This last Sunday, I graduated. I said goodbye to my college years and everything that made them as special as they were to me. I said goodbye to professors, friends, suitemates, bad cafeteria food, and even to the sidewalks I’ve stared at morning after morning for the last three years. But before those goodbyes were even over, before I’d returned my gown or finished packing my car or gotten rid of the food in my fridge that I simply couldn’t, in good conscience, drag home with me, I was looking beyond graduation day. I wasn’t looking at graduation as the day when everything ended or everything began; it was just a day. That’s not to say it wasn’t a great day – believe me, I was stoked when I finally received my diploma. But it was a day that I knew would come and go, a day when I knew I’d be asked questions about my future plans, and a day when I knew I’d want to have answers to those questions. While I was preparing my answers, I learned something amazing: I actually have a plan. Sort of.

Just one day after graduation, I see the countless “graduated and unemployed” posts popping up on my newsfeed, and I see these with sympathy – after all, I’m not immune to student loan debt – but I also view them with a certain level of hope. For my part, I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I recognize that I’ve just graduated and that the clock is ticking for me to figure my life out, but, for all intents and purposes, I have figured it out. I have my plan, and even though that involves not having a paying job for a few months while I apply for jobs (yes, that is, in fact, the master plan), travel, and generally try to figure out a little bit more about who and where I want to be now that I’m not “Hope Swedeen, Student at Susquehanna University,” I’m pretty confident that I’ll be fine. I don’t say this because I did things “right” or because the world is just magically at my fingertips. I say this because I haven’t been looking at graduation as the last day or the first day of my two separate lives. I haven’t looked at graduation with sadness or with regrets or with fear. The most I can say for myself is that I was completely ready to not have homework for a little while. But never once did I think, “This is the end” or “This is the beginning” that day. I simply thought, “Keep going.” And that’s what I intend to do.

I’m going to keep going, moving forward with whatever plans I already have or make along the way, and nothing is going to stop me from moving, from changing, from progressing into new stages of my life. Sure, I may be sleeping on my parents’ couch for a few months. I might even be babysitting my brothers and doing chores around the house as though nothing has changed. But at the end of the day, nothing I’m doing is permanent. I hope to keep changing, to keep making plans and pursuing them as fiercely as possible. And right now, the plan is to work on my blog posts, work on my resume, work on expanding my literal horizons, and work on the indent I’m hoping to create in the couch without having to worry about whether I’m forgetting about an assignment. At least for now. (I just graduated. Give me a break).

So for those of you who are nervous about graduating from high school, leaving behind friends or family or lifestyles to pursue the next step, just remember: things aren’t ending; they’re progressing. You’re not leaving people; you’re welcoming new ones. You’re not leaving home; you’re making a home for yourself somewhere else. You’re not starting down a career path; you’re forging your own path. Whatever you end up doing, wherever you end up going after graduation, don’t be afraid, and don’t be sad; just be you, and just keep going. Keep trying to reach your goals, find new dreams if plan A falls through, and be prepared for changes, whether they’re welcome or not. Whatever you do, don’t pay too much attention to the ends and beginnings. Pay attention to this ongoing thing we all call life, and use each day as a means to an end, a building block for all the days after, not an end in itself.

-Hope Swedeen

What are your long-term goals? What are you doing now to reach those goals?

1. Great for visual learners

If you’re someone who learns better when you can see what you’re trying to accomplish laid out in front of you, then video tutorials are definitely for you. For pretty much anything you want to learn to do, you can find a tutorial online that will give you an audio-visual experience to help you through every step of the process. Whether you want to learn how to make something as a hobby or solve a certain type of math problem for class, you can find videos that give you a visual learning experience.

2. Independent learning – accessible anywhere, any time

It doesn’t matter where you are; if you have Wi-Fi, you can get online and find tutorials. You have the ability to teach yourself to do something anytime and anywhere you go, so if you need to know how to do something by the time your ten-minute train ride is over, you might be in good shape to know it if you can find a tutorial to help you out. I’ve used tutorials to learn how to do something simple like braiding hair, use fairly complicated programs like Photoshop, play songs on piano, use a function on a graphing calculator and do countless other educational or hobby-related tasks. The great part about tutorials is that you don’t need a teacher or a book to teach you how to do something; a short video will often suffice.

3. Can provide a face-to-face learning atmosphere

Even though you aren’t learning from a teacher when you use tutorials, they can still be a sort of face-to-face learning environment, if that’s something that you feel helps you learn. A lot of tutorials are made so that whoever makes them is on the screen walking you through the steps in their videos. Even though it’s one-way communication, if seeing someone give you instruction is the best way for you to learn, tutorials still might be a viable option for you. This is something that I’ve found to be true of myself, as I often remember pieces of information because I can remember exactly how a professor said something or what they were doing when they said it. So the most helpful video tutorials for me are ones that have someone on the screen talking to me.

4. Easy to find

Simply put, tutorials are super easy to find. All you have to do is search for keywords online, and you should be able to find a video that meets your needs within minutes.

5. Short and to the point

Video tutorials can be long or short, but they’re typically short so that you can find specific pieces of information very easily. For example, when I was looking for a tutorial to teach me how to make the background of an image transparent in Photoshop, I didn’t watch an hour-long video about all of the tools in Photoshop. Instead, I found a video that focused solely on how to make a background transparent, and it was less than five minutes long.

6. Ability to skip unnecessary parts and watch important portions multiple times

When you’re in class, you can’t very well tell your teacher to skip over content that you understand because there might be other students who need some extra instruction. At the same time, though, if you’re the person who needs repetition, you might not always get it; your teacher might move on to a new topic too soon. When you’re watching tutorials, you face neither of these issues. You can fast-forward and rewind as many times as you need to skip over information that isn’t relevant to you or review something that you didn’t understand the first or second or third time around. You can do this when you’re using a book to teach yourself how to do something, but it’s much harder to know what you can skip without having already read it, and it takes much more time to reread a section of a book to review than it does to replay a video.

