The tendency over the summer is to enrol in intensive on-campus pre-university programs to effectively pad university applications. While there is no firm data on whether these activities actually do help with applications, they certainly do help universities monetize their lovely campuses and graduate students earn some nice money over the break teaching wealthy high school students. There is also a more recent trend of kids writing "academic papers" in partnership with "mentors" which are then "published" in "academic journals". This grift is revealed in this recent article.
So, what should a rising junior or senior do with their summer break? Here are some ideas:
- Tour Schools
Go on university tours. Even you aren't interested in a school, go on the tour if your travel brings you near the campus. Top tip: after a tour finishes, sit down and write notes about the campus you just viewed to refer to later. Otherwise the campuses tend to merge together in your memory a bit like temples in Thailand.
- Get A Job!
If you are legally allowed, get a paid job. Lifeguarding, baby-siting, F & B, landscaping, retail, whatever you can find. You will learn more about what you want to do with your life and how to interact with other people in a summer working at McDonalds than in Economics 101.
- Intern
We recommend students leverage their parents' professional networks (LinkedIn) and see if anyone might need a gofer/peon for a few weeks. The job should entail making copies, mindless data entry, pointless market research, and fetching tea/coffee/muffins for people. This experience should hopefully be both enriching and humbling for students as they learn a bit more about how the real world actually operates. You don't need a work visa for an unpaid internship.
- MOOC MOOC MOOC!!!
Massive Online Open Courses are a great way for a young student to dip a toe into real collegiate-level academic content. A good directory is here.
- Khan!!!! (Sal, not Noonien Singh)
You should be able to get your hands on the syllabi of some of the courses you are taking next school year. Why not steal a march and use Khan Academy to knock out the first few modules of math/econ/history so you can get off to a great start on the school year?
- Read More
We are a bit of a broken record on this. Here is a great list of 20 "must read" books for high school students. Beyond that reading magazines and anything without too many pictures will serve you well.
- Relax
School is stressful. Covid was stressful. Life is stressful. Be sure to take the time to do things that you find help you to relax. Run. Walk. Bake. Cook. Meditate. Binge watch. Zone out. Have a great holiday!
