Monday, March 15, 2010

Things to Teach Your Children to Prepare Them For College

I was pretty naïve when I started college; I assumed that everyone there was excited about learning and getting an education to improve their station in life. Well this is not the case for most or at least not right now. So I thought I would share some insights which might help you in preparing your kids for college.


1. Do not buy your kid a laptop for college. Ok so most of you will do this because it does seem logical that they would need one. But the library has lap tops they can check out if needed and there are computer laps all over campus. My reason for this is that 90% of the kids, who bring their laptops to class play games, visit Facebook or shop. Which means they are being rude to the professors and are not learning anything in the class, which also converts to the pocketbook because they will probably have to take the class again? Just a side note on this issue it is also very distracting to sit behind someone who is doing the above mentioned activities.

2. Make your highschooler have homework! Most professors tell their students the first day of class that you will have about 3 hours of homework for every 1 hour of class. Now even I don’t study that much but it does take at least an hour minimum for each class. I sit with students who tell me they are unprepared for homework and assume that the assignments are no big deal and can be done whenever. This leads to point number three.

3. Does your student understand a deadline? There is no such thing as late work in college, not even the next hour. Most professors won’t take late work unless you are dying and have a note. Those that do, take a lot of points off. In high school these days turning your assignments in right before report cards are to come out is fine, just get the work in, this will not fly in college. Also you cannot miss a test (except for the dying excuse), unless you are an athlete leaving town that day, test day is test day! And if you do poorly you cannot take it over to get a better grade (again a popular practice at high school to help raise those class averages).



So there are a few tips to get you started on preparing yourself or your kids for college!

6 comments:

  1. Good tips!

    I've also read that when these young people get a job, they also expect some special treatment, and are upset when they discover that they are indeed at the job to WORK!

    I think we've raised a generation of spoiled brats (me included).

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  2. These are great, but could you elaborate a little? I mean, I have a four year old and with all the pressure on kids now I don't want to see her left behind. Other than reading the classics and an intro to algebra, what should I be doing?

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  3. great tips...i may cry without my laptop though. for me it is about the peripheral things as well. my first year of college, i got caught up in everything going on around me. once i could manage those, i did so much better....

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  4. I just saw a real interesting way that professors are trying to get the students engaged in lecture classes. There are a lot of participation exercises that require you to have a laptop to participate. I think that they figured out that a lot of people don't pay attention and this is their way of getting them off of social networks and into class networks.

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  5. I actually feel as if it was the best thing I ever did to buy the kids laptops for college. They didn't take them to class though.

    But you know what, kids can surf the web and text on their phones in class and that's even worse!

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  6. Great tips... I just need to find me a kid to send to college!!

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