Liger Edge is the name of my school newspaper that we just recently created this year. I’ve been meaning to join this project since the first time that our facilitator, Cara Shelton, introduced us to it. I feel like writing is the easiest way for me to communicate with people and that I love writing. I really hope that my articles could influence people to create change. So far, I’ve written four articles for this newspaper and we’re still fixing the website so we’ll be launching soon….Enjoy reading one of my article down below and don’t forget to check out our website: http://ligeredge.org/
On Your Mark, Get Set,…GO?
What is a university like? How difficult will it be? How am I supposed to know which university will fit for me? What do I need to do to prepare for it?
Many students that plan to go to university are often troubled by these kinds of questions for the last two years of their high school. They do not know how to better train themselves to be ready for the upcoming marathon—college—without getting sidetracked or without someone there to coach them along the way.
Nevertheless, the Liger Leadership Academy (LLA) has already worked out a way for their senior cohorts students to get into shape. They basically let their students simulate the college experience itself by creating and managing their own individual school schedule!
“I think it’s exciting to try and manage your own time,” Karen, the school’s college counselor said about the student schedule, “[the schedule] also shows how hard it is to motivate themselves to do work.”
Everybody knows that sufficient time-management and a strong independence are both crucial skills that most students lack for college. Yet, within the LLA’s framework, the students are able to select the areas they are passionate about and dive deep into it.
“It more strengthens my passions because I pick the one that I enjoy, the one that I want to work more on,” 16-years-old Sopor talks about her schedule. “I’m going to see different aspects of those fields rather than exploring new fields,” she added.
The students also voiced their opinions on how they think about their own schedule. Some think that the schedule is “more convenient” and “less stressful” while others think that it helps them to be “more focus” and give them “more choices” of what they want to learn.
Interestingly, 16-year-old Vuthy mentioned that “…last year all the schedules are arranged by the teacher so when we feel stressed we blamed them but now it is our schedule, we should blame ourselves when we choose too many opportunities.”
As stated, the school presented the students with a variety of options to choose from ranging from the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) to creative art projects.
Each of the students is required to have around 22 hours a week of exploration work—both the seminar and the independent hours—which means they need to be flexible in balancing their time and selecting their classes.
“Around two years ago, I found out that I’m really passionate about aerospace engineering and I want to be in the projects so that I could build a strong background of who I am,” 16-year-old Rithy says, who is trying to work out his time for his underwater robotics and CubeSat projects that require a great amount of work.
Rithy added that he is able to handle both of his projects and might even consider aerospace engineering as his major for college.
Similarly, Vuthy mentioned that he needed to balance out his time for his individual project, designing an e-commerce website for the school, and his school works accordingly.
This greatly shows that students in the Liger Leadership Academy are more than ready to come face to face with the colleges. The experiences and the skills that students will have from this framework will definitely contribute a magnificent influence in their lives.
“In university, you have plenty of time and you should manage those time wisely,” Vuthy advises for the future.