College of Southern Idaho Top Questions

It's a whole lot easier to lower your GPA than to raise it!

Use college as your stepping stone into the real world. You want to be able to graduate from school with your career in one hand and your own place to live in the other. Relationships and various organizations are great ways to network and build character, but once you graduate, its going to be your responsibility to make things happen in your life. Working while going to school is a great way to build income as well as establish a job for after you graduate from school. Volunteer whenever you can because you can meet so many people and learn so much from their experiences. Create your 3-5 year gameplan, work your plan, and as always: Be sure to HAVE FUN!

The best advice I can offer would be to think things through and take your time making this huge decision. I did not know what I wanted to do and let my desire to run away from home in the quickest and easiest way possible motivate my choice. My parents did not attend college and wanted me to attend a church ran private school, so I did not have the help necessary to make this important decision. I did not scout college campuses or the cities and towns they were located in. I did not include quality of life with quality of education in my search. My first semester in college was rough. I went to the same school as some friends from high school, but the town where the university was located had nothing to offer. I ended up leaving college after my first semester and moved back home. When searching for a college, patience is key. Moving away from home is hard, harder than I ever imagined it would be. Had I chosen a location where I could stand to live, it could have been an easier transition.

College is so important these days, especially in the economy we have right now. Seriously take a look at where you want to be in 5 years and I guarantee it will include you needing some sort of college.

If I could go back in time and tell myself anything; it would have to be to wait on having children. I am a 23 year old single mother with three beautiful children and as much as i love my children they make school a challenge. I believe that if I would have known how much different college is from high school then I would have waited and been smarter about having children. I would tell myself to go to college right out of high school instead of waiting. Once you have been going to school for so long you form a natural routine. When you graduate and take a break from school you loose that natural rythem, which is very importatnt to have. Being out of the school routine and having the wonderfull full time job of a single mother makes school a challenge but not impossible.

Stay focused! There are many opportunities out there and you will have plenty of time to travel and see the world. Forget about getting away from home for a moment and prepare now for the life you want to live. Take one or two advanced courses or even some college credit classes to push yourself a little more than you are now. Listen to mom and dad; they are much wiser than you would like to admit and want you to succeed. Know that you are going to make mistakes and remind yourself that you can bounce back with a great attitude. Forgive yourself and be willing to accept the changes that eventually come. Save as much money as you can and keep helping others through service because you will discover, through times of doubt and uncertainty, that you are destined to help others. Enjoy the ride and live your life.

It has now been thirteen years since I graduated from high school and regret not attending college sooner. If I could travel back in time and give myself some much needed advice I would recommend that I patch things up with my parents and to stay focused on my education and not so much about getting a job and getting my own place. What I have learned over the past 13 years are life changing expierences, which are not all bad when I look back on them, but could have been avoided if I was better focused. The first piece of advice that I would start off with would be to reconcile with my parents. As soon as I graduated from high school I had to move out. Because of that I was too focused on getting a job and not continueing with school. The second piece of advice I would give myself would be to talk to a counselor at the college and ask for their advice on which classes I should take. Even if a person doesn't have a clear vision, general education classes are just as good.

I would tell myself that no matter what disadvatages you THINK you have, nothing is going to stop you from doing exacly what you want to in this world. I've been told all my life that I have a learning disability and cannot learn the same ways "normal" kids learn. As long as I can remeber, I have been in "learning" classes known to my friends as "Sped" classes. You can imagine how impacting being labeled "less than the rest" influenced my self-esteem, self-respect, and educational goals. I tried not to let it bother me that I wasn't as sufficient as the rest of the students but no matter how hard I tried I would still feel incapable of fitting in. Now, four years after being told you will never be as smart as the rest, I maintain a 3.4 GPA, have obtained an Associates in Science for Outdoor Education, never used the learning center help provided by Colorado Mountain College, and have traveled and actively helped in third-world countries throughout Central America. So don't worry Senior in high school Kyle, because you will see soon enough what you can achieve.

I first would tell myself to work hard to get scholorships to be able to pay for school without any trouble. Next thing would be to work even harder making money before leaving for college for things like rent, groceries and gas. I would also tell myself to stay focused on school and not to get caught up in the way college life can be. I would tell myself that your going to make mistakes but to learn from those previous mistakes.

If I could go back in time to my senior year in high school, and knowing what I know now, I would have done a lot of things differently. When enter college I didn't have good study habits. Most of the time while in high school I would complete my homework in school before going home. I was working and making sure that I was at home before my younger siblings came home from school. In college you can't do that, you have to study and sometime for hours at a time. I have never done that before so I was totally lost to studying. Also during my senior year in high school I would have taken some PSEO classes, then at least I would have had an idea of what to expect as far as class structure. Entering college for the first time and walking into a classroom of over an hundred was a scary and intimidating feeling. I would have visited colleges as a senior to prepare myself for my new adventure as a freshmen in college. Those are the things that I would have done differently as a High School Senior.