We are halfway through another school year, and for some of you that means that High school is right around the corner. Since there are 4 years of High School, many students don’t ever think that your Freshman year really is an important year… so I am here to tell you that freshman year really is an important year !!
Freshman year is a new start for a lot of students…new school, new friends, new teachers/classes.. and every student wants to make a good first impression. For most students, going to a new school can be a big adjustment. Even if you have older brothers or sisters, naturally students will want to pave their own path and create their own reputation. Freshman year will be a chance to find new friends, join interesting extracurricular activities, and adapt to new teachers and their different teaching strategies.
New School: What you decide to do in High School will impact your future… and if you start off on the right track, hopefully your future will turn out bright.
When applying to colleges, they look for not only good grades but also consistency with sports, clubs, and organizations… so when you’re a Freshman, you should try to join either a club or extracurricular that you are passionate about and that you will stick with throughout your 4 years of High School.
New Friends: Usually when you attend High School you will be mixed with new people which is always fun and exciting. These new students could turn out to become some of your closest friends, and Freshman Year is a great way to break the ice and meet new people since you’re all going through the same experience.
New teachers/classes: In terms of new classes and teachers: each year, the learning curriculum will become more vigorous and the work load will become longer and more strenuous. The grades your receive your Freshman year are as important as the grades you receive the most of the years, though Sophomore and Junior year grades are weighted more on your GPA.
Learning to study for Finals will be new to all Freshman, since for most Freshman this will be their first time taking Final exams. Final exams are usually cumulative and there are good strategies to help you when taking the exams. Since grades are always important, the study habits that you use or learn from others will hopefully improve over time and can help you not only through High School but college as well.
As you can see, Freshman year is very important and can make a good or bad impact on you, depending on your experience. Here’s to a great first year!
Tis’ the season for college applications. Completing college applications is a task that provokes stress in all high school students with the essays being the most stressful portion of the application to complete. The essays are where a student can separate themselves from the thousands of other students applying for the same college. The essays provide a chance to become more than just a name on an application. Here are some tips that will help students reduce anxiety and stand out:
Be smart about your essays. This sounds redundant but colleges are looking for the way a student’s mind works. When picking a topic for college essays write about something that is important to you. Pick a personal experience or subject that speaks to you and shows through your writing how it speaks to you. Talk about what you have learned and what you think, but give very specific reasons.
Be creative but direct.
This college essay is a story, and in this case it is your story. When writing college essays provide vivid details that will help create a picture in the reader’s mind. Help the reader visualize the setting through words. Also, provide names (or create them) for other people making an appearance in your essay. This will make the essay more real and human. The reader will appreciate the thought and attention you have put into your essay, and that it’s not just another essay you were forced to write.
Don’t try to cover an array of different subjects in your essays. Your essays provide a synopsis of who you are; it’s like covering one moment from many in your life. Stick to the one moment or subject. If you attempt to jump all over the place to try and cover many subjects your essay will be disorganized, impersonal, and hard for the reader to follow. The admissions department knows that the essay is a synopsis. They won’t dock you for it.
Be truthful about your experiences, accomplishments, and/or titles. It’s not going to make a huge difference whether you were the Editor of your school newspaper or the photographer. Every person has different talents and strengths they bring to the table; focus on this instead.
Last but not least, be mindful of the length of your essay. There will be a minimum word count, but don’t go overboard. The admissions department has thousands of essays to read. You don’t want to test their patience if your essay is extremely long. It’s better to be specific, detailed and to the point.
Finally, if you need help, Study Hut is here for you! We are open during the break so come on in and get those apps done!
One of the biggest decisions senior’s face in the waning stages of High School, is the decision of where to go to college. Some kids have dream schools, schools they have had their heart set sense the moment the concept of college was introduced. However, most kids do not really know what school they really want to go. We make lists of what schools have fun and eventful sports programs, offer the major we think we want to achieve, and look at where our friends are applying. The best advice I can give to a soon-to-be and undecided college students is to think outside the “box.” Take advantage of these 4-5 years of college and go someplace new. Look at schools in places you never though you would ever go. Life outside your hometown is different. There are many many new and different experiences that you will never experience at home. Some you may hate, and others you may love.
I went to school to a far far away place in Northern California at Davis. Even though Davis is in California, anyone who has been knows that Northern California is not the same as Southern California. Looking back I am very great full to have logged a few years up there. I love LA, and Davis is far from the coastal cities I grew up in. But I learned a lot from time I spent there. Many of the things I did for fun were things I never heard of back home. The people and food were new and different too.
So, leave home for college. Go see and live in a place totally new from what you have known growing up. When thinking of potential colleges, look at a map. Look at places you have never been but want to go to. There is a whole lot to be learned while in college outside of the classroom.
As the holidays quickly approach us, so do the wonderful bounties of winter breaks. While we at Study Hut would love to keep you students buried in books (not really), we can appreciate that, whether you’ll be travelling or not, you may want to enjoy your well-deserved breaks. After all, you’ve been hitting the books for months! We’d love to hear that our students are spending their vacations preemptively studying for future schoolwork, but we can’t say it’s a realistic possibility.
