CLASS1_Introduction.DOC
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This document provides an introduction to a course designed to prepare highly motivated high school students for college life. It outlines the objectives of the course, which are to prepare students for the transition to college, help them discover their strengths and weaknesses, build leadership skills, and define their purpose and career path. The document then contrasts high school and college expectations, noting that college will require more independent work, deeper thinking, and faster learning. It warns students that college is challenging and will test their discipline, character, and resolve through greater demands, pressures, and competing ideas. Students are advised to avoid rationalizing failures or fantasizing as escapes and instead to face challenges objectively, make decisions, and rely on their own strengths and self-confidence
CLASS1_Introduction.DOC
- 1. 1 Introduction to the Course (University Expectations, Class no. 1) This is a course designed for highly motivated high school students; students who are ready to take on the challenges that college life has to offer. It is geared to train young men to start taking life seriously and face up to their responsibilities. If you are ready to mature and build your life on the basis of upright and well-defined convictions and principles, if you are ready to grow up and be prepared to occupy your place in society in the future, then this course is for you. Objectives of this course: 1. To prepare you squarely and solidly for College life. 2. To help you make the transition from having a high school mentality to that of being a self-reliant, creative, mature and purposeful university student. 3. To discover yourself and what you can do: your strengths and capabilities, your weakness and shortcomings, your talents and skills. You have to know yourself in order to maximize and strengthen your capacity for thought and action. 4. To build the leadership mentality so that you can make a direct and fruitful contribution to society. 5. To give you a leading edge in your high school work enabling you to prepare and choose carefully the career path you wish to take. This course is designed for students mature enough to understand the importance and necessity of training and preparation. It is designed for those who have the motivation and drive to put meaning in their life and plans. Highlights of this course: 1. Simulated College Lectures. This feature will test your ability to keep and focus attention, learn how to listen and retain key ideas. This will give you a glimpse of what college lectures will be like. It will give you the chance to practice note taking, class participation and how to handle teacher expectation. 2. Emphasis will be placed on how to put into practice the university spirit while in High School. Prepare yourself for the university now. We are here not only to increase knowledge but to exercise the ideas learned. This is the key: put ideas into action. This is what will give you an edge in your high school work now. 3. Learn habits and techniques in studying and doing research. This will reinforce your present study habits and prepare you for the rigor of university work. 4. Define your purpose and mission in life. University life is the moment when you focus more sharply on what your career and professional path will take, the kind of principles and attitudes you will carry with you throughout life, and the meaning your future will have for you.
- 2. 2 High School life in perspective The purpose of High School Education can be summarized as follows: A. To give you a broad introduction to the different branches of knowledge: math, sciences, liberal arts, social sciences, etc. B. To give you basic training in putting discipline and order in your mind so that you learn how to analyze, reason, calculate, read, etc. C. To give you the opportunity to develop other skills and physical qualities through extra-curricular activities. Secondary education is meant to service everyone so that they can read, write and count properly and acquire some basic knowledge and ideas. While high school education prepares you for college, that is not its the main purpose. That's why many high school graduates do not see the need or do not have the capacity to go to the university after high school graduation. Teachers in high school ordinarily aim at catering to the average student. This is the reason why it is relatively easy to get through high school. This is also the reason why some schools have set up the so called "Honors Class" to cater to the faster students. Don't think that this is the fault of the teacher or the school, or of the system. It's simply the fact. Take for instance the entrance exam in U.P.: Among 15,000 applicants only 1,000 are accepted. That means 1 out of every 15 high school students who applied make it. And that's just to enter. How about staying on? How many of those who enter actually get to graduate? You realize that we can't just try to get along as a "good student." If we want to be successful in college we need to develop that extra brilliance that will see us through. That extra brilliance is a combination of determination, attitudes, habits and techniques. University education is meant for those who have the capacity and inclination to pursue an intellectual professional field. The demands on your learning capacity raises the pressure over the normal high school load ten-fold. In college, you'll be required to: --think more logically and with greater depth --organize your thoughts faster and better --communicate your ideas with greater clarity and conciseness. --analyze problems quicker and with greater accuracy. --use your aptitudes to the full. Basic adjustments students go through upon entry to College: 1. New procedures and systems: you have to learn how to enroll, how to register, etc.
- 3. 3 2. Use of Time: your daily schedule of activities will change and you will have to know how to manage your time well. 3. New Relationships with people: For many, college would be their first experience in a coeducational system. One has to build new friendships. 4. Revolutionary ideas: Your opinions and convictions may be contested and questioned by professors or other classmates. You may be asked to read articles contrary to your principles and beliefs. 5. Greater work pressure: more papers, more deadlines, harder exams. 6. Financial pressure: for some students, looking for money to support themselves may be a necessity. College Expectations and Demands: 1. You're on your own. You either sink or swim. Self-reliance and Personal responsibility. You'll find yourself surrounded by others who are many times better than you are. High school is like a fish pond, the university is like an ocean. 2. You've got to be self-motivated. You're told what to do and what to learn. The rest is up to you. You're accountable for yourself and for your performance. The university offers you the very same opportunities as anyone else in the class. How you take advantage of those opportunities is up to you. 3. 50% of what you have to learn will come from the professor. The rest of the 50% will have to come from you. One of the rules you learn early on in the university is that class lectures are always not enough. You have to be creative enough to learn through other channels. There are also some classes where no textbooks are available and other classes where the prescribed textbook does not suffice. You'll have to learn how to do research. 4. You'll have to know how to put order in your life. College is not so much doing more things but doing similar things with more intensity. In fact you'll have the impression that you have less class hours to attend in college. But that impression is usually deceiving because behind all that free time is a clear reason: you're supposed to learn outside class. You have to learn how to integrate all your activities. 5. There is a big leap in the demands: you'll be covering topics faster, you'll meet up with exams which are longer and more difficult. College work will test your discipline, endurance and capacity for work. It will test the very mettle of your character and the strength of purpose behind your goals and plans. Things you'll have to watch out for: 1. Rationalizing: Fault finding. Trying to find excuses for your failures in the external environment or among the people around you. Solution: When analyzing the cause for some failure always start with yourself. Assess yourself sincerely and discover what mistakes you committed. Then, face the failures you encounter squarely and learn from them.
- 4. 4 2. Fantasizing: Day-dreaming. At times, some students unconsciously seek to escape from the pressures and realities of the new demands on their time and energies by escaping into fantasies. This is like a defense mechanism which someone creates for himself to escape from his anxieties. Solution: Face the problem objectively. Generate various solutions to resolve the problem. Make a decision and then stick to it. 3. Identification crisis: Insecurity. In the face of having to adjust to a new situation and environment, some people imagine themselves to be better and more secure if they are identified with a group, an important person or an established organization. Solution: While joining organizations is alright and good if they are healthy in their aims and activities, you should learn first to depend on yourself. What you are is what you make yourself to be and not what others may think of you. Develop the leadership mentality. Develop your self-confidence.