The Pros of a Gap Year

• A chance to mature before going back to school: Gap years can provide students the chance to learn responsibility on a different level. Whether you’re planning a trip around the world or working as a waitress, you’re going to be fending for yourself as an adult for the first time. This can be an advantage when you’re ready to start living and working on your own.
• An opportunity to regroup: High School can be very stressful time. Between struggling to maintain your grades and searching for the right post-secondary path, many students feel burnt out by the time they graduate. Doing something besides school for awhile can provide a much-needed break.
• A change of pace: You’ve never done anything before besides being a student. If you go right to college or university, nothing will really change. Spending a year doing something else will help you gain new perspective on life.
• A chance to figure out what you want: Not sure yet what post-secondary pathway is exactly right for you at this point? A year off can help you think about and sort things out.
• Great Stories: Want your resume or post-secondary application to stand out? Spend a year doing something unique, and discuss in your personal essay how the experience changed you.
• Save money: It’s no secret how expensive funding a post-secondary education can be. Depending on what you do during your year off, you might be able to save money.

The Cons of a Gap Year

• Losing momentum: For some students, a year off can be a refreshing break that helps you feel ready to go back to school. However, it also takes you away from the classroom experience, so you might be a bit rusty (or reluctant) to return.
• Being a year behind: A year off will put you a year behind your friends and further back on what can be, a long educational process.
• Lose focus on future goals: Taking a year off and breaking the cycle of studying may make it difficult to keep your eyes on your long-term goals.
• Lose Money: Some gap year experiences don’t require money (like working for a year) or are inexpensive (like teaching abroad for a year). But, others can be quite pricey and can be an added expense to an already costly post-secondary education.
• Whatever you decide, make sure you take the time to think about what you would do for your time off and your reasons for it. Taking time off to learn about life and make money is great, in theory, but vegging out on your parents couch and partying away your savings may not get you the results you hoped.

When you’re thinking about how you want to celebrate this milestone event, in between thoughts of dresses, dates, flowers and pre and post parties, please remember some of the things that Prom is not:

• Prom is not meant to be a measure of your social status.
• Prom is not meant to cost you hundreds and thousands of dollars in limos, gowns, parties and hotel rooms.
• Prom is not an agreement to have sex with your date.
• Prom is not meant to create an exclusive situation where kids feel like losers because they did not get invited to a pre or post party.
• Prom is not meant as an opportunity for teens to stay out all night in hotel rooms, unsupervised.
• Prom is not meant as an opportunity for teens to drink or take mind-altering substances, and then die in fatal alcohol-related car crashes.
• Prom is not meant to be a competition for girls see who could dress the most provocatively.
• Prom is not meant to change your social status in one evening

Prom is a big deal, however. It is a milestone occasion that marks the closing of one phase of your life and the beginning of another. It should be one of the most memorable nights of your life (meaning one that you can actually remember). So take this opportunity to celebrate, have fun, be safe, make others feel included and enjoy this great moment of your high school career.

If you are looking toward your graduation with fear and anxiety, you are not alone. Graduating high school is a transitional time and along with the anticipation, excitement and sense of accomplishment comes uncertainty and stress about the future. What steps can you take to make the transition from high school student to high school graduate a bit easier?

Focus on the Positive
Transitions are always tough and stressful but focusing on the positive, remembering the goals you already achieved and congratulating yourself on your past accomplishments helps. Accept that new situations and this new stage in your life can be scary but you have made it through all the different stages so far and you can make it through this one as well.

Remember Your Safety Net
Graduating from high school can make you feel like you’re losing your safety net, especially if you’re moving out of the house. But remember that your parents, relatives and friends are still there to support you. True, you may be expected to earn your own money, do your own laundry and remind yourself of upcoming deadlines but your friends and family will always be there if you need help. Don’t be afraid to ask.

