because they’ve probably been through the process plenty of times by now. A guidance counselor might be your best resource for this because they will be able to help you find websites with job postings, and teach you how to search for specific jobs and apply for a job in a professional way that makes it seem like you know what you’re doing.
 

These next few “must-do’s” are meant to help you take memories and people with you beyond graduation. You’ll find that, once you graduate, things are more different than you expected they’d be. So take advantage of what and who you have now so that you don’t regret wasting any time later.

5.  Take a day off with your closest friends. You might never be this close again

If you’ve been absent from school too often or don’t want to miss a day, take a trip on a weekend. Do something you’ve never done together, and make memories that will last beyond graduation. The sad truth is that you might not be close with all of your high school friends a few months after graduation, so take the time to make memories that you can hold onto for years.

6.  Look closely at your passions and figure out how to pursue them

If you don’t know what you want to do after graduation, take the time now to figure that out. Even if you don’t know exactly what you want, you should try to form an understanding of yourself and what you want to give to and get from life. Once you discover your passions, research where they can take you. Find out what jobs you’d be good at, and think about what you want your life to look like in a few years.

7.  Make a game plan for after graduation and schedule events

Once you’ve finally graduated, you’ll probably want to spend the summer relaxing and spending time with friends who are all going their separate ways. You should definitely make time for this because you’ll never be the people you are now, but you also need to have an action plan for beginning your own future. Plan get-togethers and end-of-year parties in advance so that you know when you’ll have time to begin applying for jobs or moving forward on professional plans.

8. Clean up your social media

Employers don’t want to see anything on your social media that is unprofessional (or illegal), so make sure that you have a “clean” social media presence when you leave high school and begin applying for jobs or making your way into the real world.
 
9. Tell the people who have had an impact on your life how important they are. And get their contact information

Your favorite teachers might not know how much they have shaped you or informed your ideas. Before you leave, let them know that they’ve had an impact on you. They will feel grateful to have a student who appreciates the work they’ve put in year after year, and your relationship with them might grow into a friendship that will continue after graduation. Make sure to get contact information, though, so that you have a way to stay in touch if you’re hoping to remain close.

10. Be prepared for huge changes

Everyone always says that everything changes after high school, but this is an understatement. You expect to drift apart from friends and teachers, you expect for your passions and understanding of life to change, but you don’t expect everything that’s been a part of your life since you can remember to be gone suddenly. No matter how much you prepare yourself for it, graduation brings changes that you can’t plan for. You’ll be faced with challenges you’ve never imagined, lose friendships you thought would last forever, and find yourself becoming someone new, barely recognizable as who you thought you were. It happens to everyone at some point, whether it be right after high school or years down the road; eventually, everything will be different, for better or worse. So take the time now to do what you haven’t had the chance to, get closer to people you may have taken for granted, and figure out who you want to be.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are some things you'd like to do before graduating from high school?
 

When you begin a research paper, the most difficult task you’ll have is conducting the actual research. If you’ve written one in the past, you’ll know that finding somewhere with reliable sources is tricky in and of itself, but then you have to look for sources that actually address the argument you’re posing in your paper. It can seem impossible when you’re looking at a 40-page scholarly article to decide whether it will be useful to you, but hopefully by using these tips, research will be made easier for you, and you’ll be better able to determine which sources you should and shouldn’t use based on content, reliability, credibility, and accuracy.

Tips for conducting research

1.  Have an idea for a thesis

Although you might not have a completely solidified idea starting out, you should at least know the general topic and know why you’re interested in that topic. Knowing why you’re interested in a general idea will lead you to finding that “seed idea” inside of your “watermelon idea,” as my teachers used to say. The more specific your topic, the easier it will be for you to know what to search for, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to find information on that topic either, as it could be too narrow to have been written about by scholars. Make sure you are flexible when formulating your idea, and don’t be afraid to let the sources shape your thesis, especially if your original idea isn’t yielding results.

2.  Use Wikipedia to get started

Your teachers have probably told you from day one that using Wikipedia is strictly not allowed when writing a research paper. However, it’s an extremely useful tool starting out to help you either find a research topic or get a basic understanding of what your topic involves and what exactly you should be looking for in more scholarly sources.

3.  Use quotation marks to search an exact phrase

You might know this already, but if you want to search for a phrase rather than individual words, put your search in quotation marks. For example, if you’re searching for information on monarch butterflies, the search engine will automatically look for the words individually, so you might get some results that are only about monarchs and only about butterflies but not both.

4.  Use online databases for reliable, scholarly information

Your school likely has access to online databases full of research materials. These are excellent places to find the majority of your sources because you can be sure that they are reliable.

5.  Read through abstracts and summaries for article content

It’s difficult to say whether an online article will hold the information you’re looking for based on the title alone, and it might be too long for you to look through in its entirety just to see if you need it, so read the summary or abstract if there is one before diving into the actual text.

6.  Control-F is your friend

If you’re not sure if a source includes information that you need, search for keywords within the text using the command key shortcut Control-F. This will open the “find” window for you to search for words throughout a document. If you want to know if an article on benefits of exercise specifically mentions eating habits, try typing in words like “eating,” “food,” or “diet.”