7. Can be paused and saved for later

Just as you can fast-forward or rewind tutorials, unlike in class, you can pause your tutorial lessons and come back to them later. This is beneficial for obvious reasons, especially if you’re using a longer tutorial or a tutorial set to learn how to do something more extensive.

8. Free or cheap alternative to courses and books

Although there are websites that offer tutorials for which you have to pay to have access, there are thousands of free tutorials online that can serve your needs just as well. This is a much cheaper alternative to taking a course, either online or in person, or buying books to help you learn how to do something.

9. Endless supply to help with every aspect of whatever you’re trying to learn how to do

If you have a question that one tutorial doesn’t answer, you can pretty easily find that answer elsewhere. That’s not always the case when you’re reading a book or taking a course that doesn’t answer a question you have. Once you finish a book or course, that’s the end unless you search for another and hope to find that bit of information you’re missing. But with tutorials, you can always search for a specific question, and you’ll typically find your answer in a few short minutes.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What websites have you found that offer useful tutorials? What have you learned to do by watching tutorials?

I hear all the time (and sometimes I’m the one saying it), “I don’t want to do this right now.”
There’s no escaping it. There will always be times when you’re forced to do something that simply doesn’t interest you. In school, it might seem like this is all you spend your time doing. Regardless, though, you still have to do it – unfortunate as that might seem.

So how do you deal with schoolwork that feels mundane and irrelevant? In other words, how do you make yourself work through assignments that in no way relate to what you plan to do in the future?
Personally, I have three answers to this, and each of them has worked at different times to help me get through school with my motivation (more or less) intact.

Any of this could be relevant someday; stay focused on it now to benefit yourself in the future 

I know it’s absurd to think that everything that you’re being taught will one day have a use, but it’s equally absurd to think that none of it will. Whether it’s weeks or months or years from now, at least some of what you learn in high school will serve a purpose – and serve you well. You never know what you might end up doing, and anything could be relevant someday. It might be difficult for you to believe that, especially considering that in a previous post, I spoke about a similar idea in an almost opposite way. In that post, I wanted to highlight the fact that not everyone is great at everything or will use everything they learn in high school. I stand by that, but I also know that, on the flip side, there are things that we learn in high school that might seem irrelevant at the time but are useful later.
 
There have been many times in college that I’ve looked back at what I learned in high school and realized just how much I gained from my classes. Sure, there were the useless bits of information – I will never in my life need to know the difference between igneous and sedimentary rocks (I hope) – but there are also classes that serve as a solid background for my studies now. For example, I took a government class in my senior year of high school, which focused on the political system and the way in which the government is set up and functions. At the time, I had absolutely no interest in government or politics, and even though I found parts of the class interesting, overall, I assumed I’d need to know very little about the setup of the federal and state governments. But now I’ve decided to go to law school. I’m taking a course called “Law and Politics,” and some of what we discuss in class and need to know for tests and papers is content I already know because I learned it in high school.
 
This is only one example, but I could give countless others to help you see just how much you will take from your high school education despite what you might think now. Thinking of my classes this way in high school got me through many assignments because, even though I felt that I would never need to know the things I was learning, I had plenty of teachers telling me how they continuously use random knowledge sets to their benefit. Especially in college, I’ve constantly assumed that everything I’m learning will be useful – if even just for a test or to apply it to another class. If you can think of what you learn that way – as a means of understanding a bigger picture or succeeding in a class in the long run, this just might help you work up the motivation to finish an irksome assignment on time. It’s not the easiest way to motivate yourself, and it’s definitely not the most attractive, but it’s something to keep you going if these next two options don’t help you stay focused.

Find something interesting about what you’re learning, and make the most of it 

You might be thinking this just sounds like a half-baked excuse for advice – if you don’t want to do something, there’s a good chance it isn’t interesting, right? But everything that is boring or annoying or just unpleasant either has interesting aspects or can be made interesting. It’s a cheesy concept, but it’s honestly helped me get through classes in which I struggled to pay attention – science, math and history, to name a few – and finish the work assigned for those classes. In classes like these that hold no interest for me, I’m always searching for something to keep my attention.
 
While in class, I focus on things like the way a teacher speaks and presents and the way other people react to what the teacher says. While doing homework and in class, I try to pick out small bits of information that are interesting and focus on those when I can; I find something that interests me within what I’m learning, even if it’s small, and I latch onto that. In an economics class in my senior year of high school, I was bored so often. There was no getting around it. But at least once a class, the teacher would say something that either related to me or intrigued me or went against something I had previously thought was true. I really knew nothing about economics, and I really didn’t want to, but I ended up enjoying several sections of what we learned because I focused not on the boring aspects (of course you have to pay attention to those to understand them) but on the parts of our discussions and lectures that interested me. When I felt I could let my thoughts drift a bit – if the teacher was still explaining something I understood or had stopped to answer a question that I knew the answer to, or at any time where I knew I wouldn’t miss something I needed to know – I would think about that small piece of information that interested me and try to apply it by scribbling little notes all over my notebook. Ultimately, I found that fixating on pieces of information this way helped me understand the concepts to which I paid so much attention as well as the concepts surrounding them, which usually played a role in my understanding.
 
Sometimes, though, I never “find” anything that interests me, so I make something up. I take each question and wonder how I could make my answer as extreme as possible – the wildest answer my teachers might get but still correct. I try to think of ways that something my teacher is saying might not work or be true. I treat my homework with a sense of sarcasm when it doesn’t interest me, making most of what I do into a joke. Even if it means I’m not taking a concept seriously, it at least means I’m paying attention to it, and it means that I might be able to push through an assignment by making my answers more of a joke, more sarcastic, and as outlandish as possible (though still right). But that could just be my sense of humor talking. If making a joke out of your work doesn’t help you get it done, try taking it more seriously. Try finding something about it that interests you because it’s so true you can apply it to your own life or so wrong that you can find no application. Overall, the goal when finding or making something interesting is to make the time go faster and to hopefully give you something that you can think about to keep you focused.
 
