Tag Archives: summer

empty nest, organization, orientation, parenting, textbooks

Summer To-Do List for New College Parents

summer to-do list

Graduation is upon us and that means the future (college future) for many, lies ahead. While it’s tempting to take the summer off, and you want to spend as much time with your future college student as possible,

Get organized and set up a calendar

Preparing for a semester is a key part to ensure academic success!

College students find themselves juggling classes, homework, work, parties, clubs, organizations, dates, volunteering, and everything in between. With only 24 hours in the day, and only one mind to juggle it all, this can be a lot to manage.

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college planning, college prep, mom approved tips, parenting, Uncategorized

10 Tips for Moms This Summer

Need for help with summer college prep? Learn everything you need to know about applying for college by using my Parent Crash Course.

10 Tips for Moms

Summer has begun and your student is enjoying some down time from their academic studies. Down time is good, but if you have a college-bound student, summers are also a great time to do a little bit of college preparation.

As parents, it’s our responsibility to make sure our teenagers make the most of their time in the summer and help them get ready for the upcoming school year. That’s why I have broken down the summer for each year your student will be in school in the fall by providing 10 tips for moms to follow. Just follow the links below each year to help your student make the most of their summer.

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college visits, summer programs

A Busy Summer for Your High School Student

summer

Summer is here and the last thing you probably want to hear about is college prep. Summer is supposed to be a time for fun, relaxation and a break from academics. But what if I told you that you can kill two birds with one stone: have fun and improve your college chances? Believe it or not, it’s possible through a variety of teen summer programs and strategies to use the summer to enhance your high school resume.

Find something you love and volunteer

You don’t have to travel abroad to do community service and it doesn’t have to be a chore. Find something you are passionate about and spend the summer doing it. Are you interested in construction? Work for Habitat for Humanity. Do politics interest you? Work on a local political campaign. Are you concerned about the environment? Help with local environmental cleanup projects. VolunteerMatch helps you to find just the right activity that suits your interests.

Start a charity or a campaign

It’s not work if it’s something you love. Think outside the box. Gather used books for nursing homes and recruit volunteers to read to them. Create activity books for children in hospitals and deliver them. Gather used test prep books and donate them to local libraries. The possibilities are endless. Need some ideas? DoSomething.org can get you started.

Work on your social media profile

You’re going to be online anyway. Why not clean up your profiles? Colleges look at social media profiles when reviewing applicants. Boost your presence online by creating your very own personal website to brag about your achievements and your passions. If you’re an arts kids, social media could help you find an arts audience. While you’re at it, follow some colleges on any number of social media channels to learn more about them.

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summer programs

Summer Programs for Your High School Student

summer programs

Summer is here. The country is slowly re-opening. Students are looking for summer activities to occupy their time—preferably not the activities of the last year like video games, binge-watching Netflix, and watching endless Tik Tok videos. Encourage them to get out and use the summer to expand their learning by taking advantage of some of these summer programs.

Summer Programs for High School Students: TeenLife’s Top 100 Most Popular Summer Programs for 2021

TeenLife reviewed all summer programs for high school students listed on their website and selected the top 100 programs with the most page views on our website. They then broke those programs into categories and arranged them alphabetically to create the list you find on this page. Use their menu to jump to each category.

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Guest Posts, internships, Uncategorized

The Top 3 Summer Jobs for Students

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summer jobsIf

Summer is a time to relax and recuperate, but it’s also a great opportunity to gain work experience and make money. With a challenging job market facing them after graduation, it’s essential for students to buff up their resumes and make connections while they’re still enrolled in school. For college students wondering about their summer work prospects, here are the best summer jobs fields and positions to explore:

Internships

You’re a student looking for part-time or full-time work during summer break, consider interning at a company you’re interested in working for after graduation. There are a variety of internship positions only open to college students, where you can earn course credits in addition to professional experience. Fastweb has a large list of nationwide internships in various different industries that you can apply to based on your interests or major.

While many internships are unpaid, they all offer the opportunity to make connections and gain new skills, which will pay off financially in the future when you’re searching for a job. After graduating, you’ll be able to list your intern work on your resume and use your former supervisors as references. Your experiences can also help you become more confident and focused during your post-college job search because you’ll have a better idea of your own professional abilities.