7.  Use the bibliographies of a reliable source to find more sources

If you find a source that holds reliable, accurate, and crucial information, look to its bibliography to find more sources like it. One great source probably uses other great sources, so doing a little “bibliography mining” will help you find more information about topics that are specifically within the original source.

8.  Use library resources…

On top of databases provided by your school, you might be able to access some free databases at a public library. You should also look for books about your topic to use as sources, as these are also guaranteed to be accurate and reliable. Although it takes more time to read through books, there are ways to quickly figure out if you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for within a book. Start by reading the preface or introduction to get an idea of what the book contains, and then look over the table of contents to see whether there are specific sections that reference your topic. This takes a little more digging, but once you find the information, it’s typically concise enough for you to get a few good quotes and chunks of information.

9.  … including human resources

All libraries have librarians or research aides, so if you’re stumped on how to find the information you’re looking for, talk to someone. Even if you’re just starting your research, it’s a great idea to ask what databases and online resources you can access through the library so that you can cover all of your bases.

10.  Don’t disregard sources that hold the same information as others

Even though you might look at a source and think that it holds almost exactly the same information as another source, that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Information is given quickly and concisely, so there might be one key piece of information that you don’t see anywhere else even though everything else about the source seems familiar. You should also be looking for quotes to use in your paper, so getting as many sources as possible can’t hurt in helping you get more voices and ways to phrase something.

11.  Figure out how you prefer to read sources

Print or digital? Once you know your reading preference, make sure you have a way to take notes and store your sources. You should be taking notes as you read and highlighting quotes so that you don’t forget where any information is or why you want to use it. I prefer printed sources over digital because it’s easy to take notes right on the paper rather than using separate sheets, notecards, or a word document.

12.  Find a way to organize your sources that works for you

As soon as you begin looking for sources, you’re going to need a way to keep track of them whether they’re printed or saved digitally. Organize them in whatever way makes the most sense to you. In the past, I’ve tried a few methods of organizations for printed sources, and I’ve created a mildly-chaotic, though helpful, system. I use different highlighters to color-code sources based on the topics each source covers. This works best if you have an outline for your paper already determined because you already know how many topics/colors you’ll keep track of, and you can see that you have enough information for each point. If you don’t have an outline or an idea of what topics you’ll be covering, this can still be helpful as a way of marking the similarities between sources. You can also highlight specific information within the articles using this system so that you know where in your paper each piece will fit. If I know, for example, that I want a paper on gun control to include pros, cons, statistics, and solutions, I can color code all information I find for each of those sections.

13.  Get both sides of an argument

When you’re writing a research paper, you need to take a stand, but you also can’t entirely write off a point that diverges from your own. You can either agree with part of an opposing argument or disagree with all of it, but whatever you choose, talk about the arguments of the opposing argument. Your paper will be more credible and seem less biased than if you only talked about the evidence to support your own point. If you’re writing that gun control paper, make sure you include the pros and cons so that you can show you’re not just someone with a political right- or left-wing agenda.

Tips for determining a source’s reliability, accuracy, and credibility

1.  Check the publication date and the dates of sources in the bibliography

If a source is from 2000, it’s probably not as accurate as something published in 2012. Information about any given topic changes over the years, so anything that’s more than five years old might not be accurate anymore. Be wary of using anything too old, and be sure that everything seems up-to-date or at least not proven false in later articles. Also make sure that an article doesn’t use old resources for its own information. Even if something was published last year, if it relies on information from 1990, it’s probably not accurate.

2.  Cross-reference information for accuracy

Make sure that you double-check every piece of information you intend to use in your paper. Especially if you’re using sources that don’t come from a database or website hosting scholarly articles, you should keep an eye out for inaccuracies. If something seems questionable, look it up using a different source.

3.  Check for the author’s or publisher’s credibility

If you can’t find an author or publisher anywhere, you’re probably not looking at a credible source. If you can find a name or publisher, search it in Google to see what else may be published by that person or publisher or what people are saying about their work.

4.  Watch out for one-sided or biased arguments

Just like you don’t want to only include your argument in your paper, you don’t want to use sources that focus too heavily on one argument. While there’s no problem with taking a stance, if an article appears biased or completely ignores the opposing side of the issue, it might not be reliable or objective. Instead, look for sources that address the opposing view, as you should be doing in your own paper.

5.  Understand a source’s tone and intended audience

You should know who an article is meant to target so that you can tell that the information is of a high quality. If the information seems to be written for a younger audience, it probably isn’t scientific enough for your purposes. If it’s meant to sway someone in a certain direction, it will probably form its argument accordingly, so watch out for the way an author writes. If he or she seems to be trying to convince you of something with which you disagree, you’re probably not the target audience. If you seem to agree with almost everything, be aware that you could be the target audience, and you might be liable to believe information that isn’t actually reliable but just fits into what you’re used to thinking is correct.

6.  Is there enough evidence to support an argument?

Looking for specific evidence to support a point goes along with searching for biases, tone, and audience. An article needs to be factual rather than opinionated, and if it doesn’t offer enough evidence to back up its argument, then whatever point it’s making might not cover all of the information that’s necessary for it to be deemed reliable. Be sure that each source you choose to use provides sufficient evidence to support its argument, just as your own paper should incorporate sufficient evidence as well.

-Hope Swedeen

How do you organize your research? What are some tricks you use to figure out which sources are reliable and which aren’t?