College & Career Readiness 101
FCHS Counseling Team Newsletter (August 21)
College & Career Readiness
All students should graduate from high school ready for college, careers, and life, prepared to pursue the future of their choosing. In efforts to support students and to build a common language and understanding, the College & Career Readiness team will publish a monthly newsletter. Each newsletter will include helpful tools and resources that will expose our students to the endless opportunities available to them.
2021-2022 Theme: Keep Calm & Get Ready for College and Careers
Volunteer for Community Service
Apply to Scholarships
Practice for the SAT and/or ACT
Try Job Shadowing
Explore a New Hobby
Visit Technical Colleges/Centers
Tour College Campuses
Register for Summer Classes
Build a Resume
Get a Job
Take a Virtual College or Career Field Trip
August 2021 College & Career Readiness Student Challenge
Volunteer for Community Service
As most states require a minimum number of community service hours for state-funded scholarships, summer is a peak time to collect those hours. Students should choose organizations that are aligned with their career interests. For example, if a student has high interest in health sciences, then perhaps they should seek opportunities to volunteer at a local veterinary clinic or nursing home.
48 certificates in the high-demand areas of STEM and business leadership
Licensed and Certified Occupations in Georgia
The twelfth edition of Licensed and Certified Occupations in Georgia continues our tradition of providing students, job seekers, counselors, and other interested persons with information about the occupations that require licensing or certification in the state, as well as occupations that offer certifications as an option.
2021 Best National University Rankings
Schools in the National Universities category, such as the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University, offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and doctoral programs. These colleges also are committed to producing groundbreaking research.
12th Grade College Prep Checklist
Four Keys to College and Career Readiness Tips
Think ~ Know ~ Act ~ Grow
(Source: Educational Policy Improvement Center)
Here’s a closer look at the four keys:
1. Key Cognitive Strategies: How do I think?
To prepare for college-level coursework, you need to do more than memorize facts and follow directions. College and workplace success requires thinking skills and strategies that enable you to develop and demonstrate your ability to learn, apply, and use knowledge and information to solve problems.
Conley says there are five strategies that are essential to the insightful thinking required to succeed in post-secondary education:
- Problem formulation – What problem are you trying to solve? Do you have a clear understanding of the problem and how it should be approached? Can you develop strategies for exploring all parts of the problem and identify possible outcomes resulting from the issue?
- Research – Where can you find the information you need? Can you identify the information, data, and research necessary to solve the problem? Judge the quality of the data and sources? Assess the usefulness of the information? Generate original information and data?
- Interpretation – How do you make sense of the information? Are you able to identify and assess the most relevant information or data? Synthesize the information, make connections, and draw logical conclusions? Identify potential solutions to the problem?
- Communication – What’s the best way to communicate what you’ve learned? Can you draft a clear, organized, and effective message summarizing the problem and potential solutions? After seeking feedback on your draft, reflecting upon that feedback, and revising the information, can you put together a coherent and complete final version that follows a structured line of reasoning?
- Precision and accuracy – How do you know you’re on the right track? Throughout the entire process, do you ensure the problem is addressed accurately and thoroughly? Are you using language, terms, expressions, rules, and terminology appropriate for the subject matter and the problem?
2. Key Content Knowledge: What do I know?
To prepare for college coursework, you need strong foundational knowledge in core academic subjects. For specific information about recommended high school coursework and standardized test scores needed for to college success, go to: National College Readiness Indicators.
Yet, simply completing the recommended high school classes is not enough! Your success in mastering subject-matter content takes motivation, time, energy, effort, and the use of learning strategies. Students who learn key content knowledge effectively and efficiently:
- regard the content as worth learning;
- understand why the content is important and can see how it connects to what they already know;
- are motivated to learn relevant facts, terms and concepts and understand how they fit together in order to identify the big ideas and overarching principles;
- push themselves to work hard, knowing that their effort has value and deepens learning;
- are able to organize information well;
- understand how the knowledge they’re acquiring now connects to future college and career options.
3. Key Learning Skills & Techniques: How do I act?
Conley notes that no single factor is more important to your success as a student than the degree to which you take ownership for your learning. Do you approach learning with curiosity? Find ways to work toward your goals? Practice good study habits? If so, you’re building the tool kit you need to transition from the teacher-dependent learning that’s typically the norm in high schools to the independent learning that is essential in post-secondary education.
The high school students who truly know how to learn have developed and habitually utilize these critical skills: time management, study skills, test taking skills, note taking skills, memorizing, strategic reading, collaborative learning, and technological proficiency. For more information on ways to develop and enhance these skills, go to: HowToStudy.org.
4. Key Transition Knowledge & Skills: How do I go?
To transition smoothly from high school to college and career, you may have to navigate through some pretty complex challenges – personally, culturally, financially and professionally. From knowing how to apply to college, exploring and choosing your career path, paying for school, advocating for your own best interests, to adjusting to the work environment, you need to know how to get where you want to go.
Here’s a summary of the essential knowledge and skills that will help you find your way:
- :Types of Colleges: The Basics, Selecting a College Type),
- Getting into College: The Real Story Behind the Headlines, Qualities that Will Make a College Right for You, Self-Survey for the College Bound),
- College Navigator, Peterson’s, College Board),
- Guide to the College Admissions Process)
- The Concept of Career Clusters.
- Sample Coursework By Career Cluster
- College costs – Do I know how to finance my plans for the future? – Students and parents need to understand the actual costs of college, applying for financial aid through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and loan options to pay for college. For more information, go to: FinAid.org.
Doorways to College- and Career-Readiness
- : Career Exploration: How to Get the Scoop; 5 Great Ways to Test Drive a Career.)
- Stay focused during your senior year. While you already may have been accepted to the college of your choice as early as fall, your remaining high-school coursework is important (not only in terms of what you know, but how you think and act – all of which is essential to college readiness).
- Become a self-directed learner. Motivated learners do in better school. And lifelong learning is essential to on-going career development.
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