Volunteer Work

Similar to interning, volunteering can be useful in helping you decide what you’re passionate about and what field you should pursue after college. Sites like Idealist and Indeed can connect you with a volunteer program that correlates to your passions. So whether you’re interested in education, public policy, environmental issues, or humanitarian work, you can find a position that’s well matched and right for you.

In addition to being professionally valuable, volunteer work can also be personally satisfying. Volunteering allows you to serve others, gain fresh perspectives about the world around you, and gives you a chance to work in a field you’re passionate about outside of academic pursuits.

Freelance Writing or Designing

If you’re a good writer or designer looking for more flexible work this summer, you should consider doing freelance work. Freelancing gives you the freedom to create your own schedule and work from home, since most positions are open to telecommuters. If you like setting your own work pace and want the opportunity to improve your skills as a writer and designer in the digital realm, then a freelance job is right for you.

Since there are so many online businesses and companies that utilize the web for marketing, you can find writing and design jobs fairly easily. Available freelance jobs include web or graphic designer, website content writer, blogger, and social media developer. You can find a position that meets your skill set or knowledge, as well as create a freelancer profile, on sites like Guru.

Many freelance jobs don’t pay well at first but you’ll be able to set higher prices for your work once you have more experience. You can become a more desirable freelancer over time by adding work to your resume and increasing your online exposure. You’ll be able to send links of your work and show that you have an online presence to future hiring managers.

Freelancing, volunteering, and interning, all offer the important opportunity to gain professional experience in fields that you may want to pursue after college. If a position you want is unpaid or doesn’t pay well, you can always take on a part-time server or retail job in order to supplement your income. While food service and retail work can help you gain customer service experience and make extra cash, they don’t offer a career path that’s useful or interesting to most college students. This summer, try to invest your time and energy into a job that can improve your professional skills, add value to your resume, and help you land a job after graduation.

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Javaher Nooryani is a writer and editor based in Denver, CO. She has a BA in American Literature & Culture from UCLA and a Masters in English & American Literature from NYU. As a former tutor and advisor, Javaher is passionate about higher education and is glad to share her knowledge on CollegeFocus, a website that helps students deal with the challenges of college.

parenting, Wednesdays parent

Wednesday’s Parent: 5 Things a College-Bound Teen Should NOT Do This Summer

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summer to do listIt’s a well-known fact that admissions officers are concerned with how a student spends their spare time. Come application time, how your student spends the summer can either pump up your application or find them embarrassed to list those summer activities. Here are five things a college-bound teen should NOT do this summer:

1. Become an expert at Minecraft — spend the summer glued to the gaming console, stuffing your face with chips, cookies, and various snack foods while mastering the game.

2. Watch the all the seasons of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, or Mad Men — spend the summer binge watching any number of shows you missed during the school year, failing to leave the couch or the house for all three months.

3. Cram 20 extracurricular activities into one summer — sign up for everything that’s available from Habitat for Humanity, to Special Olympics, to volunteering at the soup kitchen; racking up enough activities to make the high school resume a volume.

4. Lay out at the beach and/or the pool working on your (skin cancer) tan — spend every waking moment outside lounging in the sun, listening to tunes on your iPod, and flirting with the opposite sex; impressing admissions officers with your ability to navigate the complicated social structure of high school.

5. Live at the gym working on your physique — spend hours, days, weeks, and months at the gym crafting an Arnold Schwarzeneger look, pounding down vitamin shakes and muscle building supplements.

All kidding aside, summer is meant to be fun, relaxing and a break from the rigors of the school year. But a summer that doesn’t include learning and some college prep is an opportunity wasted.

Read Wendy’s post: The Surprise on a College-Bound Summer To-Do List

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Tonight’s #CampusChat at 9PM ET addresses the summer to-do-list and how it affects the college application process. Join me (@suzanneshaffer) and @collegevisit as we host our monthly #WednesdaysParent with guest Ashley Hill of College Prep Ready, a consulting service for college-bound teens and their families (@prepforcollege).