Find a New Goal
During high school your goal was pretty clear: to graduate. Now that you made it, it’s time to find a new goal in life. Your new goal might be to go to University, explore a trade, take a year off to travel – it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you focus on what you really want to do for both the short and long term. Break your goal down into steps, as you accomplish each step you will feel a sense of accomplishment and that will lessen the anxiety you feel.

Nothing is Set in Stone
Many students feel a sense of anxiety about making decisions after high school because they think that anything they decide will be for the rest of their lives. This really isn’t the case. While you don’t want to float around and change your mind on a daily or weekly basis, it is helpful to remember that decisions you make today don’t have to be permanent.

Life after high school is about finding what you like and what you don’t. You may choose one type of work and then find you don’t enjoy it and want to look for something different. You may choose to move to a different city and then find it isn’t the right fit for you. But you can always change your mind and set new goals or choose a different career path. And if that isn’t right you can change it again. Keeping in mind that the rest of your life does not need to depend on your decision today can help relieve some of the “life-after-high-school” stress.

Here are some easy ways to try:

Power Down
If you shut all your devices at night, you can save an average of about $100 worth of electricity a year that’s reason enough to ask for a raise in your allowance! If you must leave your computer on, tell it to go into “sleep” or “hibernate” mode, which saves power. Save even more juice by unplugging your computer (or flip the switch on a surge protector) to stop the phantom load problem.

Go Vintage
Not only will you impress your friends with your awesome sense of style but you’ll be able to get some great expensive labels for way less.

Ride a Bike
It may not be as cool as driving a car but bikes are way more fuel efficient than cars, saving gas and lowering emissions that cause global warming.

Turn Off the Lights
Why leave a light on when no one is around? It’s just plain waste. Your parents may even bug you about it because they have to pay the energy bills, and they know lighting accounts for an average of 11% of the total bill.

Lose the Litter
Littering is one of the most destructive impacts that people have on our landscape. It kills wildlife and releases toxic chemicals when it breaks down. Plus it’s just plain ugly! Many neighborhoods hold regular cleanups, so volunteer! It’s an easy way to get some exercise while making a difference and meeting new people.

Get a Water Bottle
Did you know that less than 20% of those single-use water containers make it to the recycling bin. They also waste fuel for shipping (water is heavy). Get a cool metal bottle instead and fill it up when you’re thirsty, and cut down on the expense and waste.

Go Beauty Green
Typical drugstore beauty products can have some pretty scary-sounding chemicals in them so why take the risk of putting all those lab compounds on your body? Lots of companies make more natural products from plant extracts and even organically certified ingredients. They smell great, and are less toxic to make and dispose of.

Download your Music
A number of today’s hottest musicians are going green in big ways, by running tour buses on clean-burning biodiesel and recycling all their show waste. Do your part by buying music online, which cuts out waste from shipping and all those CDs and cases.

Get Involved!
Most schools have environmental or Earth Day clubs, so give them a chance! It’s a great way to meet nice people, and you can learn so much from your peers. Many clubs convince their schools to recycle, start a garden or hold an Earth Day fair to spread the word of the importance of going green and sustainable living.

Being in a healthy relationship doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. You may disagree and fight with your partner but there should never be a time when you feel scared for your safety. In a healthy relationship, you are able to work out your disagreements and move on. In a healthy relationship there are more good times than bad times.

Sometimes in a relationship, though, one person may hurt, scare, belittle or demean the person they are dating. This type of unhealthy relationship is called an abusive relationship and the behaviour is called dating violence. Dating violence can happen to people of all races, cultures, incomes, and education levels. It can happen on a first date, or when you are deeply in love. It can happen whether you are young or old, and in heterosexual or same-sex relationships. Dating violence is always wrong. Dating violence isn’t only about physical abuse, though. It’s about making you feel bad about yourself, too.

