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Tag: high school

  • Too Cool for School?

    Too Cool for School?

    “A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.” – Horrace Mann

    It is important to remember messages such as these when the pressure of high school really sets in. Will I make friends? Will I fit in? Will my teachers be too strict? It takes a few years and a couple life lessons to really understand the insignificance of these questions. High school isn’t a popularity contest or a soap opera, it’s a learning institution that will help to mold you into the person that you one day hope to be. It’s a stepping stone on the path to a life that you can be proud of.

    Statistics Canada reports that 191,000 young people aged 20 to 24 had not completed a high school diploma and were not attending school in 2009-2010, though this is a significant drop from the 340,000 in 1990-1991, it is still a cause for concern. Too many high school students are not taking their education seriously and are putting their futures on the back burner.

    It may seem cool to work in a fast food restaurant or a trendy clothing store for now, while you are living at home with your parents or guardians, and your income is solely for partying or material things. But eventually that roof with no longer be over your head, and your free ride will be over. Suddenly, those 32 hours a week and that minimum wage job won’t seem so glamorous anymore. You’re faced with the reality of bill payments and rent cheques and that bank account is getting smaller and smaller every month. This is when it hits you – “I should have just toughed it out and stayed in school.”

    It takes a lot of hard work and motivation to succeed in this world. A cushy, high paying job won’t just be handed to you on a silver platter (unless you are one of the lucky few, but let’s face it… if you were, you wouldn’t need us) and every dollar in that bank account will have been earned with pride.

    Whether you’re bullied, burdened or just plain lazy, a high school diploma is an accomplishment that is recognized all over the world, and there is nothing that should keep you from it. Keep your eye on the prize and before you know it, you’ll be throwing your hat in the air, anxiously awaiting what comes next…

  • Preparing for High School

    Preparing for High School

    Starting high school can be an exciting time for many people. If you’re nearing that point in your life, you probably feel a combination of fear and anticipation. It’s the beginning of the end of childhood, a time when people can start to make their own decisions and influence their own lives. At the same time, it can also be stressful and sometimes overwhelming with all of new pressures people face. By thinking ahead and planning for the future, however, you can make the transition to high school much easier than it might otherwise be.

    For most students, the biggest change is the sudden increase in both freedom and responsibility. You can choose to go to an academic high school and take university-entrance courses or choose a vocational school and learn a trade like carpentry or plumbing. You can take courses in the sciences or in areas like history and English literature. In many cases, these kinds of choices can affect people’s lives and careers for years, and sometimes for the rest of their lives. Taking on such a big responsibility can sometimes be overwhelming for students.

    Freedom and responsibility come in many different areas as well. Depending on the school, you might or might not be required to be in class every day, and teachers are less likely to remind you to get your assignments done. Students become responsible to get their work done so that they can pass to the next grade. Most high schools work on a credit system in which each student must have a certain number of credits to graduate. It’s up to the students to take enough courses each year and to pass them in order to go on to the next grade.

    In high school, the structure and content of classes can also change a lot. Normally, students receive more homework than before and have more difficult assignments, such as writing long research essays. Classes might take on more of a lecture format than in earlier grades, and marks might become important for people going on to university. For many people, there are also the pressures of going to a new school and making friends in a strange setting.

    How can you prepare for high school? One way is by going to a high school orientation session, where teachers and school administrators take students and their parents on tours around the school. Another is by attending a transition program run by the high school or a community centre. Some of the activities a transition program might include are social events for parents and students, where new and returning students can meet each other, and mentorship programs, where younger and older students are paired together to provide information and support for the newcomers.

    If you’re getting ready to begin high school, you know that it can be an exciting and frightening time. However, if you work hard to prepare yourself beforehand, you can help to make the transition as easy as possible.

  • Volunteer Centres in Canada

    Volunteer Centres in Canada

    As you know, all high school students need to have 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. Use this information to discover where your 40 hours can best be used.

    Volunteering and Community Hours

    What is a Volunteer Centre?

    Volunteer Centres are non-profit organizations or groups dedicated to fostering and developing volunteerism in the community as a whole. While other organizations contribute to sustaining our national heritage of volunteering through their programs and outreach, Volunteer Centres serve the broadest membership. Volunteer Centres reach across the non-profit and public sectors to include organizations working in human and social services, health care, education, the arts and recreation – regardless of their source of funding.

    What if my community does not have a Volunteer Centre?

