Talking to ʻŌpio About What to Do After High School
With so much going on right now college application season might be the last thing on you or your pre-teen/teenagers’ minds. But with the approach of the holiday season, another season approaches, too: application deadlines. Colleges, trade schools, spring internships, Affordable Care Act Open Enrollment, and the dreaded FAFSA are all lined up, leaving people feeling overwhelmed at a time when they would like to relax after a chaotic year.
TALK FIRST; DON’T RUSH.
Though the future is uncertain, it is important to talk with one another to make sure your tweens, teens, and young adults know enough to be able to weigh their options carefully and make a plan — even if that plan has more “maybes” than we might like.
For some, 2021 may be the year to head to the mainland for college. For others, it may be the year to:
take care of family
find an apprenticeship or internship
enroll in online credit or non-credit courses
begin taking core classes at community college
meet with advisors to plan for 2022
cultivate skills, projects, and hobbies at home
start working part or full-time
volunteer
participate in advocacy
Be gentle with them. There is no shame in taking a little extra time to get started. For some, there can be great financial and emotional savings from spending that time to decide.
CONSIDER OTHER ASPECTS OF ADULTHOOD
Applying to vocational school, college, apprenticeship, military, or a job are all important pieces of taking the next step for emerging adults. However, it is also important to learn life skills such as financial literacy or home maintenance.
While it’s important not to push too hard to be productive during this time, taking even small steps toward the future can be beneficial not just to financial prospects, but to mental and emotional wellbeing. Un-fun though it may be, spending some time to help your ʻōpio map out a degree-to-career pathway or learn how to shop for insurance will be hugely beneficial to them in the long-run…probably much more so than nagging reminders to finish writing admissions essays or job applications.
Family members and other invested adults should be careful to encourage middle, high school, and even college students to think about their plans — without going over the line into adding unhelpful pressure onto our already-stressed-out young people.
STARTING THE CONVERSATION
So what do you do if you don’t know how to help your ʻōpio start? Talk to them! They can let you know what stage of the planning journey they’re on. Even if they already have an acceptance letter or a full-time job, it’s still good to check in and ask how you can help them get where they want to be. That’s the great thing about these plans — they can always be changed!
LEARNING ABOUT POST-HIGH OPTIONS
There are a myriad of resources out there, but some good places to start if you’re interested in staying in West Hawai‘i is our resources page. It has information on local college, trade school, and apprenticeship options, as well as links to helpful tools and programs that will help at all stages of the process. A great one-stop-shop local website is Hawai’i Career Explorer.
You can also search our blog for tags like “vocational”, “apprenticeship”, “internship”, and more.
ASK FOR HELP!
And of course, there are always school college and career counselors, many of whom are doing virtual visits and would be happy to talk with you. Hōkūpa‘a also offers weekly drop-in virtual coffee hours, where you can talk with our Program Coordinator, who can help answer some of your questions and direct you toward people and resources that fit what you’re looking for.
