College and Career Readiness: What High Schoolers Need to Know

It is your junior or senior year of high school, and you may feel excited about graduating and going to college or into the workforce. You have passed all your tests, completed projects, and participated in extracurriculars, but how do you know you are genuinely prepared for the next step? College and career readiness is a way to demonstrate competency in the areas you will need to succeed after graduation.

Some of the skills you will need are below:

1.   Self-reflection and a growth mindset

 Whether you are entering the workforce or planning to attend college, you need to be able to practice self-reflection. Identify areas where you need to develop or need additional help to succeed. Right now, that may look like a math test, but in the future, it could be a college course or assignment from your boss that you aren’t sure how to complete. Always keep an open mind and be willing to learn new skills, seek help from others, and grow as a professional.

2.   Communication Skills

You should be able to communicate effectively with your peers and superiors. This can look like being an active listener in a conversation or typing a professional-sounding email to a professor or boss. We would not send an email to our boss that sounds like an email we might send to a friend. Ensure there are no abbreviations, emojis, or unprofessional email tags. This reflects your professionalism and can make a difference in making a good impression on those who can help you grow as a student or employee. If you need help learning how to draft an email or need practice with your grammar, Mrs. Kelly at Dailies is available for tutoring!

3.   Critical Thinking Skills

 Critical thinking skills are a set of skills that help you solve a problem, analyze information, and make sound judgments. This is a skill that is practiced in your history and English courses. When you complete a character analysis for a paper or study a historical figure, you analyze all the information from the novel or historical sources to decipher what type of person they were or why events unfolded the way they did. This skill directly translates to the real world. In our time of mass media consumption, we must know how to analyze the information we are shown, especially if it has varying viewpoints, and come to an educated conclusion. You should not rely on social media to get this information!

4.   Professionalism

• Come prepared every day to college or your job! Don’t be consistently late.
•  Demonstrate dependability
• Demonstrate dedication by consistently showing up prepared and with a growth mindset!
• Dress appropriately for work! Most jobs explain their employee dress code when you are hired. Be sure to adhere to this to make a good impression.
•   Technology

 You should come to college or a job with a basic understanding of how to effectively use a computer and various systems on the computer. No one expects you to be an expert in everything, so our growth mindset will be important again!