Preparing for College

This page is for just about anyone preparing for college, but is designed primarily with high school students in mind. For high school seniors, you need to get on the ball and figure this stuff out or you'll be left behind! For high school juniors, the factors mentioned here are something you need to figure out soon so that you can make a good decision. For high school freshmen and sophomores, you have some time to really do some in depth searching, and make an excellent choice. Actually, there isn't much that a freshman could (or even should) do concerning college directly. Freshmen still have so much to learn about themselves and higher education, that trying to determine what university to attend is silly.

For those of you in the early stages, it really isn't terribly important for you to decide anytime soon exactly what university you wish to attend. There are more important items to attend to. First and foremost is to do some soul searching and decide what you need and/or want in both the short- and long-term. Here is a list of items that you should be thinking about:

GEOGRAPHY:

• Is there a climatic condition that you would be unable to deal with? (humidity, heat, cold, rain, constant clouds, etc.) I know a number of people who dropped out of college because they could not stand the winters in Flagstaff. If you are unhappy with your physical surroundings, then you will be unhappy with school, and your grades will probably suffer.
• Do you want to be close or far from home?
• Would you be able to handle moving far from friends and family, having to make a whole new set of friends?

COLLEGE LIFE:

• Do you want to go to a small college with few people to interact with or a large college with many people to interact (or deal) with.
• Do you want to be in a town/city with a lot of things to do outside of classes (concerts, plays, cultural events, etc.) or in a small quiet town?

THE FUTURE:

• Where do you want to be in 10 years? 20 years?
• Will a possible career choice put you in a situation that you would not enjoy or would be unable to handle? i.e. living in a huge city, living in a tiny community, being in an office 40 hours or more per week, stress, etc.

I wouldn't recommend taking any of these questions lightly. Really think about who you are, and what you can honestly handle when considering the questions. There are, of course, a great many more questions that one can ask concerning college, but these should get you started in the right direction.

Now for a warning about liberal arts colleges or liberal arts degrees: they are not often the best means of getting a job after graduation, especially in science related fields such as geology. My degree is not a liberal arts degree, but it is a broad based science degree, and that hurt me in the job market for a long time. I prefer learning about a lot of things, but many employers are looking for specific skills rather than broad knowledge. If you know what field you want to work in, go around to employers and ask them what they will be looking for in an employee in 4 or 5 years, and go from there. In addition, degrees from some liberal arts colleges (as well as science colleges I'm sure) mean absolutely nothing to employers. I am not trying to discourage you from getting a liberal arts degree mind you.

If you want more advice, or specific advice on preparing for or dealing with college life, feel free to e-mail me. I'll be glad to help you out in whatever way I can.