13 Jun Road Map for June: Freshmen

You’ve completed your first year of high school! How did it go? Summer is a valuable opportunity to catch your breath and reflect on your year.  Think about the goals you set, what you accomplished, what you enjoyed, what you found meaningful and what you found challenging.  Now look ahead and consider how you can build on this year and what your next set of goals might be.  And while you’re doing this reflection, think also about how you want to keep track of your progress throughout high school.  You may want to keep samples of your academic work or extracurricular projects.  Depending on what you’re involved in, these could be written materials, photos, videos or other pieces.  You might want to keep hard copies or electronic files or some combination.  Whatever your needs are, set up a system that works for you and will allow you to save your materials and retrieve them later.

I generally don’t have a lot of college-specific tasks for 9th graders, other than to lay the foundation for a successful high school experience.  As you head toward your sophomore year, however, it will make sense to start developing your higher education plans.  It’s too early to have a college list but it’s not too early to explore, and summer is a good time to do that through online  research or perhaps a college tour.  Consider using your time off for a local campus visit or, if you have summer travel plans, try to fit a college visit in your destination city.  Your goal at this phase is just to see what’s out there and start thinking about what kind of college experience will be right for you.