Before the dog days of Summer 2024 take over, I wanted to bring back my First Post from 2 years ago on Ideas for Summer for high schoolers.
Here it is, with some light edits.
Enjoy!
(2.5 Min Read)
Summer is here.
Another year of high school is history. It’s the time to give Summer a Purpose.
So, I looked into my various podcast conversations with College Alumni and Students to find the different types of summer activities or projects they engaged in.
Here’s what I came up with. I have organized their summer pursuits, by Purpose, into 5 buckets:
Advance a Skill
Teach a Skill you have
Volunteer for a Cause
Explore New Things
Entrepreneurial
"Navigating the college admission process requires self-awareness for students, and these workbooks are helpful tools for students to clarify who they are and what they're looking for in a college." Jodi Foxx, Director of College Counseling, Charlotte Christian School, NC.
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1. Advance a Skill
If you have a passion or interest that you want to chase and learn more and become more proficient, summer is the time to do it.
Rebecca Youngers [Incoming Freshman at UT Austin] played softball during the summer.
Luke Neureiter [Swarthmore] trained for soccer every summer.
2. Teach a Skill
If you are good at something, a skill, a God-given gift, then teaching others that skill may be a great way to spend the summer. When you have to teach someone, you learn the skill and nuances better yourself!
When Thomas Athey [Davidson College, Rising Junior] was in high school, Thomas and his buddy ran a summer camp for middle schoolers to teach them basic financial skills that would be useful for the rest of their lives.
When Sri Hari [Union College, Rising Junior] was in High School, he created hands-on modules in Physics to teach mechanics in a fun way to underprivileged high school students in India.
3. Volunteer for a Cause
If you have a social cause or goal that drives you, summer is a great time to translate that into action. Opportunities abound all around you - social, health, education or any other aspect of society. - whether it is with the elderly, the sick or underprivileged.
Rifat Mursalin [Emory Alumni] worked in collaboration with Grady Hospital in Atlanta to teach inner city middle school kids about domestic violence, healthy relationships.
Aidan Arasasingham [UCLA Alumni] worked on getting the safety lock in their high school fixed because of a shooting attempt at a nearby high school. Aidan helped organize a door-to-door campaign to get additional funding, to fix the locks in their school district.
4. Explore New Things
Summer is a great time to experiment, try new things. You can take the time to check out a profession that intrigues you. Learn something new. And then decide for yourself if that is for you.
Kayla Suisse [USU Alumni] was interested in Biology and wanted to see if research was for her. So she worked at the University of Idaho Aquaculture lab the summer after her junior year in high school.
Gobi Dasu [Stanford Alumni] was interested in research. He spent a summer in high school at UC Santa Cruz in the astronomy department lab in the hopes of discovering a Planet.
5. Entrepreneurial
If you have been noting down ideas for new products, or problems to solve, summer may be a wonderful time to get that started. Here are a couple of different types of examples for you to consider.
Thomas Athey [Davidson College, Rising Junior] started a community with a couple of buddies one summer to advise members on Stocks and Options Trading, as well as Crypto. They built courses, created written guides and live workshops for a monthly membership fee.
Iowa State University offers a cool program for high schoolers called Innovation Fellows in Training (I-FIT). It is a virtual workshop taught by ISU Faculty and student teams to define a problem they want to solve and develop creative apps to solve it during the summer.
Hope one or two of these types of pursuits get you excited enough to work on them. If you are not sure, that’s ok. Pick one and try it.
Have a Great, Purposeful Summer!
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Have a Wonderful June!
Venkat