Some signs of an abusive relationship include:

• Constantly texting or sending instant messages to monitor you
• Insisting on getting serious very quickly
• Acting very jealous or bossy
• Calling you names
• Making you feel stupid or worthless
• Posting sexual photos of you online without permission
• Threatening to hurt you or themselves if you break up
• Blaming you for the abuse
• Any physical abuse like shoving, pushing, hitting, slapping or kicking
• Unwanted touching and kissing
• Forcing you to have sex
• Not letting you use birth control

Anyone can be a victim of dating violence but it is never okay for someone to hit you. be cruel to you or make you feel bad about yourself. You may think alcohol or drugs make your partner abusive. Those things may increase the chances of abuse, but they never make it right. You also may think it is your fault that your partner has hurt you but it’s not. Nothing you say, wear, do or think gives anyone the right to hurt you. You don’t control how your partner acts, and you can’t make someone mistreat you.

Abuse in a relationship can happen slowly. At first you might not be sure that what is happening to you is wrong. It may start out by being called names so you feel bad about yourself. But feeling bad is not ok either and often the name calling turns to physical abuse over time.

Most people don’t want to admit or believe that they are in an abusive relationship. You may find yourself making excuses for your partner’s behaviour or thinking that you can handle it. Many teens experiencing dating violence may feel ashamed, depressed, anxious, anxious and confused. You may think that with time, you can change your partner’s hurtful behaviour. That if you change yourself, be “better” or more attentive to them, that they will stop hurting you. This won’t happen. In fact, it’s likely that their behaviour will only get worse.

If you are in a relationship where you feel scared or are being hurt, remember that you are not alone. Try talking to someone you trust. By sharing the secret you are taking the first step in taking care of and protecting yourself. If you’re not sure who to tell, try a teacher, counsellor, friend, or even The Kids Help Phone. You always have the right to be treated with respect and to feel safe. Always.

Before the Exam:

Get Organized the Night Before: Make sure you have all the things necessary for the exam, like sharp pencils, pens, calculators, paper, etc. Last minute searching for things can stress you out more and create a panic during exam.

Remember to Eat: Before you go to the exam, eat foods that will give your brain the energy it needs to work at it’s best. Fruits and proteins are good source of energy. Avoid eating lots of heavy carbs like rice, potatoes or junk which will make you sleepy. Take a water bottle to the exam to stay hydrated.

Relax: For about an hour before exam, just try to relax!! Last minute cramming will stress you out more and you’ll be so nervous that it won’t stick anyway. Be confident of what you know. Practice taking a few deep breaths to calm your brain.

Be On Time: There’s nothing worse than showing up late for an exam and starting off on the wrong foot. Being late will make you feel rushed and nervous. But don’t be too early, that may just give you more time to sit there and worry about things.

During the Exam:

Read and then re-read each question: Once you get your exam, read all the questions and make a quick plan how you are going to spend your time. Check the questions you think you know best and do them first. If there’s a question you don’t understand, get clarification if you can. If there’s a question you didn’t study, take a deep breath, relax, give it a try and then move on.

Pace yourself: It’s likely that you only have a limited amount of time to take the exam. Figure out ahead of time how many questions there are and much time you have to spend on each one. Don’t focus on the clock as time ticks away, but glance up every once in awhile to make sure you’re staying on track.

Stay Focused: Keep your eyes on your paper, unless it’s to occasionally glance at the clock. Don’t look at the students around you. Because if they’re nervous, it could make you nervous, and if they’re not, it could make you wonder why it’s so easy for them. Plus, you don’t want the teacher to think you’re trying to cheat.

Check Your Work: When you’re finished, and if you have time, check and recheck your work again. Try to check every answer with patience and you may come across some careless mistakes.

After the Exam:

Forget About It: Most of the time after an exam or test is over we worry about the results or we waste time discussing the answers with friends which may stress you out more. It’s important to realize that you can’t do anything more about it so let it go and move on to other things. Focus on your next exam and how you are going to spend the rest of your time efficiently.

