How CN Prepares Your Child for College
Sampling College Life
An important part of College Now's mission is creating opportunities for high school students to experience college life. This experience might be limited—an afternoon poetry reading on a college campus, for example—or something considerably more involved, like enrolling in a college course alongside college undergraduates.
Why Experience College Life?
There are 2 major reasons that we encourage high school students to check out the physical, cultural, and academic aspects of college:
Opening Up to Possibility. Spending time on the campus or with college students can be exciting to high schoolers. They may see that there are things they can do with their lives that they never dreamed of. They can see others, like them, only a bit older, who are enjoying the commitment they've made to their futures. They can get a glimpse of the independence and respect for individuality that higher education offers. Hopefully, they will ultimately come to picture themselves as future college students.
Getting a Realistic Preview. More young Americans than ever are entering college. Unfortunately, they don't all make it to graduation. Students drop out for lots of reasons, some of which are hard to control: illness, family obligations, financial strain.
But sometimes students struggle simply because they didn't know what to expect beforehand and then just get overwhelmed. Getting some sense of college while still in high school should impress upon students the extent to which they are responsible for themselves in college. Of course, they should also learn that colleges provide students with academic, social, and psychological support services as well.
Ways for CN Students to Sample College Life
There are actually too many to list, but here are a few:
- Campus orientation/tour
- Cultural event on campus (concert, film, play, poetry slam, etc.)
- Noncredit course offered on a college campus
- College-level course (Even those courses which meet at the high school must follow the academic standards and teaching methods established by college faculty.)
- Working with mentors or tutors who are themselves college students
- Campus ID (Most CN programs issue IDs which allow students to take advantage of campus sports, library, and computing facilities.)