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Wednesday’s child may be full of woe but Wednesday’s Parent can substitute action for anxiety. Each Wednesday Wendy and I will provide parent tips to get and keep your student on the college track. It’s never too late or too early to start!

The bonus is on the fourth Wednesday of each month when Wendy and I will host Twitter chat #CampusChat at 9pm ET/6pm PT. We will feature an expert on a topic of interest for parents of the college-bound.

Wednesday’s Parent will give twice the info and double the blog posts on critical parenting issues by clicking on the link at the end of the article from parentingforcollege to pocsmom.com and vice versa.

college planning, parenting

Weathering the weather




With winter hanging around for longer than usual and everyone wishing for spring, I thought it might be great to share this post with parents about packing for college (as it applies to the weather). And remember our motto: Preparation Prevents Panic!

By Sarah Hubbs for The Real College Guide

If starting school means a move across the map, you’re in for a major change — in mercury. We’ll give you tips on how to bundle up or get your tan on in a new climate.

If your hometown is on one side of the map and your college on the other, you’re not just looking at a change of scenery: It may also mean a climate change. (No, we’re not referring to global warming.)

Hot, Hot, Hot?
Flying south? Going west? For those heading toward a warmer environment, first and foremost, one word: sunscreen! One in six Americans eventually develops skin cancer, so you do not want to fry yourself, OK? Yes, we know you love the sun, and it loves you. (Small amounts of exposure are essential for your body to produce vitamin D.) But if you really feel you must get some color, go for a fake ‘n’ bake. Self-tanning lotions do not create the orange streaks they once did, and tanning salons offer plenty of decent spray-booth options (Mystic Tan, VersaSpa, Magic Tan). Just for the record, UV tanning beds are just as bad for your skin as the real thing — don’t be fooled.

Another essential? A good pair of sunglasses with UV protection. Protecting the eyes from sun damage is important and often overlooked. Shades also make a superslick fashion statement (can I have your autograph, please?) and are priceless on a walk of shame.

Speaking of fashion, if most of your closet consists of corduroy pants, alpaca sweaters and down jackets, we suggest you hit the mall for a shopping spree. Even if your college is in an area that has all four seasons, the beginning and end of the school year can get pretty hot and humid. Here are some warm-weather wardrobe must-haves:

  • Swimsuits (for lying out on the quad)
  • Shorts
  • Cotton T-shirts
  • Tank tops
  • Flip-flops
  • A few sundresses (for the ladies)

Oh, and a few more things:

  1. Get some allergy medicine just in case the warm weather has you feeling a little stuffy.
  2. Invest in some bug repellent.
  3. Buy a refillable water bottle, especially if you’re athletic or otherwise physically active.

And if you’re still sweating it out, invest in a portable fan for those really sweltering days.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Brrr … if your college town is in a climate much chillier than what you’re accustomed to, get ready for the shock of your life. Some prep work is in order to be sure walking to and from class doesn’t result in freezing your buns off — or worse, frostbite. Just like the kids who are going to sunnier spots, you need to shop! Be sure to create a warmer wardrobe before the big move. Your cold-weather closet staples are as follows:winter

  • Winter coat (think: warm and waterproof)
  • Snow boots
  • Waterproof shoes
  • Heavy socks
  • Thermal underwear or leggings for layering
  • Sweaters
  • Knit scarves
  • Wool cap
  • Ear warmers
  • Gloves
  • Heavy pants of all kinds

The key to dressing in freezing temps is layering clothes. If it happens to be a warmer-than-usual day, you can shed a layer or two. On the flip side, if temperatures plummet, you can throw on an extra layer to hold in the body heat. Keep this concept in mind when shopping. Be sure your coat is big enough to go over a bulky sweater, for example.

And don’t forget:

  1. Bring plenty of warm blankets, since you may not have control over your dorm thermostat.
  2. Don’t let the weather get you down — or barricade you in. Bundle up and be social, or you’ll miss a season’s worth of outings.
  3. Stock up on hot chocolate, coffee, tea and other warm beverages to help defrost you when you get back to your dorm.
  4. Have cold medicine and tissues on hand, because few make it through the winter weather without ever feeling under it.