With that in mind, we’re here to offer some tips for keeping those wonderful minds sharp, so you can jump right back into the swing of things when you’re back.
1. Organization – Keep the work you’re supposed to do over the break and the work you will be doing upon returning (tests, etc.) in mind while you vacation. Don’t stress and obsess, but keep these tasks organized. If you keep a planner, you can lay out all of these obligations on paper and you won’t have to think about them constantly.
2. Moderation – As much as we love stuffing our faces with stuffing and other holiday grub, we want to encourage our students to not fall too deep into the bliss of the holiday season. How will you keep your grades up if you eat yourself into a coma? As with everything, enjoy the time off, but don’t let your school mentality slip completely away. It’s important to be able to transition back. Hit the floor running!
3. Have Fun – We know some of our students, being academic all-stars, will have trouble letting go over the break. If you have work to do while on break, take a specific day or two to get it done. This way, you’ll be able to celebrate the important holiday festivities with the ones you love, without having to excuse yourself to study.
As we, ourselves, prepare to enjoy the holiday season, we too much keep our heads in the game. We’ll be eating enough to inspire crippling dietary guilt, but we’re fully prepared to jump back into the swing of things. So whenever you find yourself back at the Hut, we’ll be ready! And don’t forget we are open over break. This is an excellent time to gear up for finals that are just around the corner!
Ask any high school student, or their parents, what they consider the most important things to work on when applying for college and most of the time the answer is GPA and SAT scores. While your high school GPA and SAT scores are extremely important factors in getting into college, in many cases, there exists a 3rd factor; a factor can get you into your reach schools or get you rejected from target schools. That important 3rd factor is your extracurricular activities. It should be stated that different school systems weigh extracurriculars different than others. For example, UC’s put a lot of weight into an applicant’s extracurricular activities, while the Cal-State Schools (SDSU, Cal Poly, long beach, etc) essentially do not. Although if you intend on going to a Cal-State, you should still invest time into extracurricular activities in case you change your mind about your college destination.
I cannot emphasize how important these application builders are, as they act as a double edged sword: having many activities significantly helps you, while a lack of them significantly hurts you. Colleges want to accept unique well-rounded students. They prefer not to fill their student bodies with mundane cookie cutter students. They want their student body to be diverse and full of students that have experienced more of the world than exists outside the schoolroom. Extracurriculars demonstrate this to colleges. They show leadership skills, your personality, and other qualities not measured with test scores and grade averages. They can take a student with less than average grades, and transform him/her into an interesting and accomplished applicant. As I stated earlier, the reverse is true. Just as a lot of strong extracurricular activities can say a lot of about you, so can a lack of them. Having no strong extracurricular activities makes you appear dull, boring, and uninspired; especially when you consider the fact that many of the other applicants you are competing with have them.
The best part about extracurricular activities is that they are abundant and easy to get involved with. They range from holding positions in clubs and other organizations, to volunteer work, to sports outside of school, to community events, and in many cases to your own hobbies. Do you feel particularly strong about an issue, subject, or cause? Chances are there is an organization you can get involved with that addresses it. When preparing for college apps don’t get too obsessed with your GPA and test scores that you neglect the 3rd piece of the application pie: extracurricular activities.
Kids today have it rough. With all the competition to get into top ranked schools, parents are starting earlier and earlier to give their little academics a head start. But when does a parent’s involvement in their kids school work become a hindrance? Like most things, it’s all about a balance.
Studies show that children with parents who stay actively involved with their schoolwork will test better than kids with parents who don’t. So stay involved! Ask questions, congratulate success and encourage asking for help in more difficult subjects. Parents should know when their kids have a test and except to see the grade for it. This holds their student accountable for their grades. When parents do get back their kids work, reward their efforts. This doesn’t mean taking your daughter to buy a new IPod every time she brings home her Friday spelling test. But it does deserve a high five or a hug. (And remember parents, B grades are still fridge worthy!) Parents should be concerned with lower grades. When problem areas in their kid’s classes arise, steps should be taken to find extra help for their students. Begin with asking to see homework and review all problems that they have trouble with. If problems continue, check in with the teacher and see what else you can do to make sure your child keeps up with work.
When involvement becomes a hindrance rather than helpful is when parents begin to micromanage. Parents must remember that students should be expected to do their homework—and not because Mom stands over their shoulder until it’s done. Establish a set routine and stick to it. Your little study monkey should know that every day like clockwork, when he/she comes home, they makes a snack and start on homework. If your student is having trouble in school, run through their completed homework for mistakes, then help them with the questions they had trouble with. If your student normally tests well in school, ask if they completed their homework each night and trust that they have fulfilled each assignment completely. This allows your student to see that they need to be responsible for their own work and that you except them to be in charge. If they begin to slack on tests, start reviewing their homework again. Students need to learn how to be accountable for their studies. Writing down assignments, organizing papers and planning when to study are lifelong skills that they will need as a student as well as a professional.
