Semester as a Project?

Project management skills are college readiness skills

If you are a college-bound student or someone who supports a traveler on the road to college, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about everything that needs to be done to get there. Unfortunately, that focus on admissions doesn't leave much time to think about retention--staying in school and persisting to graduation.

Fortunately, many educators are paying attention to this critical issue. During a really informative conversation about college readiness with Carey Dukes of The Readiness for Change Institute, we reviewed some of the fundamental success skills students might not sufficiently develop in high school. Many of them, according to Dukes, might best be mastered with a fundamental change in perspective: look at every semester as a distinct project.

How does viewing a semester or term as a project with critical milestones cultivate future success?

• Requires creation of a unified time allocation schedule and study time goals

• Encourages students to view all classes (not just the ones they enjoy) as part of a unified goal

• Helps prevent students from giving up on challenging classes

• Promotes consistent effort across all courses throughout the semester

• Establishes a framework in which success in a long academic year is broken down into more manageable chunks

Project management skills are critical for any student managing a matrix of classes, each with their own requirements, assignments, and deadlines. Don’t wait until college to build skill you’ll need there… take on this project now!