I just wanted to comment on some things that I think would help a Junior or Senior in high school succeed through their first couple years of college.
GO TO A 4YEAR INSTITUTION YOUR JUNIOR AND SENIOR YEAR: This may help for those who don’t have APs at their school. It also will help all students understand how quickly (or even slow) college can be. By taking 4-6 classes over the summer, you will gain the knowledge and skills to deal with planning, studying and balancing work, life, and fun. I recommend a 4 year institution because your college (presumably a 4 year institution) may not accept community college credit to transfer: especially if it is a Tier 1 institution. However, these credits will not only give you a leg up in graduating early, but will also help you advance your strength as a college student years later. Adding APs on top of that, it is possible that you could graduate from your 4 year college in less than 2 years.
STOP SOCIALIZING, START STUDYING: The more we get entrenched with this vision of utopian lifestyles, the more we crave them, but also tend to get out of touch with what is our reality at the moment. Of course, being an adult is a great thing, but often we focus so much on what others think, that we don’t realize that others may not be projecting a full version of reality. Much less, we may not be thinking about major life changes and ways to handle problems without the intervention of others. So, try and tabulate options and determine what really fits for you when you can, not because you are persuaded by some outside force.
READ AND WRITE: The more often one writes, the better they wiill become at articulating themselves. For the Arts and Sciences, one needs two things: the ability to write and the ability to do mathematics. For some of the humanities subjects, a general knowledge of history is acceptable and useful as well, but a general history is usually rather acceptable. Work on reading and writing as often as possible, if even to just articulate what you already know. Don’t be afraid to tackle any and every subject. We sometimes feel that there is a lack of things to write about, simply because we have it established within our ego construct to avoid certain topics. College is a time to understand what there is that we can tackle, not a time to bottle up and come across like some neutral, political, unfallible social dilletante.
Kyle Langlois's Blog 