Hello everyone, there’s about a month and a half left of my high school years, and I’ll be headed off to Northeastern University to study mechanical engineering in the fall. With this in mind, I figured I’d share a lot of the takeaways/tips I have for others before I leave. These are a mix of academic and personal/life tips in no particular order that I hope will help you. 

• Think About Your Objectives: If you want to be a star student who gets into a highly prestigious school, you’re obviously going to have to work extremely hard in your coursework and extracurriculars to get there. If you’re okay going to a middle of the pack school , you should still work hard, but you don’t have to do the same things as someone who is shooting for a crazy exclusive school. I have seen others with expectations to go to a highly touted school, but they aren’t doing enough. The opposite is true as well, some people do as much as possible and burn themselves out when they didn’t necessarily have to in order to be accepted into the school they wanted. There’s nothing wrong with going to any particular school or no school at all, but to optimize your time and be able to have some type of life it’s important to be realistic about your goals and how to get there. Doing this early on in high school will make your life a lot easier. 

• Tour Schools Early: Most students tour colleges around mid junior to early senior year, solely thinking about the college picking process. However, touring schools early can be a great motivator for you in your high school career. The first time I toured a school was in the Summer of 2022. After visiting MIT I was absolutely on fire thinking about the future, and it motivated me to work harder as a student. Being able to tangibly see the things you want in the future will give you a different mindset in the present. Plus, it takes some pressure off of you so you don’t have to cram college tours before it’s time to pick a school. 

• Don’t do things you hate: It sounds silly, but if you’re in high school trying to fill up your resume you’re gonna come across an activity you don’t really enjoy. Instead of pouring a lot of your time into it, just find something else. Especially if you’re trying to go to really competitive schools it’s easy to think that you have to stack up your resume. This will definitely backfire in your years as an upperclassman, when you are super stressed with both academics and extracurriculars, especially if you don’t like the extracurriculars. There are other ways to stand out on a resume and or college application. 

• Do something for fun: At least the way my brain is wired, I always want to be competitive at new things I am learning. Sometimes this sucks the fun out of them. It’s good to have an activity where no internal or external pressure to perform is felt. 

• Organize your time: This one’s pretty obvious, but it’s important to build good habits with your time now. Doing your work on a regular basis instead of procrastinating frees up a lot of time. Plus it won’t be hard to adapt when more work comes each successive year of school. 

• Study what wins: Because you’re young, you’re gonna get a lot of advice from others. This could be adults or your peers. While these people may have good intentions, it’s important to learn from people who are actually successful in a field you want to succeed in. 

• Learn what you want to learn: Not every school is going to have the same opportunities for students, that’s just the truth. However, we are lucky enough to have access to the entire internet. You can learn anything you want on your own time. Plus, if you want to earn academic credit for something like an AP class that isn’t offered for you, you can still teach yourself and then order the exam. Create opportunities for yourself. 

• Do independent projects: One of the biggest things I wish I did in high school was independent projects. Highly competitive schools give the options for you to submit a portfolio of your work, and this is something that I wish I applied with. Whether its something like a journalistic project, art project, or something in STEM you can throw these on your application. Plus it can be a good way to find out if you like something or not. 

• Take the SAT Early: If you plan on taking the SAT’s, most students end up taking them around mid to late junior year. There’s nothing wrong with this, but junior and senior year get super busy and the SAT becomes another thing looming over you. The content on the SAT only spans up to freshman or early sophomore year for most students, so if you can study throughout sophomore year and take it before junior year, it’ll be a huge relief getting the score you want early on. 

• Limit Your Screen Time: Short form video is quite possibly the biggest opposition to productivity today. At some point you’ll get so addicted it’ll be hard to focus in class. Using the screen time feature on your iPhone is a great way to combat this. It’s also good to look into substitutes for your screen time. 

I hope you learned at least something from my tips and with you the best of luck in your high school career.