Photo courtesy of John Liu/Flickr
Graduation: we spend our whole high school career preparing to get there and doing everything we can to make it, but when we step off the stage after receiving our diplomas, are we really prepared?
High school curriculum gets us ready for college. We are required to take college preparatory courses on core subjects like English, math, social studies, and science. But shouldn’t we also be learning about taking out loans, having mortgages on our houses, setting up retirement funds and doing taxes?
The editorial board of The Omniscient believes that Northwood should offer more courses that prepare its students for life. After all, not all of us are going to college, and a lot are going directly into the workforce. We believe high school should place greater emphasis on getting us ready for those other parts of life as well.
Classes like Personal Finance have been critiqued by many students for focusing more on small business finance than at the individual level. According to a study done by ING Direct, an overwhelming majority of teens–87 percent–admit they don’t know much about personal finance.
One of the main things students want to learn about is the process of applying for credit cards. A lot of high school students are turning 18, so cards are becoming available to us, but even if we did know how to get one, managing that account and keeping ourselves from destroying our credit scores (what even is a credit score?) would be completely foreign to us.
Outside of the monetary aspect, tools necessary in the process of applying for a job would ideally be accessible to us. Learning how to write resumes and the skills needed for interviewing and negotiation are a crucial part of becoming a responsible adult.
As short-term actions, we suggest the possibility of offering small optional classes on specific topics after school or during Plus One for those interested. For the long run, we suggest an entire class devoted to the promotion of these subjects, structured somewhat like The Game of Life. You enter the class having to apply for a job and as you go on, you face real life problems, having to make hard decisions and learning about all the things any adult today would have to face.
If high school, the place intended for educating the youth and creating young adults ready to be a productive new generation, put more effort into providing the skills necessary to do just this, it would ultimately be for our benefit.