    Volunteer Centres reflect the needs of the community they serve. Volunteer Centres exist primarily to foster and develop volunteerism in the community as a whole. They engage in four general kinds of services and activities:

    1. Promoting volunteerism and raising awareness of the power of service
    2. Building capacity for effective local volunteering through management consulting on volunteer programs and training of managers of volunteer resources
    3. Providing leadership and advocacy on issues relating to volunteerism and volunteer programs
    4. Connecting people with opportunities to serve through recruitment and referral of volunteers to community agencies

    Four Main Reasons to Volunteer

    1. Make a contribution to society.
    2. Share your skills.
    3. Support a cause.
    4. Do something meaningful with your friends and colleagues.

    One of these reasons probably makes sense for you. You may already be working as a volunteer or are thinking about what you might want to do next. Whatever your reason, there are many different opportunities out there – and organizations that need your help.

  • Happy Graduation & Summer from JobsPeopleDo.com!

    Happy Graduation & Summer from JobsPeopleDo.com!

    For those of you in Grade 12, June is the month you have been waiting your entire life for – you will be graduating from high school. This is a momentous occasion, and one that you worked extremely hard to achieve. Be proud of what you have accomplished and enjoy all of the activities and festivities that come with graduation.

    If it’s not your graduation year, that means June brings a different reason for celebration – summer vacation! There are so many things you can do this summer to bring you closer to your goals, whether it’s getting your first summer job, volunteering or just focusing on being the best version of yourself you can possibly be. Take these summer months to relax, recharge and set your goals for the next school year.

    This month, JobsPeopleDo.com brings you great editorial pieces about what you can do with your summer, whether you are moving on to post-secondary education or not. Don’t forget that it’s never too late to apply for scholarships if you need them for September, so check out our list of ten new and interesting ones that you apply for this month.

    From all of us at JobsPeopleDo.com, we wish you a happy, safe and productive summer!

    Jasmin Bollman, Assistant Editor
    Don’t forget – be a mentor, someone needs you!

  • The Benefits of Volunteering in High School

    The Benefits of Volunteering in High School

    High school students, it’s time to get motivated! Volunteering while still in high school provides you with the framework for your future career path, as well as instills in you the importance of giving back to others. It may seem difficult to fit in volunteer hours with such a busy schedule of classes, studying and extracurricular activities, but with a little planning you can achieve your volunteer goals. Many not-for-profit organizations only require a few hours a week of your time. For example, the Ottawa Humane Society has a dog walking program that requires a commitment of 2 hours per week. If you love dogs, that is a very easy commitment to make! Even though you may not be reimbursed financially for your time, volunteering is something that can be put on your resume that will help impress future employers and university admissions officials alike. Below, a list of just some of the benefits that volunteerism can provide you:

    Impress Admissions Officials
    You’ve got the great GPA and amazing standardized test scores. But what makes you stand out from students with similar grades? The answer is what you do in your spare time. Volunteer hours and part-time jobs listed on your application will really make you shine. Volunteerism is a great way to show admissions officials that you not only care about the community, but are able to manage your time well enough to balance a volunteer job with your other commitments. By all means, don’t spend every spare minute working on your volunteer hours – you need to balance volunteerism with your personal life, too. But a sustained commitment to one particular cause over a year or two shows that you are willing to stick to something that you care about. This will be very impressive to admissions officials and work in your favour.

    Get Involved Outside of School
    Volunteering allows you to meet people you may not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise, especially if you are volunteering outside of school. If you have heard the term “networking”, that is essentially what you will be doing! You are forming a network of contacts that can help you get to where you want to be. If you already have a good idea of what you want to study in college or university, you can volunteer your time in that field. For example, if you want to study psychology, why not volunteer your time with the Canadian Mental Health Association? You can find volunteer opportunities for almost anything that interests you, so spread your wings outside of your school and gain immeasurable benefits!

    Earn Academic Credit and Scholarships
    Some high schools require you to put in volunteer hours in order to graduate. Others offer extra credits or scholarship opportunities if you do volunteer your time. Check with your high school’s administration office to see if any of these opportunities are available to you. If they are, take advantage of them! A scholarship will help you to cut down on your student loans when you reach university, and extra credits will look great on your transcript to help you land the university placement of your dreams. Check out studentawards.ca to find all of the different community service scholarships that are available – your volunteerism won’t only impress your university of choice, but also the officials who will be deciding whether or not you obtain your scholarship!

    Above are the curricular advantages to volunteerism. But let’s not forget the personal advantages that come from it, too. Giving back to your community and contributing positive energy to the world will do wonders for your self-esteem and self-worth. Volunteering is the way to go!

  • Life After High School

    Do you ever think about what you plan to do when you finish high school? Maybe you want to work right away or maybe you want to continue studying. For the first time, you’ll be making decisions that could affect you, your family, and your friends for the rest of your life. You can’t control everything in your life, but you can make a plan that will help you to enjoy whatever you do and to have a fulfilling life.