Keep the end goal in mind
​
What you have to remember while you’re getting through school is that you’re not just getting through to get out. You’re getting through to get somewhere better – to open the door at the end that will lead you to your future. No matter what’s behind that door, keeping it in sight is always helpful. All through high school, I was kept motivated a lot of times by the thought of graduation and college. I knew that, at the time, it didn’t really matter if I failed or succeeded, but I wanted to go to college, so I knew that my GPA mattered – I knew that how I performed in high school would affect my chances of getting where I wanted to go later. This was probably the best method of motivation I had and still have. It helps you focus on why you’re doing something; and when you have a reason, it’s much easier to do it.
 
If you’re hoping to get into college, if you’re hoping to get a job that expects you to have a relatively high GPA, or if you’re planning on doing anything that will want proof that you can succeed in an environment where you have to do things you don’t want to and you have to complete assignments on time (pretty much every job, ever), then what you do in high school matters. How you do in high school matters – at least to some extent. So keep this in mind always. If you can’t wait to graduate, don’t just think about not being in school. Think about what’s beyond that. Think about what comes next for you and how you can ensure that you get there. Because if you stop caring about where you want to go and focus only on why you want to be done with high school, chances are you won’t do as well as you could – because you won’t have any motivation to do well.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
How do you stay motivated to stay focused and finish your work? How do you make learning interesting for yourself?

The Student Gallup Poll is a survey taken every year that reaches hundreds of thousands of students. It was developed in 2009, and since then, almost 4 million students in grades five through 12 have responded to the survey, answering questions about their experiences in school. The fall 2015 Student Gallup Poll alone reached over 900,000 students in 3,300 schools nationwide. This expansive survey is used as a means of showing educators how students in general feel about school so that they might create programs and adopt or improve teaching strategies to help students better meet the four criteria by which the survey measures student success: engagement, hope, entrepreneurial aspiration, and career and finance literacy. These four criteria are then broken down by the questions students are asked in the survey.

The first two criteria, engagement and hope, are related in that the two factors interact to determine what a student’s experience in school might be like. Overall, it appears that students who are engaged and hopeful while in school can be compared to those who are the opposite – disengaged and discouraged. Students who are engaged and hopeful appear to be more likely to pursue a college education, miss school less frequently, and not only earn better grades but also feel that they are successful in school in general than students who are disengaged and discouraged.

It might seem obvious that students who feel that their education is serving them well and who might enjoy being in school would be more successful, but what does it take to be an engaged and hopeful student? Is it really as difficult as it seems to be a student who meets the criteria that say “you’ll be successful?”

1. Read
 
There are several apps available for reading, and if you don’t have a kindle, your smartphone will work just as well for very little money. There are apps that cost a few dollars a month that will give you access to hundreds, if not thousands, of titles. Find an app that works for you, and start reading on your down time without having to haul a book or kindle around.
 
2. Research how to do something you’ve never tried but want to 

If you’ve always wanted to learn to do something but never have the time and you find yourself with nothing to do but entertain yourself with your phone, use the time to do some research. If you want to play piano, learn to skateboard, take up knitting, or anything else that you just don’t have any experience with, look up the motions you should go through. Start with the basics, and the more time you have alone with your phone, the more you can learn about whatever it is that you want to know how to do.
 
3. Pocket.com 

Pocket is a way to save articles, videos, web pages, and pretty much anything published online so that you can view them later. If, for example, you’re doing research on how to do a new skateboarding trick and want to go back to a video later, you can save it to Pocket until you’re ready to put the video to use. It’s a convenient way to store information without any chaos or extra features. It’s basically a personal database of information that you know you want to refer to again later, and you just have to sign up using your email.
 
4. Write

Open your notes app and just write something. It doesn’t matter much what you’re writing, but it makes sense that you’ll always have something to write about. We’re continuously thinking about something, so why not write about it? As someone who loves writing and does it almost constantly, I’ve always been one to write down random thoughts and go back to them later to expand on them. I know people who write poetry or the beginnings of stories they might write more of later, notes about apps they’d like to create, music lyrics, reflections, and countless other short spurts of writing inspired by what they’re experiencing and thinking every day.

5. Work on learning a new language or advancing in a language you might already be studying

You can find apps created to help you learn a new language or even just brush up on your foreign language skills, many of which are very cheap. You should find an app that works best for you based on your level of experience with a language, and keep in mind that the languages available in each app will vary and be limited.

6. Read or watch the news 

As a journalism major, I try to get as many people as possible to keep up with news in any way they can. I know a ton of people who use Facebook pages for their sources of news, the news stand app on iPhones, or read news online. It’s something that you can access anywhere and from so many sources that there’s no reason not to. It’s always better to be informed and up to date on what’s going on if only so that you have something to talk about when you have no idea what to say to someone.

7. Podcasts 

Podcasts are a great way to learn something new, and all you have to do is listen. There are countless series of podcasts to listen to on so many platforms, all of which cover varied topics and use different methods to cover them from one-person story-telling to conversations between several people. You can listen to a podcast to learn about just about anything, so if you have a hobby, an interest in a topic, or you want to catch up on news, search through some podcasts.

8. Install a flashcard app to study for tests anytime, anywhere 

This might be your least favorite option, but it’s also probably the most productive thing you could do on your phone. If you have a test or quiz coming up and you’re someone who uses flashcards to review, having a flashcard app will be invaluable to you. You can study at any time regardless of whether you’re at home with all of your notes or class materials, and if you find yourself somewhere and feel like you’re wasting time that you could be using to study (as I often do), pick up your phone and start!

9. Play games to improve your memory 

You’ve probably heard of sites like Lumosity that are meant to help you improve your memory, and you might have even tried them out. If you haven’t tried these memory games, the next time you go to play Candy Crush, try finding an app or website and start playing games that will improve your memory instead.

