Students may write the GED® exams at age 17. While some know exactly what they intend to do when they have accomplished their GED® credential, some are not so sure. Age 17 is very young to be ‘finished’ with the school stage of life and to venture into the adult world.
We recommend that you use the high school years as a valuable time to use to enrich the life of your student.
Use this time to allow the students to explore and enjoy other useful life experiences. Use it as a time for the student to get to know himself/herself better, to discover new interests and talents and even to discover what they dislike!
In terms of academic studies, here is what we recommend: What to Do Before the GED
This article will describe various home education products which will help your child to develop the skills needed to do well on the GED® tests.
10 Things for a 15-year Old to Do Before the GED
Actually, 10 Things Any High Schooler Should Do
Here is a list of more than ten things to consider doing during this year that will add value to your student’s life and further their life-long education.
You don’t have to do all of them, but at least try some of them!
1. Let them keep up studying the four subjects required for the GED®.
Enrol in the GED Beginners course.
2. Get a part-time job. See how they like working for someone else, being punctual and responsible and what the pros and cons are of the workplace they find themselves in. They will be developing skills and experience that businesses value: how to communicate, how to market, sell, manage others, work on a team, lead.
3. Start a small business and learn about entrepreneurship. Its better to learn from mistakes while living at home, than later in life.
4. Volunteer at a community-based organisation and start building a social network, for social and future business / employment reasons. They will build relationships with others in the community, who know them, trust them, and feel grateful for all their help and can recommend them to others – prospective employers or prospective clients.
5. Coach younger children in something they are good at. This will give them the joy of sharing skills they have mastered, experience engaging with parents, doing admin and lesson planning. They will soon decide if they enjoy this kind of work or not!
6. Take an online course and learn new skills that will equip them for their future career. At Udemy.com, Allison.com and other similar online learning sites there are a host of options. Select courses that will be useful and look good on their CV.
7. Read ten books on a new topic and become an ‘expert’ on something new.
8. Investigate future career paths and the requirements to be eligible for further study in those fields.
9. Job-shadow, intern or be apprenticed in the field they are interested in. Decide if its the right career path or not. Get connected in that field. A girl we know job-shadowed at a law firm in 2018 and they have now offered to pay for her studies and let her do her articles with them.
10.Practice touch-typing daily using a free online course such as Typingtrainer.com. It’s an essential, time-saving skill to have in the economy of the 21st century
11. Take up a new sport, hobby or join a club or a class in your community. Again, this will be a new experience that will build your child’s character, develop new skills, new relationships and connect them with new people in their social and business network.
Many of the above will give your student experiences and/or skills to list on their CV if they look for a job in the future, or to equip them for self-employment if they choose that route.
It will give them opportunities to learn lessons in the real world, the adult working environment, which they could never have had in a school classroom.
By trying out at least a few of these, your students will learn what they like and what they don’t like about those situations. They will have a widened their life experience, gained some wisdom and insight into real-world scenarios, which they can use when making decisions about their futures.
What’s on the GED® Test?
See what’s on the GED® Test for each subject.
