Prepare Yourself for the Future--Take Hard Classes in High School!

 Students going into 8th through 12th grades will soon be choosing which classes to take next year. Many of these students have no idea what they will do when they get out of school. Some who think they know will change their minds at least once before they graduate. Many of these students are also being told by friends, family, and maybe even some educators, to take the easy way, not to push themselves, not to challenge themselves.

Here's some unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it.

If there's any chance you might enter a STEM field after high school (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), take all the math and science you can get. Don't stop taking math and science classes because you passed the bare minimum number of classes to graduate. If you do, those college level science and math classes are going to bury you.

Even if you don't think you're going to college, take college prep courses, regardless where your interests lie. They'll require you to work more, work harder, and learn more than the easier courses you could choose. Work ethic, along with a willingness and ability to learn are skills useful and in demand in any career, in any field.

On top of that, you might surprise yourself one day and decide you do want to go to college. I graduated with my bachelor's degree at 38 years of age. I didn't need college to be a Marine, a truck driver, or a chicken farmer, careers I had between high school and becoming a teacher. But when I decided to become a teacher, I was sure glad I'd taken those college prep courses 20 years earlier.

Taking the easy road seems like a great idea while you're on it, but it's unlikely to lead you where you eventually want to end up.