10. Put it away 

If you’re still at a loss as to what to do on your phone, try putting it away. It’s great to have a few minutes to just be alone with your thoughts, and you never know what you might hear or see that is so much more interesting or entertaining than whatever you’d be doing on your phone. 

-Hope Swedeen

What productive uses have you found for your smartphone? How can you motivate yourself to be more productive?

If you’re preparing to take the SAT this year, or if you’ve already taken it, you’ll know that, as of March, 2016, the test changed rather dramatically. Students and teachers must now adjust to the new test, and if your school offer test prep for the SAT, they’re probably trying to implement and understand the changes as well as they can. If you haven’t been exposed to these changes yet, or if you’re confused about what they’ll mean for you as a test-taker, I’ve listed six changes that I feel are most important and that sum up the basics of what you’ll need to know about the SAT before you take it.

The information can be found on several sites, including the Princeton Review, College Board, and Veritas Prep, but I’ve consolidated and combined that information so that, hopefully, you’ll be able to understand the changes without having to flip between sources, as I did. College Board also provides a page that explains why changes were made and what exactly they will entail, so if you’re looking for some information on that, visit the “Key Content Changes” page.

1. No penalty for wrong answers 

In my opinion, this is one of the most important changes to the SAT. On the old SAT, test-takers were penalized 1/4 of a point for every answer they got wrong. This never sat quite right with me because it not only penalized those who didn’t have the knowledge base to figure out the right answer, it penalized those who are serial second-guessers. I know so many people who, myself included, sometimes, second-guess themselves on every answer because there’s so much at stake. On the SAT, it’s easy to view the test as a gateway to college or financial aid, so it’s already stressful enough. But when you’re also told that you’ll do worse if you guess than if you don’t, it makes it so much more difficult to be confident when you aren’t guessing. Now, though, the test is made to be much easier for second-guessers or even just guessers, taking off no points for wrong answers.
 
2. Each question offers 4 multiple-choice answers rather than 5 

This isn’t a huge change, but, hopefully, this will mean that it will make it easier to find the correct answer and you’ll have an easier time guessing if you need to.
 
3. Total score range: 400-1600 for 2 scored sections 

The total score possible used to range from 600-2400, which included a 200-to 800-point score in each of the three sections. Now, however, there are only two sections, but they are still scored between 200 and 800 points.
 
4. Two sections: Evidence-based reading & writing, and math with new standards 

Whereas the SAT used to be composed of three scored sections: Math, reading, and writing, plus a required essay, it is now only two sections. However, these two are broken down into two subsections each.
 
The evidence-based reading and writing section is broken down into one reading test and one writing and language test. With this change comes several changes to the theory behind what types of questions should be asked and what test-takers are expected to know.

• There will be no questions that ask test-takers to complete sentences using “SAT words.” Instead of the test focusing on whether you know what one word means, it will expect you to have a grasp on a more widely-used “professional” or “collegiate” vocabulary (much more basic than the SAT words that no one actually uses) and the ability to understand words with multiple meanings that can be applied to different sentences depending on those meanings.
• Reading passages will draw from “founding documents,” or significant historical, literary, or scientific documents that test-takers are expected to understand whether they have studied them extensively or not (The United States Constitution, for example, is not something that everyone has studied super closely, but it is something that everyone is expected to be able to understand if they ever need to). This means that reading passages will not only be less arbitrary, they might even be texts that you’ve read before.
• The SAT now includes some questions that will be prompted using graphs, tables, and infographics, whereas, before, there were zero graphs throughout the entire reading and writing sections. This is a spectacular change for me because, as a visual learner, graphs make everything so much easier to understand. While they will likely be complex graphs, I would still prefer to look at data rather than read it in paragraphs and try to lay it out in my head to give it context. If you’re a visual learner like me, I have no doubt that this change will be beneficial for you.
• You might have to “show your work” on some reading and writing questions, and this is where the idea of “critical thinking” comes into play. While before you could answer questions without sharing how you reached your answer, when you’re completing the reading section, you might face some questions that ask you how you found the answer to previous questions. This will ask you to either choose the logical reason that would have led to a previous conclusion or will ask you to specify which part of the passage you used in determining your answer. While this won’t be complicated if you know how you got your answer, if you were a little fuzzy on what the right answer was to the first question, the second might be nearly impossible. Luckily, you won’t be penalized for guessing, so just try to connect the dots as best as you can.

 
The math section is broken down into one subsection that can be taken using a calculator and one that cannot. The math section will be more difficult than before, in all likelihood, because the level of high school math that is expected to be understood by test-takers is higher than before.

• The section focuses on algebra, geometry, and some fundamental and advanced math like trigonometry, so be prepared to meet some difficult questions that you might struggle with. Trigonometry was difficult for me in high school, but I know several people to whom it came easy. Just make sure that you spend extra time studying for the elements of the test that you know will be most difficult for you.
• The math section has never been easy, but now most, if not all, questions will require you to go through several steps to solve them. This means that you’ll need to be able to find the right answer after going through several steps that you might mess up, and these questions will likely take more time because there are multiple steps.
• Fundamental or foundational math skills are more important than having extensive knowledge in one type of math or another. If you have a deep understanding of basic concepts that are seen throughout or used as the basis for a specific type of math (like angles in geometry), then you are in decent shape for a large portion of the test, but there will still be questions that ask about harder concepts that are specifically designed to differentiate students who have a higher level of understanding of mathematics and those with a more basic understanding.

 
5. The test is now 3 hours long rather and 3 hours and 45 minutes – with more questions per section and more time to complete each section 

This does come with a few caveats, as the test writers didn’t simply decide that the test was too long for students to handle. Now, there will be a break between the reading and writing subsections and again between the two math subsections (with and without calculators). There will be no break between the end of the evidence-based reading and writing section and the math section, which may prove difficult for some test-takers when trying to switch gears from English to math. The test might also be longer if students choose to stay for the essay section of the test, which lasts 50 minutes. The SAT will provide varied amounts of time for each section, and each will include a set number of questions to be answered. Overall, test-takers will have 180 minutes (3 hours) to answer 154 questions. I’ll lay out the time limits for each section, but if you want a comparison to the old SAT, go to collegeboard.org and check out an article in the Time Magazine.