    You might expect that life after graduation will be completely different from your life in high school. For some of you, this might be true. You might decide to get married or to move to a different country or a different city. Suddenly, you’ll have to make your own decisions about your future, and even if your parents help, you’ll be responsible for your own life. You’ll be an adult.

    For at least the first while, your new freedom might seem very exciting. If you decide to go out and get a job, the freedom of having money might be a lot of fun. You might decide to get a job right away working in the retail or service industries. You might decide to go to university to become a doctor or teacher or go to a vocational school for a career in a trade.

    If you choose to work right after graduation, you might find that your job is a lot like high school. You’ll have to get to work on time and stay for the whole day unless you have a special reason to leave. If you miss work too often without a good excuse, you might lose your job.

    If you choose to continue with your education, you might find that your instructors pay little attention to whether or not you attend classes. You could attend only the first and last classes and still get good marks. However, you’ll still have to take all of the tests and complete all of the assignments if you want to pass the course. The professors likely won’t watch over you the same way teachers do in high school, but they’ll still expect you to get your work done.

    One thing that will likely stay the same after high school is the types of people you meet. Whether at work or in university, you’ll find the same mixture of friendly or unfriendly people, helpful or unhelpful, tense or relaxed. You will probably also remain much the same. Different situations might bring out skills and interests you never knew you had. However, your basic character will probably remain unchanged. That’s why it’s important to begin thinking about not just what you want to do, but what kind of person you want to be.

    Does life after high school sound like the kind of life you already have or like an exciting adventure that is opening up? In the end, both of these possibilities might be true. Use this opportunity to be everything you’ve always wanted to be.

  • Gossip Is Bad For You

    Gossip Is Bad For You

    Gossip is something that is very prevalent in high school, generally due to all of the changes that people are going through. With any luck, gossiping will diminish as you grow up and move on with your life. It is a type of conversation that is not very productive in terms of creating positive change in communities, and in fact is often the source of a lot of unnecessary harm and pain.

    An interesting quote I read recently said: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds gossip about people. Life is much too short to be lived talking about people, gossiping, and stirring up trouble that has no substance. If you don’t understand someone, ask questions. If you don’t agree with them, tell them. But don’t judge them behind their back to everyone else” –Entrepreneur Secrets 2012.

    This quote draws attention to the fact that there are often conversations that you would rather avoid, because they are nothing but mean-spirited and a waste of time. I disagree with the quote because I think that there is a time and a place for gossip. Often talking about other people is a way of understanding the social world that we live in, which is just as important as understanding anything else. Sometimes not talking about other people is a mistake because you don’t have an opportunity to digest what another person is about. People are interesting, and talking about them is not always a waste of time. The linchpin is the intention that you have when talking about other people. If you are attacking someone out of mean-spiritedness and to gain power over that individual, you must be bored or looking to “stir trouble” like the quote above says.

    I agree with the above mentioned quote in how they draw attention to the fact that not understanding someone should bring you to asking more questions. This is really true, because most of the time other people are misunderstood simply for lack of information. This is not something to capitalize on with gossip, but rather an opportunity to learn more about something that you don’t understand. A popular old adage states “don’t hate what you don’t understand”.

    In school and work situations, there will always be times when people will say or do things that you don’t agree with. It is during these situations that it is healthy to vent about the outcome of a certain conversation or event. The distinction to be made, however, is between attacking someone’s character and attacking their words or behaviours. There are relevant points and there are irrelevant points when talking about other people. If you are trying to capture them as an individual with pros and cons, this is usually a better approach than trying to twist them into a character with only cons. Most people are not evil, so spreading rumors and creating a monster out of someone else is simply mean and counter-productive.

    So resolve to stop the bad gossip in 2013!

  • Sports and Volunteer Hours

    Sports and Volunteer Hours

    With the cold now upon us, many of us are dreaming of next summer. During the summer months, the last thing you want to think about is school and especially about completing those mandatory volunteer hours so you can get your high school diploma. Not to worry, though! You can still have plenty of fun in the sun while completing those volunteer hours.

    How do I know that you can do this? Well, I know from personal experience of course. Just like all of you readers, I had to manage my time in the summer so I could complete my volunteer hours. I decided that since I have to do them, I would want to volunteer for something that I would enjoy. In my case, I liked sports, so I phoned some local sport clubs and asked if any were offering volunteer hours for students.

