Milton Hershey School's Senior Seminar Teaches Accountability and Promotes Life Skills Preparedness
This Course is Designed to Prepare Seniors for Life After High School. Classes Feature Hands-on, Real-World Lessons, Guest Speakers and Encourages Tangible Goal Setting.
HERSHEY, Pa., July 1, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- To help high school students prepare for success after graduation, Milton Hershey School (MHS) developed Senior Seminar, a unique, comprehensive course designed to help students learn accountability and adult life skills. Starting in the fall, Senior Seminar will be expanded as a core offering for all high school students. In grades 9-12, students will participate in a robust curriculum focused on social and emotional learning development, mastering time management and decision-making skills, and the traditional college and career readiness syllabus.
Real-world challenges such as managing finances, navigating the health care system, applying for student loans and adequately preparing for college or the workforce can be overwhelming for high school students. In fact, according to a recent Your Truth student survey*, only half of U.S. students feel that their high schools have adequately equipped them with the skills and knowledge necessary for college success. For students who come from underprivileged or low-income backgrounds, these already difficult tasks can be especially daunting and often insurmountable. Through Senior Seminar, MHS provides the necessary guidance and support for students as they learn how to manage new responsibilities and make important life decisions.
In seminar classes, seniors are encouraged to think like adults and test their decision-making skills through project-based learning assignments, all within a safe environment that allows for making mistakes. This helps them understand the real-world challenges they will face over the course of their senior year and throughout the rest of their lives.
"When they're in our class, all the concepts and resources are here. If they don't understand something, someone will explain it for them. Next year, that won't be the case," said John Karavage, a MHS Senior Seminar teacher. "The more we explain now and frontload the information, the better."
The seminar teachers work closely with MHS's college and career counselors, higher education specialists and staff members from the Transitional Living program and Graduate Programs for Success to ensure that programming aligns and students are holistically prepared for life after high school. For example, when a student is applying for college or financial aid with their guidance counselor, students learn about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) in their seminar class, just as they are filling out their actual FAFSA® forms with their guidance counselors. Similarly, as students open their first bank account through a local credit union and practice money-management skills through the Transitional Living Bank simulation, students learn about predatory lending, credit scores and how to avoid identity theft in their seminar class.
In addition to financial literacy and student loan assistance, seniors are taught a wide range of life skills, including how to navigate health insurance applications, time management skills, how and where they can receive necessary guidance and support at colleges and universities, interview techniques and best practices for writing a resume and cover letter.
While all of these skills are crucial for graduate success, Senior Seminar emphasizes overlooked details as well. Students are required to present five-year plans in the last few weeks of class, detailing everything from how they will be getting home after they graduate, to sharing with their teachers and peers the scheduled date for their orientation or first day of work and what their mode of transportation will be that day. It is this highly individualized planning that reinforces accountability and makes the Milton Hershey School Senior Seminar so unique.
"I learned so many important life skills in my senior seminar," said Gabriele Lugo, a recent Milton Hershey School Graduate. "A set of skills that I fear I might have 'learned the hard way' if Mr. Karavage and Mr. Frew hadn't taught me about them in class."
Seminar classes simulate, reinforce and inform students who otherwise might not receive such guided and individualized instruction in these areas. Through cohesive programming with Graduate Programs for Success and Transitional Living, students are given the opportunity to feel confident about the difficult decisions and many responsibilities that are in their promising futures.
To learn more about Milton Hershey School, visit http://www.mhskids.org.
*Your Truth Student Survey. (2017) How prepared to students feel for college and career? San Francisco, CA.
SOURCE Milton Hershey School
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