Reading: 65 minutes for 52 questions
Short break
Writing and language: 35 minutes for 44 questions
No break
Math (without calculator): 25 minutes for 20 questions
Short break
Math (with calculator for higher-level problems): 55 minutes for 38 questions
Short break 
Essay: 50 minutes for one essay question

6. Optional Essay (scored separately) – 50 minutes instead of 25 

The new SAT offers an optional essay at the end of the test (while the previous test's essay was required), and test-takers have to pay an additional fee to take this portion of the test. You may be asking yourself “why in the world would I pay more money to write an optional essay?” Excellent question. You wouldn’t. Unless the colleges you’re applying to require it. Make sure that you know before signing up for the SAT whether the schools you’re applying to suggest or require that you write an essay on the SAT, and if they do, be sure to sign up for it or your application probably won’t be considered.
 
You can find a list of which colleges and their essay requirements on collegeboard.org. If your school isn’t on their list for some reason, contact the admissions office directly or look online. It might be a good idea to check anyway just in case the website’s list isn’t up to date for some reason. If you’re not sure which schools you’ll be applying to, spend the extra money on the essay portion just in case. If you end up not needing it, it’s about $10 wasted, but if you do end up needing it, you’ll save yourself from having to spend money to take the entire SAT again just to write an essay. You can also add the essay portion onto your account later if you don’t do it when you first register for the SAT, so if you’ll know whether you need the essay before your test date, feel free to leave the essay off until then.
 
The essay has changed in that it has become substantially more complex and thought-provoking. While there used to be a single, short prompt, which would ask you to agree or disagree with a particular quote or statement, now, the essay asks test-takers to read a 600-to 700-word passage and evaluate how an argument is organized and built, essentially analyzing what literary techniques make a passage persuasive. To learn more about the essay portion and what has changed, go to College Board’s “SAT Essay” website page.
 
If you’re looking for resources to help you prepare for the new SAT, there are the typical courses and tutor packages that you can purchase from any SAT prep website, but there are also some free online resources that you should take advantage of, especially if you’re not looking to spend hundreds of dollars on test prep. Khan Academy offers articles with tips for preparing for the SAT from time management to study habits to what to expect on the test day, and it also offers videos that demonstrate how to complete problems in each section. There are currently only four practice tests out for the new SAT, but because it is so new, they are all free and readily available to everyone on collegeboard.org along with several other resources for SAT prep.

-Hope Swedeen

What are some concerns you have about taking the SAT? How are you preparing?

         Last week’s post, “What Do You Do When You Realize ‘Life Isn't Fair?’” looked at two items on the list of “Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School,” written by Charles Sykes. This week, I want to talk about another item on that list because it’s something that gets discussed almost constantly but about which many people have mixed feelings.

“Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.”

         This point is, from some angles, correct. It’s true, for example, that there are still “winners” and “losers” in life. It’s true that your teachers and schools do try to give each student ample opportunity to succeed despite the number of times they fail an assignment. Often, if you’re doing poorly enough in a class, you can probably talk your way into extra credit work, re-writes and re-do assignments, and maybe even just arguing for a higher grade. Most of the time, teachers also take participation into account when determining grades, so it’s, theoretically, easy for students to pass a class if they participate and do just enough work to get by.
         If we take this quote to heart, we would have to believe, as many people actually do, that school is 100 percent easier than “real life” because school requires little to no effort and has no consequences for poor work. Is this really true, though? How many times have you struggled to pass a class because it’s just not a class that plays to your strengths? How many times have you been behind and tried to catch up and simply failed? Whether people believe it or not, the school system does have the potential to leave students behind, and, unfortunately, it does it all the time. School is as much a part of “real life” as is the job you’ll get when you graduate. You might not have the same responsibilities, but students are struggling with far less specific challenges than those that people face in the work place.
       
         If you’ve ever wondered why your school expects everyone to be good at math or science or English, you’re not alone. Does it really make sense that everyone could be good at everything that the state standards say is important? Does it make sense that if you struggle with Trigonometry, it’s automatically your fault for not applying yourself? I would argue no. Not entirely. Sure, there are students who simply don’t apply themselves. But there are also students who do and fail constantly. There are also students who apply themselves, fail once, and stop trying. Defeat is a discouraging prospect, and once you’ve encountered it once, it’s difficult to believe in yourself – especially when everyone tells you it’s your fault you’re failing. So if you’re one of these students who tries and fails because something is genuinely challenging for you, you’re not alone. I was there in high school, and I still am sometimes. There are things in life (and school) that we simply don’t have a natural aptitude for. Whether it be because we haven’t encountered anything like it before or we can’t quite wrap our heads around how something works, there are things that feel simply impossible to conquer. But have you ever thought about why you’re expected to be good at all of these school standards?
         It’s always math and sciences, and history - classes that require memorization - and English reading and writing, which require constant practice and at least some natural talent, that we're required to take and pass. But, in the back of everyone’s mind, or maybe more toward the front, is the question “When will I ever need to know this beyond high school?” When you find yourself asking this question, a lot of times, you won’t be needing it. I can’t say for sure, and no one can, but there are some things that just won’t be useful to you – and by the time it is, you won’t remember it anyway. So why, if I’m graduating with a journalism degree and never took a math or science class in college, would I have needed to excel in math and science when I was in high school? To be perfectly honest, I might not have needed to. I can’t remember one thing from my high school math or science classes, and there hasn’t come a time yet when I’ve needed to. Yes, it’s good to be well-rounded and immersed into a variety of subjects to make sure that every student has a chance to pursue his or her passions, but, at the end of the day, if someone spends their entire high school career failing math, are they likely to ever pursue a career remotely related to math? Absolutely not. People like what they’re good at, and they pursue what they like.