When you pull an all-nighter, you are depriving your body of sleep. Although memorizing everything for your exam may seem extremely important, beauty sleep is way more important. Almost nobody out there can get by with six hours of sleep a night. In fact, people who sleep six hours, or less, a night might not feel impaired, but many don’t realize the impairment in their own performance. They are harming themselves more than they realize by not getting a good amount of sleep.

Some of the negative side-effects of pulling an all nighter include:

• Decreased alertness: Probably the most obvious side effect, not sleeping enough means your body isn’t being refreshed and your energy levels aren’t being restored, so you feel lethargic and drowsy, and have difficulty focusing on tasks (like writing an exam or paper!)
• Memory and cognitive impairment: Those all-nighters are usually counterproductive. You might get through a few extra chapters and skim through a few more lectures notes, but your ability to process that information and actually recall it during the test is drastically reduced if you skip the sleep and head straight for the exam after leaving the library.
• Strained relationships: Mornings are rough enough as it is. The more sleep-deprived you are the more irritable, cranky, and moody you’ll be. Your normal morning cup of coffee won’t do you any good either if you’ve already been chugging it all night. So those you live with better beware.
• Increased risk of injury: Whether you’re working, driving or just going about your everyday tasks, the combination of the above effects and being less alert overall leads to higher chances of carelessness and accidents that could be avoided with proper rest.
• Weight Gain: Pulling all-nighters alters two important hormones: ghrelin, which is the hormone that tells us when to eat, and leptin, which is the hormone that tells us when to stop eating. When we’re sleep-deprived, our bodies produce more ghrelin and less leptin. Factor in the less-than-stellar quality of junk food we typically eat during those power study sessions and what do you get? Weight gain.

The effects from pulling all-nighters will go away soon, right? Wrong! Chronic sleep deprivation can leave us with many surprising long-term side effects like high blood pressure, depression or other mood disorders, ADD and it even increases the likelihood of stroke. The solution? Start early, use a homework planner, get organized and take a pre-exam nap!

myHomework
One of the most important things you need to have in order to be successful in high school is organization. myHomework helps you organize your life by giving you a place to record homework assignments and projects, keep track of responsibilities and schedule extracurricular activities. You can access myHomework online or through another device so your schedule and assignments are always available. It also sends out due date reminders to make sure you never accidentally misses an assignment.

Graphing Calculator
Graphing calculators are expensive, but it’s almost impossible to get your calculus homework done without one. Since you’ve already shelled out the cash for your smartphone or tablet, why not consider turning it into a graphing calculator too? This app will plot and trace multiple equations on the same graph, using a custom keyboard. It even supports graphing polar and parametric equations. Plus, you can take screenshots of your calculator to email graphs to yourself or your friends.

Flashcards
Flashcards gives you a study tool right on your phone. You can easily create flashcards for any subject and flip through them to study for tests or just to review important material. The app also allows you to share your flashcards through Dropbox on e-mail, which makes it easy for you to share notes and study tools. You can view your cards in alphabetical, random or sequential order.

Math Formulas
If you have trouble keeping your trigonometry formulas separate from your algebraic formulas,you’ll love this app. It stores frequently used formulas for easy access and lets you favorite the apps you use the most. It even probes into calc, geometry and probability, and displays images so you can put the formulas into perspective.

Shakespeare
High school just wouldn’t be the same without being made to study the complete works of William Shakespeare. Understanding the complicated language of Macbeth and Othello is no easy feat, however. This app will help ease your English class woes. It contains 41 Shakespearean plays and 154 sonnets to view on your iPhone or iPad. It has a glossary of the most commonly used Shakespearean phrases and explains it in regular English and it provides a detailed scene breakdowns of locations and characters in each act.

The Chemical Touch
With this app you can pick and choose the different elements to learn more about their properties and get the definitions of their nucleobases. You can sort the table with different colors to identify periodic trends which will simplify your chemistry homework. If you need in-depth explanations of different concepts, the app will open Wikipedia entries.

