Sage Advice From Beyond the High School Years

A Letter From the Future

The Partnership for Learning asked students at Michigan’s Lansing Community College (LCC) what advice they would give to the students, and their parents, coming up behind them in high school. Here’s what they said in a recent issue of EduGuide, a publication designed to help parents and schools work together to help children take full advantage of educational opportunities.

Carol Crowe, A Freshman, Business & Sports Marketing

“My mom was like—you need to go to college, blah, blah, blah—but toward the end she said just do whatever you want. She was either hot or cold, hitting me over the head with it or didn’t care. So I said fine, if it doesn’t matter that much to you, I won’t go. I went into construction, but I was just living paycheck to paycheck. Then my mom decided to go back to college to get a nursing degree. I started looking at my life and decided if she could do it, then so could I. I wish I wouldn’t have lost those two years out of school. I could be a junior by now. High school students should definitely take their classes more seriously. I wish I would have. I took stupid classes just to get credit. My mom wanted me to take physics, but to me it was just useless knowledge. If I had taken it, today I would be more confident and wouldn’t look ignorant, like I have a slacker mentality. But how do you get through to a 16 year old? Every family is different, but I think what would have worked for me is if I had been given a positive picture of what I could get out of college—help me understand what it’s like living paycheck to paycheck; help me want it for myself, instead of just saying I had to do it. For people who are low- and middle-income, it also helps when adults set an example, like my mom did.”

Partnership for Learning is a nationally award-winning non-profit collaboration that helps schools and communities work together to boost learning from birth through the transition to college. The Partnership publishes reports, conducts trainings, and coordinates programs as a non-position-taking collaborative resource. For more information or to read additional responses from students at Lansing Community College, contact: Partnership for Learning, 321 N. Pine St., Lansing, MI 48933, (800) 832-2464 or visit www.partnershipforlearning.org.

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