         On the flip side, how many people do you know who are bad at art – just awful – can’t even draw a decent-looking house? I can name quite a few (myself included). But were we ever told in high school that we were inadequate or that we were going to fail a class because of our ineptitude in the arts? As a matter of fact, how long do we actually have to take arts classes? I elected to take band and choir, and even an art class because I thought I’d give it a try, but I was only required to take choir until ninth grade and art only one year in eighth grade. Band was taken entirely by choice and never required. So what does this tell us? Personally, it tells me that the school system values the sciences, math, and reading and writing much more than it does other subjects that fall in the “arts” category. Even language classes were electives after taking a language for about three years. This tells me that whether students are good or bad at the arts, it doesn’t matter, but having an aptitude (or lack thereof) in “required” classes will make or break them. Does this seem fair to you?
         I could argue all day that schools put too much stock in a broad curriculum compared to the curriculum of life. Because, honestly, when do you need to know how to identify rock types unless that’s the profession you choose? However, you can’t figure out what you want and love to do if you don’t experience as many options as possible before choosing a college or career path or both. So this central curriculum that we all hate so much – while overstated – is necessary. The way that students are graded in these classes, though, is another story. In art classes, almost entire grades are based on participation and attempts to complete projects. So why are math and science different? What if, instead of docking points for every wrong answer, students were just shown why their method of solving a problem was wrong and how they might improve for next time? If real effort is there – if students take the time to complete assignments and just don’t get the answers right because of a failure to understand a concept – should people be penalized for their ineptitudes? Unfortunately, they are, and students will probably continue to be penalized for wrong answers regardless of how hard they worked to get them right. To students, this means that you need to try as hard as possible to get the grades you deserve. Just because you’re not good at something doesn’t mean you can’t get an “A.” Ask teachers for help, try memorization strategies, study as long as it takes, and do all of the homework twice, if necessary. This is a tall order, and it’s not something that will happen easily, but if you want to succeed in a system that isn’t working for you, you need to do the work yourself.

​         So to Sykes, and anyone else who believes that school is easy compared to “real life” because of the opportunities students are given to succeed, I say no; no, it is not easy. Sure, there are easy aspects. There are classes that people are good at and do well in, but there are also classes that make it impossible for students to keep their grades up. I do agree, though, that school “doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance” to “real life.” In “real life,” we have the opportunity to only do something we love for the rest of our lives and avoid everything we’re bad at. We have the chance to spend our professional lives doing math if that’s what we’re good at. If we want to write and avoid math and science as much as possible, we really can – not one person in a job interview or on the job has ever asked me to solve a math problem. If we want to be musicians and never write another MLA style essay again, we can. The fact of the matter is in “real life,” we don’t get graded for doing poorly on something we don’t understand. We get paid for doing something we chose to do. So the next time you find yourself failing and losing hope, just remember: if you can make it through high school, you stand a great chance of making it through life. Because “real life” can be so much easier just because of the control you’ll have over your own path.
         In the same breath, though, I have to say that this control comes with much more responsibility. Yes, you have the opportunity to only do what you want to do, professionally, and so it is easier to succeed in “real life” in this respect. But keep in mind that making it through high school and knowing what you want to do won’t be enough. It’s going to take so much more to succeed than determination and talent. As I said in my previous post, life isn’t fair, and it’s up to you to keep pursuing your goals despite that fact. You’ll face financial hardships, challenges in the work place, difficulties actually getting a job, and so many more obstacles after leaving high school, so, in many ways, real life is so much more difficult than school. But what I think can sometimes be forgotten is that these challenges are meant to be age-appropriate.
         When we graduate high school, we’re supposed to be ready for professional life, but we’re spending our days being graded on things that we just aren’t good at and won’t need to be good at rather than learning actual life skills or just being exposed to what our futures might hold. For me, it’s difficult to think of high school as easy simply because we face so many challenges that we might not be able to completely overcome because of our skills. We might not be ready to make the decisions that will shape our futures, but we’re required to make them nonetheless with only high school as a measuring stick against which to judge our academic abilities and our professional options. So, for me, high school was exceedingly difficult at times. When trying to get through classes that were particularly challenging and that I couldn’t get an “A” in no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wait for “real life” to start. But then again, once I started making decisions that would determine what that life would look like, it became apparent that I wasn’t ready to make those decisions; that’s when high school got so much harder. Instead of worrying about just school or just my career, I had to focus on both, and there are only a few times in life when we’re required to do that and even fewer when we’re actually prepared to do it. It’s a challenge that high school students may or may not be prepared to face, but they have to face it regardless. And this – this challenge to determine what your future will hold when all you have to base it on are your successes and failures in high school, which gives little indication of your potential for success – is what can make “real life” easier than school.

-Hope Swedeen
 
What are your thoughts on the expectations schools have for students? Are students prepared to face the challenge of determining what they want for their futures? Is an emphasis on math and sciences good for all students?

      There is a list floating around the internet called “Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School,” which was originally from a book by Charles Sykes called “Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good about Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add.” While many people attribute it to Bill Gates, it’s actually all the work of a man most people have probably never heard of and whose credit for his work has been inadvertently given to someone else. The list includes 14 of what you might call “hard truths,” or things that are true about life but are pretty hard to swallow for most of us. We’d all like to believe that life is easy and that we will have successful futures simply because we want to. But, unfortunately, life isn’t easy, and, according to Sykes (or Gates, depending on whom you ask), it will be even harder if we don’t accept that we need to put in the work necessary to ensure we have the futures we want. Two of the 11 items on the list stuck out to me most because they seem the most obvious to me – and yet are the most difficult for me to accept.

“The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.”

      It’s true that, most of the time, you’ll feel like you’re completely on your own in the professional world. There won’t be someone looking out for you, helping you figure yourself out and paying you to do it. It won’t matter whether you are confident in who you are or not. No one is going to give you a job just because you can’t figure out what else to do. You are the only one who is going to care about or for you. But even if you don’t quite know who you are or how to feel about yourself now, you should feel good about who you’re trying to become and what you’re trying to accomplish. You should be working to become a person of whom you can be proud. You don’t need to wait to accomplish something to feel good about yourself as long as you know that you’re trying to accomplish it.