The Frog Dissection App
Slicing open a frog in biology class may be cool for some but for others, it can be messy and gross. This app removes the formaldehyde from the equation. It includes a totally interactive frog dissection lesson from start to finish, a quiz section, a step by step frog lifecycle section, a quiz, videos, and many other opportunities for interactive learning about frogs and other topics of biology. The 3D imaging also lets you study detailed internal organs. It’s dissection without the frog juice!

Your resume is the the first impression a potential employer gets of you and the reason why you do – or don’t – get a first interview. A resume is like a foot in the door when you set out to succeed in the workplace. It’s sole purpose is to get you an interview. So needless to say, it’s a pretty big deal.

As your primary marketing tool, your resume needs to do an excellent job of selling you, your skills and your overall suitability for the job you want. To help you get that first interview, here are some do’s and don’ts that you should think about.

The Do’s:

1. Do tailor your resume. Include information on your resume associated with the specific job you are applying for.
2. Do be original. The content of your resume should look significantly different from your classmates’ resumes.
3. Do highlight any outstanding or unusual work you did either in school projects, work experiences, volunteer or internships.
4. Do make it presentable. Make sure your resume looks clean and organized. Use white, letter-sized paper (8.5 x 11-inch) and a font that’s easy to read.
5. Do be concise. Try to keep your resume as short as possible—ideally one page, two pages max.
6. Do be honest. Lying on your resume is never a good idea. Many people who lie on their applications end up losing their jobs when their employers find out the truth.
7. Do be professional. Remember, this is a business document, so don’t use flashy paper or fancy colours.
8. Do proofread. Never rely on spell check. Ask your friends and family to proofread too.

The Don’ts:

1. Don’t start each sentence with I. Focus on things you have accomplished, and get creative with your wording.
2. Don’t be negative. This applies to both to your resume and to interviews. For example, no need to include the things that you hated about your last job.
3. Don’t include a photo – or your Social Insurance Number or your age or relationship status.
4. Don’t forget to include contact information. Like a current phone number or email address.
5. Don’t embellish. Stay away from adding frivolous information that has no relevance on your experience or skills
6. Don’t forget to proofread. Seriously, even one misspelled word could put you in the “do not consider” pile.

If the idea of writing a resume stresses you out, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Sure your resume is one of the most important tools you have when looking for a job but myBlueprint has an awesome Resume Building feature that allows you to keep a record of your experiences, build a cover letter and complete an entire resume. By following the easy step by step instructions, and remembering the important do’s and don’ts for writing a killer resume, you’ll be on your way in no time.

According to a myBlueprint student feedback survey, 76% of students start to think about their post secondary options even before they enter high school. myBlueprint has developed two excellent inventories, Discovery and Exploration, that provide students in grades 7-10 and 10-12+ with specific occupation interest areas to motivate them toward planning their post-secondary destinations. The outcome of these inventories can help students with strategic course selection and an understanding of which post-secondary programs will help them achieve their goals.

When trying to figure out your goals, some of the most important questions to ask yourself include:

• What kind of training do you need to get the job?
• Does it require a college or university education?
• If it does, what kinds of classes would you need to take both in high school and in college or university?
• Can you handle the courses?
• If the job doesn’t require a college or university degree, does it require specialty training?
• Are there programs in your area or would you have to move somewhere else?
• How much does the job pay? If the answer is “not much”, is that important to you?
• Would you work regular hours?
• Does the job sound too stressful or too boring?

The Discovery and Explorations Inventories designed by myBlueprint can provide you with these answers and more. Unlike most traditional inventories that focus on a large population and age range, typically grades 5-12, myBlueprint created separate inventories geared specifically toward people your age to help you identify the high school courses and postsecondary pathways that match your interests. It then allows you to view reports and print them out so you can further explore your options with parents, teachers and guidance counselors.

For more information about these inventories or to register your school with myBlueprint, please email info@myblueprint.ca