    After some sport searching, I discovered that I could coach for a junior league soccer team. As intimidating as coaching sounded, I was up to the challenge, and it turned out to be one of the best parts of my summer. I signed up, along with my brother, and we coached a soccer team for 8 year-olds soccer  for two months.

    We practiced once a week and played a game every weekend, putting in over 3 hours a week. It was a very small amount of time we had to take out of our normal summer, and it wasnʼt agonizing to do. In fact, I looked forward to seeing my kids learn and develop soccer skills through mine and my brotherʼs coaching. It was very rewarding, especially when we made it all the way to the finals and won the
    championship!

    Jamie Willett, a recent resident at Western University, had a similar experience with her high school volunteer hours. Jamie did her volunteer hours spending her summer assisting a junior gymnastic team. She spent hours every week planning and executing lessons for a group of young gymnasts.

    “It was really thrilling to teach the kids during the summer. Although it brought new challenges everyday, it allowed me to test my skills as a gymnast and as a teacher. It definitely helped me discover what I wanted to do after high school as well!”

    This fall term Jamie will be studying at teacher’s college at Western University for a year so she can teach students at the high school level.

    As you can see, there are plenty of ways to finish up those volunteer hours during your high school years and we have only covered the realm of sports! Be sure to check out the Jobs People Do Volunteer section to check out where you can lend a hand in your community!

    Start thinking about and planning your summer volunteer opportunities now!

  • Volunteer Centres in Canada

    Volunteer Centres in Canada

    As you know, high school students require 40 hours worth of volunteer work/community service in order to graduate. Use our handy guide below to discover how your hours can best be used!

    Volunteering and Community Hours

    What is a Volunteer Centre?

    Volunteer Centres are non-profit organizations or groups dedicated to fostering and developing volunteerism in the community as a whole. While other organizations contribute to sustaining our national heritage of volunteering through their programs and outreach, Volunteer Centres serve the broadest membership; this includes volunteers and organizations/volunteer-involving organizations. Volunteer Centres reach across the non-profit and public sectors to include organizations working in human and social services, health care, education, the arts and recreation – regardless of their source of funding.

  • How Many Grade 12 Courses Should I Take?

    How Many Grade 12 Courses Should I Take?

    The following tips, originally posted at the Studentawards Forum, were contributed by students in our membership.

    Q. Do universities care whether you took a spare in grade 12? I’m currently taking 8 courses, but it’s just too stressful. I want to drop [a course] which I don’t really need for university but then I’m afraid that they will think I’m just lazy, and pick someone who took 8 courses over me. (Posted by: xugengyu )

    A. [Universities] don’t care about whether you take a spare or not, all they care about is your top 6 U/M marks. (Posted by: Joshki)

    Take the spare. Universities do not really care about that. And for you, it will relieve stress, may help with studying and grades, and for me…it gave me time to fill out scholarships and applications. (Posted by: Emlily)

    Q. It’s almost midterms and I’m doing really badly in grade 12 physics. Should I drop the course and will it affect my transcript? (Posted by: Chelleee)

    I currently have a full 8 course load, with 7 of them being U level courses. My question is, will dropping [a course] look bad on my record? I’d like to drop it because I don’t need it for any of the programs I’m interested in, and I feel that if I keep it, my other course grades (which I do need) will suffer. (Posted by Jagxyz)

    A. If you can’t keep up with the workload and don’t need that course, feel free to drop it. There is no guilt in that, unless you drop it after full disclosure day when your up-to-date mark appears on your transcript. (Posted by: superstar2011)

    If you do decide to drop [a course], do it before the OUAC drop date (early-Nov) so it does not show up on your transcript as a dropped course. (Posted by: Meridian)

    Take only 3 courses each semester … you need the extra time to do well in your top 6. I took 3 each semester and it was the smartest thing I have ever done. (Posted by FutureEng)

    I only did 6 grade 12 courses towards my top 6. You may still want to plan for 7 in case you totally burn a subject … Start with all 4 and you can always drop [one] if you are having trouble. (Posted by: Meridian)

    It’s a good idea to take at least 7 courses in grade 12 because you should have one back up course in case you end up screwing up a mark in a more challenging course. (Posted by emcee0)

    I agree strongly with this, but you should keep in mind that the 7th course is not going to save you from screwing up in a mandatory course such as English. (Posted by: superstar2011)

    It is better to take 6 courses and get relatively high marks than taking 7-8 and getting mediocre marks, unless you really wish to have that safety net. (Posted by: heesoup)

    The only disadvantage of taking 6 courses is that all 6 will be used in your admission average calculation, so you have no “back ups” to fall back on if you end up not doing so well in 1+ of the 6 courses you’re taking. (Posted by: cyynthiia)