​      It’s important to remember that wherever you end up, as long as you’re working toward something better, you’ll keep moving. And that’s what’s important – that you keep moving toward something you can feel good about. Because if you keep moving and keep trying to be whatever you’re driven enough to work to become, you’ll know that you were the one who got yourself ahead at every turn. You can have the satisfaction of knowing that, despite what people may have told you about who you could be, you helped yourself get closer and closer to where you wanted to go without the help of anyone who told you that you couldn’t.
     
      So Sykes is right. You can’t wait around soul-searching and waiting for someone to come along and tell you you’re worthy of pursuing your dreams. Whether you believe it or not, being human makes us worthy of pursuing nearly anything we want to achieve. The question is whether, in the face of failure and obstacles thrown in our paths, we will choose to take these challenges as signs of defeat or use them to learn and to shape our futures into something new with or without the help or encouragement of others.

“Life isn’t fair – get used to it!”

      It’s true, honestly. Life isn’t fair. The little time we have in life is spent in constant competition with ourselves and with others. At every point in our lives, we are met with hardships that we couldn’t see coming, we’re met with people who refuse to believe in us or who willfully tear others down, and we’re constantly taken aback by how unfair everything seems to be. It feels unfair because it is. There’s no way to escape or outrun the fact that no matter what we do and no matter how much we want to believe that we’ll get something because we deserve it, life is unpredictable, and we’re not the only ones who can influence our futures.
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      We aren’t all blessed with the same opportunities from the get-go. We aren’t all able to afford the same luxuries that others can like shoes and phones and college degrees. Life is not set up in a way that promises anything to anyone, and it’s most unkind to those who, despite knowing that they’re not, realistically, going to receive any breaks, still believe that they should and, somehow, will. If you’re someone who’s hoping that someone will hand you a job when you graduate high school or set you up with an opportunity that will change your whole life, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. You’re going to see that, just as the world doesn’t care about your self-esteem, it doesn’t care about giving you what you need or deserve. Your future is in your own hands, and it’s coming so much faster than you think. It might seem like tomorrow, or it might seem like months or years or a lifetime away, but I can promise you that your future is already happening. It might as well already be gone. Because, before you know it, tomorrow will be years ago, and that future that seemed like a lifetime away will have passed you by without a second glance.

      So if you find yourself thinking, “Life isn’t fair,” don’t just think it means you should accept defeat. Life certainly wasn’t fair for Sykes, who wrote this book and whose work was wrongfully attributed to Gates so often that Snopes.com had to get in on the rumor mill and post the list itself with correct attribution. This list is telling no one to accept defeat. It’s putting you on your guard, warning you that, at every turn, obstacles in life will try to defeat you, and it’s how you handle these situations – whether you are able to build a future despite the unfairness that you face and whether you are able, at the end of the day, to say that you knew life would be challenging and you still chose to pursue your dreams anyway – that will define your life.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
 When have you faced challenges that have made you think “life’s not fair?” How have you found the motivation to pursue your goals despite the obstacles life has thrown your way?

      When you finally decide which path to take in life, it’s daunting to know that it may or may not be the “right” one for you. It might even be difficult to imagine that you’ll be doing one thing for the rest of your life. But what you need to remember when choosing your career path is that your future is open-ended; it’s not set in stone. Even though you might have been told for years that you will be or should be one thing, you have the ability to determine that for yourself. No one knows your strengths or your passions or your ambitions better than you, and no one but you can use any of these to propel you forward. At the end of the day, it’s up to you – not anyone else – to determine how far you go and how many of your dreams you try to achieve. It’s up to you to set your own goals and be your own compass, and if you head in the wrong direction once or twice or ten times, the good news is that there is an infinite number of possibilities, and it is never a bad thing to change direction.

      I’ve always been told that “I can be whatever I want to be.” I thought this was true for a while, and I honestly could never understand why. I couldn’t fathom why I would somehow be able to accomplish something when it’s obvious that not everyone has been given an equal opportunity to succeed or even figure out what they want to be. But I’ve since realized that what people mean when they say that – whether they know it or not – is that I can be whatever I work to be. If I set my mind and ambitions to reach a goal, I can achieve it. Anyone can. That’s the idea, anyway, and it’s an idea that’s kept me sane throughout college. It’s allowed me to struggle through challenges and change my goals without feeling like I’m making inalterable decisions that will make or break my entire professional life. I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter much who I have been or what I have wanted in the past. What I want now and what I want in the future may be two entirely different things, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t pursue them.

      When I first came to college, my mind wasn’t quite set on my career path. Although I thought I’d like journalism because of my love of writing, I’d never had any experience in it, and I chose my school based on that fact; we have very flexible programs that would allow me to change majors easily, if need be. I thought about creative writing at one point, I almost picked up a Spanish minor, and I even considered advertising for some reason that I’ve since forgotten. After a few weeks and months of consideration, I came to the conclusion that journalism really was what I wanted to do. I wanted to write, and I wanted to be involved in news. It was an obvious choice. However, that obvious choice may not be my final choice.

       This year, and perhaps part of last year, I’ve been realizing how much I do and do not like journalistic writing. On the one hand, it’s an amazing choice that allows me to do so many things that I enjoy: writing and meeting new people and having a genuine impact on the lives of others at times. On the other, it isn’t something that allows me to directly help anyone or express my views, and I’m finding more and more that I want to be an advocate of ideas not a surrogate for them. I can’t keep myself from openly sharing my opinions, but that is exactly what a journalist is meant to do – keep opinions as private as possible. So I’ve had to consider, in my senior year of college, the notion that journalism might not be for me after all. I had to think of alternatives and consider what my goals are and how I can accomplish them. So this semester – a matter of weeks ago, actually – I decided that I was interested in finding out more about law school. I’d never given it a serious thought before, but I’ve been thinking about where a journalism degree can take me and where it can’t. So I read up on the LSAT and law school and the career options available to law school graduates, and even journalism majors with law degrees, and I decided to take a practice LSAT just to see how hard I would have to work to actually achieve this new goal. After seeing my score and seeing how achievable a goal this might be, I took off with the idea. I ordered test prep books and made a 16-week study schedule, and I’m taking the LSATs in June.