As a kid, one of my favorite times of the year was when my parents would fork out money for me to go back to school shopping. I would go with my mom to pick out the newest styles. Requirements were new shoes, a new backpack, and at least three new outfits, one for each day of the first week of school. My brother and I would always want to wear our new shoes right away, but were forced to wait until the first day of school.
Along with the back to school shopping came orientation. Mira Costa has their orientation this week as well as Manhattan Beach Middle School. This was always exciting because the students got to see which teachers they had, and also,more importantly, which friends made it in the same class.
Now that I am no longer in school I see more of an importance on the preparation academically rather than the outfits and classes. Students are starting to trickle into The Manhattan Beach Study Hut to get their mind in gear and ready for the whirl wind to begin. Most students need refreshers on math and Spanish. It is extremely important for the seventh graders to come in and review their foreign language. Spanish, French, Latin, and even Chinese are subjects the middle school offers. These are such new topics to the students that they often forget how to conjugate a verb. However, after a simple refresher they are ready for the school year. Moral of the story, don’t forget about tutoring when you are shopping for back to school. The Hut is open for appointments!
Just a couple weeks ago, we were all waiting in anticipation for our long overdue summer break. Now, summer is at its peak, and while we do enjoy our vacations and coffee breaks, the academic semester is just around the corner, and it is time to start investing in what matters by taking initiative. Instead of waking up to a sluggish summer hangover, why not buckle up before the academic storm hits and start preparing for your semester courses? Study Hut’s tutors are not only available to help you cram for midterms and term papers. We are also here to help you gear up for SATs, APs, or even Geometry. Take advantage of the last couple weeks of summer to get ahead of your peers. When you go shopping for your back-to-school supplies, remember that learning is merely facilitated
by textbooks, paper, and pencil. — your actual success in school will depend on your attitude, preparation, and dedication to your studies.A couple of hours every week goes a long way in preparing you for the coming academic semester — choose to sacrifice a couple hours of this fading summer for a significant head start on your courses at school.
We at Study Hut call this ‘investing in education’.
We’ve had lots of blog posts about how to prepare for finals and end the year on a high note. All week, students have been rushing in and out of the Hut, reciting geometry theorems and putting the final touches on Socratic seminars. But we’ve failed to mention the most important aspect of the end of the school year…
It’s the end of the school year! Yay!
In addition to playing Alice Cooper on loop, we’ve been doing a lot to prepare for summer. This mostly includes staring out the window and daydreaming about our plans. Between the tutors and the students, we’re a busy bunch!
Some are planning vacations and some are eagerly anticipating the London Olympics. Some have weddings for dear friends and others are just planning on soaking up as much sun as possible on the beaches of the South Bay. Here are a few responses from around the Hut to the most whimsical and challenging question: What’s your favorite thing about summer?
“Surf and work.”
-Alex, Tutor
“Sleep, surf and travel.”
-Codee, Sophomore
“I like not wearing socks when I’m wearing my shoes!”
-Amir, Tutor
“The sun not going down until 9pm.”
-Madison, Sophomore
“I like reading Robert Frost while sitting contemplatively under a tree in the summer breeze. Just kidding! Corn dogs.
-Amy, Tutor
“Not being at school.” -James Houston, Sophomore
“Music festivals, Vegas, and beach parties in the daytime.”
-Sam, Study Hut Manager
“I am really looking forward to sleeping, surfing, vacations, no school, playing with my dog, having free time and hanging out with my friends on the beach.”
-Matt, Freshman
No doubt about it, we’re a Hut about town. What are you looking forward to this summer? Let us know in the comments, and enjoy your time off!
It’s the dreaded blank sheet. The writing assignment stares up from the table, but you have no idea where to begin. Should you start with the thesis statement? Gather textual evidence first? Maybe it’s better to just wing it and worry about editing later.
It’s a frustrating situation, but there is help! Study Hut is offering a series of writing workshops this summer designed to review the different types of essays and prepare students for the next level of writing.
Each grade brings new expectations, particularly when it comes to writing. If a student enters the school year even moderately unprepared, it can turn from a small setback to a major problem in a hurry. It’s tempting to regard writing in terms of black and white; there are inherently good writers and bad writers. That, however, is far from the case. Good writing is a matter of discipline, strategy and lots and lots of practice.
The Hut’s summer workshop is designed to be all of those things and more. Each week, we’ll spend one-on-one time with students going over everything from correctly citing a source to crafting the perfect topic sentence. From college applications to AP tests to middle school lab reports, strong writing skills are always going to help students succeed.
Each student has one-on-one time with a tutor, so we can adapt the program to fit any skill level. We’ve put together instructional, age appropriate materials that will help any student prepare for the next step in the great journey of mega-awesome skillstastic writing! Also, we promise to discourage made-up words like “skillstastic.”
Contact us today by emailing Samantha@studyhut.com for more information on the writing workshop. Sample topics include: thesis writing, finding and citing sources, topic sentences and using evidence effectively in narrative, analytical, expository, synthesis and literary analysis essays.
