My Advice to High School Students Graduating Soon and Recent High School Graduates

As a former high school graduate myself, I would like to offer some advice to high school students on the verge of graduating from high school as well as to recent high-school graduates:

(1) Keep in mind that throughout your entire life, your years of attending high school will remain among the most influential and vividly recalled years of your entire life.
Over the course of your post-high school life, you will be having many thousands of nocturnal dreams during your sleep about your high school years. And during your conscious hours, you will have many "sudden recollections" about high school teachers of yours and high school classmates or schoolmates of yours, and about circumstances you experienced during your high school years.

(2) Take and obtain copies of as many photographs as you can of yourself and each of the persons from your high school years whom you admired the most, liked the most, loved the most, or felt the most inspired by.
Those "featured" individuals whose photographs you could include in your permanent personal scrapbook might include teachers of yours, a principal or vice principal, a parent of a schoolmate of yours who was also a parent whom you particularly admired or felt inspired by, a member of the janitorial staff of your high school, an attendance clerk or secretary at your high school, a teacher aide or volunteer from your school district or city who worked at or visited your high school.

Adding to your permanent lifelong scrapbook as many photographs as possible relating to your high school years will serve as a very tangible reminder to you throughout your life that you achieved this truly great milestone in your own life, and that you enjoyed many of the schoolmates, teachers, admnistrators, staff members, and parents whom you interacted with during that period.

(3) Obtain the full legal name, including the middle name, of each person from your high school years whom you admired the most. That information will make it much easier for you to later pursue a Google search in order to look up a former high school friend or high school acquaintance whom you admired and liked or loved.
You might also want to ask each of the schoolmates of yours whom you admired the most to please give you the full legal name and phone number of their parents. If you lose touch with that schoolmate of yours, you could always contact their mother or father and ask that individual to please give you a current E-mail address or current mailing address for that former schoolmate of yours.

(4) Exchange your E-mail address with many of the honorable schoolmates, and several of the teachers and other adult staff members or administrators, from your high school years. Those E-mail addresses will help you to keep in touch with and maintain a friendly mutually-constructive dialogue with persons you feel an affinity toward.

(5) Pursue some research to identify which hobbies and pastimes you would most like to pursue during your post-high school years. For instance, whcih of the lifelong-sports that you can pursue throughout your entire adult life appeal to you the most? Do you plan to enroll in a beginner's class in any of the lifelong sports you admire but have not learned yet?

Also, you might want to reflect on each of the hobbies and pastimes of friends and relatives and teachers and acquaintances of yours --- cooking particular dishes, for instance --- that appeal to you the most.

Did your Spanish teacher have a favorite recipe for cooking gazpacho that you liked so much you might want to ask her to please share her gazpacho recipe with you?
If so, you could add gazpacho to the list of dishes you enjoy preparing as a leisurtime hobby. This summer, you could practice preparing gazpacho during your leisuretime until you feel confident about making gazpacho from scratch. Gazpacho is perfectly suited to the summertime heat, since it is a cool-temperature traditional Spanish soup. It is also a soup that's very healthful for you and anyone you choose to share your gazpacho creations with.

Do you remember any out-of-the-ordinary hobby, such as fragrant-plant gardening featuring plants such as jasmines and gardenias and honeysuckles and roses, that a friend or neighbor or relative of yours pursues, and that you might like to pursue in your own leisuretime as well?

(6) Consider asking some teachers of yours or administrators at your current or former high school to please provide you with a signed and dated written letter of recommendation.

Another possibility: Contact several teachers of yours and administrators and some parents or members of the clergy who each had a high estimation of yourself and your capabilities. Ask each of those adult persons whether they would be willing to provide you with a favorable character reference if they were to be contacted by a prospective employer for yourself or prospective post-secondary educational institution for yourself.

(7) Give some thought to which of the adult persons you encountered during your high school years appeared to exhibit the greatest capacity for mutually-respectful, polite, law-abiding, privacy-respectful, strictly-mutual-consent friendship or friendly acquaintanceship with yourself. Some or several of those adult persons might make for good and honorable personal friends and mentors and professional associates for yourself in your post-high school life.

(8) Give some thought to the subjects you did not study during your high school years, but that you now believe you will have a need for in your post-high school years. For instance, did you not take any course in home economics, but you sense that you could save many thousands of dollars over the course of your life if you knew how to cook for yourself and pursue homemaking inside your apartment or home? It makes good financial sense, and it will also boost your self-confidence, if you consider enrolling in a cooking class or home economics class in the near future, such as through a local community college or during your years of attending a four-year college. Otherwise, you could take some time this summer to ask a female relative of yours you admire and like to please teach you how to become more successful at cooking and homemaking and personal budgeting.