New Life Prep Program Looks to Life after College Prep—and Beyond
The block schedule isn’t the only change that’s new to College Prep this year. Even seasoned parents are perplexed by unfamiliar terms scattered across the rainbow of blocks: Common Classroom, X Block, and Compass. That last one—Compass—is the container for such familiar student life initiatives as the freshmen CAP program and the Wellness and Decision Making class for sophomores. What’s new is Life Prep, a series of practical workshops designed to help juniors and seniors navigate life after College Prep and beyond.
Associate Athletic Director Duane McNeil, who is Co-Coordinator of the Life Prep program with Sarah Garcia, Learning Center Math and Science Specialist, shared the guiding principles behind Life Prep: “Life Prep is a weekly series of events, conversations, and workshops offering practical knowledge for life beyond College Prep. Life Prep provides a menu of opportunities that are choice-based and led by College Prep faculty, parents, alumni, or other guest speakers. Life Prep offerings address a wide variety of topics, such as personal finance, healthy lifestyle choices, the realities of dorm and college life, and how to write an effective résumé.”
The idea for Life Prep grew out of a series of conversations within the Student Life team’s faculty and administrators, and from the desire to create something for juniors and seniors that would act as a continuation of the existing freshmen and sophomore offerings, one that would, in Duane’s words, “Continue to develop students as overall people.” The creation of the new block schedule this year provided the opportunity to launch such an initiative, and late last spring, Monique DeVane, Head of School, approached Duane and Sarah about spearheading it. The two spent the summer planning and designing what has become a popular weekly series of workshops facilitated by faculty members, College Prep alumni, and members of the extended community.
Each week, students can select from four offerings. The topics, inspired by student input, are explored by speakers who volunteer to share their expertise. A wordle, or word cloud, was created from suggestions by juniors and seniors, “to get an idea of what they thought a good Life Prep offering would be,” Sarah explained. “It was really interesting to see what words popped up, things like taxes, interviews, cooking, and budgeting.” In practical terms, the workshops address “things that students really want to learn: personal finance, résumés, interviewing, home repair, and car repair,” according to Duane. “It’s those life lessons that most adults learn by trial and error.”
The Life Prep offerings reflect the variety of challenges and opportunities that our students will find once they leave College Prep’s nestled campus. An example of one week’s offerings included: Living Abroad, Basic Sewing, Babysitting 101, and Car Emergencies. This diversity is by design.
What do the students think? So far, classes have been full, and the approach seems to be working. Students are required to attend at least five Life Prep workshops per semester, but only one month into the school year, many had almost fulfilled that requirement. Some popular workshops, such as the one on résumé writing, will be offered more than once.
“Students enjoy the visiting alumni,” Duane shares. “One alumnus talked about his circuitous career path from USC graduate to working at Lucasfilm, another alumnus spoke vividly about being a marine biologist who travels from Alaska to Antarctica to study fur seals. The alums related their passion for their career, and also talked about their challenges, sacrifices, and some of their failures.” The students truly enjoyed how the alums were honest about their careers. In the words of one student, “I loved it, because the Lucasfilm [alum] told me that I could fail and still succeed.”
In listening to these alumni share their stories, students begin to realize that not only are there many different careers out there—and many different careers within each field—but also that the route to a successful and fulfilling professional life doesn’t always follow the straight and narrow. For the aforementioned College Prep alum, the path to Lucasfilm took a detour through a stint as a waiter at the Warner Bros. Studio lot, where he made the connection that led to his current position. The moral of the story, according to Duane, is: “Work hard at all times, because you don’t know who’s watching.”
With such a rich and diverse pool of former students, College Prep upperclassmen have a lot to look forward to. Future offerings include an alum with a PhD in public health who will discuss epidemiology as a career, as well as share the challenges of being a PhD student. Another will give a series of talks on financial topics, including budgeting, different types of credit, and a two-part workshop on “retiring rich,” which will cover investments and savings, and promises to be very popular. Presentations by an ER physician, graphic designers, and writers are also in the pipeline.
Building on a successful launch, what are the co-coordinators hoping to add to the Life Prep equation? You! Duane said that he and Sarah are looking for parents who are willing to come in and share their hard-earned life lessons. “We have the faculty, we have alums, now we just need to bring the parents on board, too,” Duane said. And don’t worry if you don’t work at Google or Facebook. “All types of careers can open our students’ eyes.”
If you have a life skill that you’d like to share with the next generation of College Prep alums before they move on to college and careers, Duane and Sarah would love to hear from you. You can contact them at duane@college-prep.org or sarah@college-prep.org.
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mens conscia recti
a mind aware of what is right