Are Teens Prepared For the Real World

      Are you prepared to be working and out on your own?  If you're a teenager, then in the next few years, you will have to face the terrifying reality of being on your own for the first time.  It may not seem like it, but besides working and keeping up with the housekeeping, your parents do difficult things like paying taxes and managing the money that they make.  Although some high schools offer classes to teach students important information about jobs and how to support themselves, many schools don’t offer the classes students need to succeed.

       Students sit in class and wonder when they will need to know how to find the square root of a number or know the periodic table off the top of their  head in the real world.  Chances are you will not remember most of what you were taught in school or if you do you will not use it ever again, but what about the information you wished you were taught so it could make the transition from high school to the real world a whole lot easier.  34% of high school students are ready for college and 23% of states have career-ready standards in their schools.  There are necessary skills that students are not being taught unless their school offers business courses like Managing money and Intro to Business.  Some schools just do not have the funding to offer classes to help their students succeed.  It is not that students do not want to learn, but some are missing out on a huge part of the preparation for college and the workplace.

64% of current high school students desire more demanding and interesting courses.  Some schools do a great job of having a wide selection of courses, but many do not have the funding to provide the courses that are needed like the fundamentals of business for example.   The core subjects are very important to teaching you how to be a well rounded intelligent person, but teachers could connect the subject to something we can use to benefit ourselves outside of school. “When a child is enjoying class they are more likely to absorb the information”.(TED Ed Blog Adora Svitak) Students are more likely remember information when they have two different connections to it.  By doing this students could even get higher test grades in the class and be more likely to remember the information for longer.

Some of the shops that a
vocational high school
in Massachusetts.

         Many schools offer business courses that help prepare you for life beyond school, like Managing Money, Intro to Business, Entrepreneurship and many more.  These are helpful electives that students can choose to take.  There are vocational high schools that prepare teens by giving them insight into the real world.  Many vocational schools like Shawsheen Valley Tech in Billerica Massachusetts offer the opportunity for students to participate in internships their senior year, which help them decide if they really want to pursue the occupation they are studying.  Many public schools do not offer vocational after school activities so students won't know if the job they are interested in is what they would like to do for the rest of their lives until they have already spent the money to start college.  20-50% of students go into college undecided and 75% of students switch their major at least once before graduation.  By fixing this issue the number of undecided students and students switching their majors could go down.

 If schools offered more courses like Cosmetology and Engineering students would not have to waste their money on college and not know the career they plan on pursuing.  By offering these sorts of courses students can try out different careers that they are interested in instead of finding out they don't like it after spending all of the money to start college.  If students pick a major that they think they will want to do and not something that they are truly passionate about they have to go through hassle of changing their major.  It would be a lot less stressful and save people a lot of money if schools offered vocational courses.

Citation:

Svitak, Adora. "Does School Prepare Students for the Real World? This Teen Speaker Says No." TEDEd Blog. TEDEd Blog, 07 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

"Are Teens Prepared for the Real World?" Education Copyright Free Content. News USA, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

"Welcome to Shawsheen Valley Technical High School." Shawsheen Regional Technical High School. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016..