Sending your child off to college is a key event in both of your lives – for you, it might mean an unusual quietness in the house as they fly the nest for the first time; for them, this period in their life is one of huge change and opportunity. In this article, we’ll be giving our top three tips on how to best prepare your teen for college, and make sure that their experience goes as seamlessly as possible.
Establish a Budget
Whether you’ll be supporting your teen through college financially, or if they are planning to get a part-time job to run alongside their studies, one of the best things you can do to help them prepare is to assist with establishing a budget that they can use throughout their time away from home. There are plenty of free budgeting templates available online that can help you both to make a plan, and it’s truly worth sitting down with them to work out their income and expenditure to give them confidence as they move out to college and will need to manage this themselves daily.
Tech Holding Them Back?
The last thing you want for your kids is them to be missing out on learning or career opportunities because of things within your control. Having a high-performing laptop which they can use to take notes in classes and collaborate with their coursemates can often be a huge help in this day and age, compared to the old-fashioned way of using paper and pen. Not only this, with employment recruiters now moving their processes increasingly online, or offering remote-working roles only, your teen could seriously miss out if they are not adequately equipped to move with recruiters into the digital age. There are some fantastic Lenovo laptops For college which are high performing but also budget-friendly, so you can make sure your teen is set up to take college by storm.
Encourage Them to Develop Study Strategies
Once your teen gets to college, they will likely be inundated with coursework to do on top of social and networking events that may seem as though things are piling on the pressure. A good way to help them manage their stress levels and organise their time is to encourage them to develop a study strategy that works for them. You might suggest they use an online calendar scheduling app, or keep a paper diary, to prioritise their time and ensure they are working study sessions into the day in a way that’s not too overwhelming.
In the end, although your teen going to college can feel like a hugely daunting process for both of you, there are lots of ways you can help to reduce stress and set them up for a successful learning experience which will allow them to grow. One of the best things you can do to invest in their future now is make sure that their equipment, like a student-friendly laptop, and their budgeting and scheduling apps, are up to date. From there, it’s up to them to make the best out of their time at college, but you’ll know you’ve done everything you can to support them.