By Kunal Mehra
Whether you’re in your first year of high school or approaching your last, it is never a bad time to start preparing for college. I always advise our students on the importance of starting early to succeed! Most successful students optimize their entire high school experience to strengthen their academics and extracurriculars, and each year focus on more specific components of their profile so that when it’s time to apply to their dream US University, they put their best foot forward.
Now you’ll ask me, why start preparing for college applications in high school?
US Universities have a rigorous application process, where your profile will be scrutinized extensively. Preparing for university early allows you to engage with your high school career in a meaningful and authentic way which can drastically increase your chances of attending your dream university. An important part of this early preparation is the personal exploration of your passions and interests in your future career domains.
While the thought of career exploration might seem daunting to a high schooler, it need not be as stressful and can be broken down into manageable steps. Of course, career choices can change with time and not all students stick to their adolescence options.
Explore your interests, skills and passions
Your high school years are the most optimal time to start thinking and acting on your future potential careers. I’m not asking you to explore and settle with one career choice, but rather spend time mapping the most attractive choices for your personality and investigating them further.
Ask yourself some important questions like – What are your academic interests? What activities do you enjoy the most? What about this activity do you enjoy the most? Which US universities are you aiming for? The answers to these questions will help you identify some potential career choices for yourself. After all, the goal of such an exercise is to help you identify a career field, where you feel a sense of accomplishment and success.
Once you arrive at some potential career choices, delve deeper into researching them. Most importantly, keep an open mind! During your research, you might be happily surprised at some of the more ‘underdog’ options you put on your list, which might even turn into real career paths. Serendipity!
Experience the job
You can seek volunteer opportunities, internships and other roles that allow you to shadow a professional, as a high schooler as well. However, be mindful of creating a balance between your academics and these explorations. In my opinion, supervised assignments dring internships are great for experiential learning. Even short educational programs offered by leading global organizations, can be a great way to assess if it’s of your interest or not.
Career Training
Some of the more successful students I’ve had the good chance of advising, started their career preparation in high school, and continued well into their university years. One of my top tips would be to build a solid high school plan, one that prepares you for your next phase of education in university and beyond. Employers would often consider your high school consistency and how that follows into your university discipline. Remember, starting strong and staying strong throughout this journey, is what will help you shine in any career path you choose.
There is no one right way to start a career and each student takes a different career path. Some students can make very decisive choices and get into the university of their dreams through hard work and meticulous planning. While others take a gap year to pursue different experiences. And this only goes to prove further, that there is always room to shift course and your high school experience doesn’t have to be a series of rigid choices.
Whichever path you choose, it’s important to ‘build yourself a plan and go for it and give yourself the best chance of success!’
(Author is CEO and Managing Director, Crimson Education India)