      Now, you may be wondering “what does this have to do with me?” That’s a fair question. So far, I haven’t had a career. However, what I want students to take away from this is that while the decisions you make and the careers you pursue definitely impact your future, they do not have to be permanent choices. Nothing you have done or will do needs to impact what you may one day hope to do. If you’re afraid of making a choice now or of setting goals that may be unattainable, don’t be. Be proud of yourself for having dreams, and go after them using any means possible. If you’re worried about those dreams changing, just remember that they probably will. Most people today do change their jobs, if not their careers, a number of times before finding that elusive “perfect fit.” But if you never try to reach your first goal because you’re not sure if it’s right – if you hold back because you don’t think it’s attainable – that in itself is a decision that will shape your future.
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      Whether you choose to pursue your dreams is up to you, but whether life moves on without you is not. All we can do is aim high with every intention of succeeding, and if we choose a new target half way, it’s not a failure or a sign of misdirection. We’re just human, and we change. But the good news is that everyone expects us to. We are expected to be different from who we are in high school, and we are expected to be different from who we are after we go to college or take our first job or go through any number of changes in our lives. So figure out what you love to do and go after it as fiercely as possible, but don’t be afraid to pursue something new. Be more afraid of inaction than action, and be confident that while you’re trying to find something you love, you’re moving closer and closer to actually finding it.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
What are your career goals, and how do you intend to pursue them? Are you struggling to find one "thing" to do?

1. Make sure you’re ready to be 100% professional on Twitter

When you first start using social sites for professional interests, it can be difficult to adjust to new ways of using social media. Suddenly it’s not about socializing. It’s about networking. Make sure that you’re ready to be completely professional before setting up your Twitter profile so that you can stop yourself from posting anything that is in conflict with the professional image you’re trying to put forward.

2. Make yourself and your tweets findable

Even though you’re always told to hide your social media and make everything private online, don’t protect your tweets. You should be as visible as possible so that you can network effectively and expose your professional interests to as many people as possible. However, in order to feel comfortable leaving your tweets unprotected and viewable by anyone, you need to be sure that your profile really is 100% professional, as I said in step 1 so that you aren’t showcasing anything you wouldn’t want to come up in a job interview or even keep you from getting an interview.

3. Keep your profile picture professional

Just as on LinkedIn, you should use a photo that clearly shows people what you look like and that you have a) taken the time to have your photo taken and b) dressed professionally so that you would be taken seriously. If you look like you want to be taken seriously, you have a much better chance of people actually taking you seriously.

4. Use your bio to explain your professional goals

Although you only get 160 characters in your bio, try your best to write who you are and what kind of work you want to be doing in your professional life. When you follow anyone or post anything that piques someone’s interest, they’ll want to get an idea of who you are, and your bio is the perfect place for an introduction. Consider this your “pitch.” You’re selling yourself with your bio, so take it seriously and consider how you want to introduce yourself to professionals carefully.

5. Choose a name and username that make sense

You should try to make yourself findable by anyone who knows you already, so make your name whatever it is that people call you. If you go by a nickname even in your professional life, consider using that. However, if only your friends and family call you something that you won’t be called at work, use your full name. Your username doesn’t affect how easily you can be found, but it should be something professional that relates to your name, goals, or professional career so that, again, people take you seriously.

6. Tweet about topics relevant to your industry

Don’t tweet just to say that you’re on Twitter. Everything you post will contribute to the way people see you, or your professional image, so you should always keep your posts as professional and related to your industry as possible. What you post will be a factor in determining who follows you, so make sure your content is relevant, relatable, and worth being viewed by professionals with whom you want to network.

7. Use hashtags

This may be a no-brainer because it’s Twitter, but make sure you use hashtags to make your posts easier to find, easier for people to connect with and relate to, and easier to be evaluated for worth. If you’re using hashtags that are highly relevant to your field, then your post will be more likely to be considered relevant to the people in that field.

8. Quality of connections is more important than quantity

Don’t follow people simply to strengthen your numbers or get more followers. Instead, follow people who post content that genuinely interests you or people who you recognize as professionals in your field of interest. There is nothing wrong with following small numbers of people as long as they are people who will be useful in networking and learning about your industry. You don’t only have to follow people in your industry, but they should make up the large majority, at least at first, so that people can see you’re serious about the image you’re putting forward and your intent to break into whatever field you’re pursing.

9. Gain followers through interaction

It does look better the more followers you have, so you should be trying to get other professionals to follow you after you’ve followed them. However, they won’t automatically follow you just because you’ve followed them. Post tweets that are informed and related to your industry. Make sure that your profile displays you as a person who should be followed because of your commitment to learning and talking about your professional field. You should also feel comfortable commenting on others’ tweets or retweeting to show that you are engaged in conversations and value what others have to say.

10. Use Twitter to network

​Rather than sitting back and just tweeting in hopes of receiving followers and starting conversations, search for people with whom you’re interested in connecting, and start talking. Message anyone you’d like and just start a conversation about something related to your field. Tell them about yourself, and ask questions about the industry, who they are, and their career. Begin a dialogue that will help you learn more about not only the industry but the person with whom you’re networking, and make it clear that you’re interested in learning from them, not just in getting another follower. Just as I said in my post about learning how to network, make sure that you make your conversation more about them than yourself.
 
-Hope Swedeen
 
How can you make sure your Twitter is as professional as possible? What are some ways that you have used or might use Twitter in a professional setting?