The Season of Graduations

With June comes the end of the school year and a time to celebrate the senior class. It's graduation day at my school in Korea and I'm so excited about this afternoon's celebration. A friend mentioned that I might enjoy preparing for the day with John Legend's University of Pennsylvania commencement address.

You can view it here: John Legend Commencement Address

Here are a few reasons why I love this speech:

1. "The key to happiness is opening your heart, opening your mind to love."

John Legend loves love as much as I'm happy about happiness. I know that love and happiness go hand in hand, so I feel like we are spreading the same message. John says that he is successful because he has always been passionate about music and he found happiness (and also fame) by doing what he truly loves. 

2. "[My parents] took the time to teach us about more than just academics. They taught us about character. About what it means to live a good life. My father often talked to us about his definition of success. He told us it wasn't measured in money or material things. It was measured by love and joy and the lives you are able to touch, the lives you are able to help."

I love this message. I love the simplicity in his words. I think more kids these days need to remember how important love and joy and charity are in this world.

3. "When you actually care about something, you want to lead."

Unfortunately, there are students all over this world who join activities so they will look good on a college application.  Students ask me all the time what they should be doing to impress a college.  My answer is always, "do whatever makes you happy!"  This usually produces some strange looks, but I follow with the same explanation - when you care about what you are doing, you are naturally better at it and you encourage the opportunity to share your talent with others (leadership).

4. "But years from now, when you look back at your time here on earth, your life and your happiness will be way more defined by the quality of your relationships, not the quantity...it's about finding and keeping the best relationships possible with the people around you.  It's about immersing yourself in your friendships and your family.  It's about being there for people you care about and knowing that they will be there for you."

John talks about his big break coming from the cousin of his friend at Penn.  I try to remind my students regularly that college is, of course, about acquiring knowledge and experience but that doesn't only come in the form of classroom learning.  It can also come from the people who you meet on the athletic fields, in your dorm, in the cafeteria, on the way to do laundry - get out there and meet people!  Network!  Connect!  What you learn is just as important as who you meet and the impression you leave them with.

5. "Half doing it is not doing it right.  You have to go all in."

My grandfather used to say, "It's not worth doing unless you do it right."  He was an immigrant and he worked hard his whole life for the few luxuries he had.  I see so many students these days who expect that the next step after high school will be college, so they just go through the motions from one opportunity to the next.  John makes a great statement that people in all walks of life should remember - no matter what we do, we should put everything we have into the experience.

6. "I want to talk about how love changes the world.  There are seven billion people out there.  Seven billion strangers.  I want you to consider what it means to love them too.  What does it mean to love them too?  To see the value in every person's life."

This is a beautiful sentiment and one that everyone needs to remember.  Teenagers, in particular, can be very self-absorbed.  There is so much going on in their lives that they just don't have the time to think about anyone other than themselves in that moment.  Still, it's the teenagers who "get it," who reach beyond themselves to serve their community or their family or even people in far off lands, that seem to do well in this process.  I'm not saying that teenagers need to simply volunteer and, poof, the college admissions start rolling in.  What I'm saying is that they need to enter into these activities with love and passion and the heart to change the world.  Whether or not they actually change the world doesn't matter.  It's all about the effort, the perspective, the introspection, and the challenge.

John Legend says so many other wonderful things that I will let you discover them for yourself.  Enjoy!

College Ratings Systems

I don't make it a secret that I'm opposed to college and university rankings lists.  One article that I hold to be sacred in the argument against ranking colleges and universities is a 2011 article from the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell called, "The Order of Things: What College Rankings Really Tell Us." I think this article does an excellent job explaining why a "One Size Fits All" list doesn't actually lead a student to choose the best fit college for them.

I talk about ranking a lot in my job.  I live in Asia and counsel Asian students.  I have found that the high achieving, test driven culture in Korea jumps at the opportunity to rank things.  I have found two reasons for this:

1)  This is a culture of numbers, of ranking its students numerically to see who is the best.  In the public schools, earned grades are not necessarily given out.  Instead, the student's transcript actually reflects the grade earned in relation to the other students in the same class.  For example, the A+ (or numeric equivalent of that) can only be achieved by one person - the person who got the best score - and the grades are given from there.  You could have gotten almost every question on the test correct and received a low grade because lots of other students also did well.  This system also translates to the national university entrance exam.  Students with the top scores go to the top colleges.  There is no holistic review.  It's simply about the score on this one exam.  Many of my current students have told me that they left the Korean public school system because students didn't care about their everyday activities in school.  They only cared about the test.   

2) Most people in Korea attend college in Korea but there are many Korean students who are now receiving their college and graduate school educations in North America and Europe.  If these students return to Korea after graduation, prospective employers don't really know about the reputation of colleges in these far away countries.  Because of this, they turn to a simple rankings list in order to decide if a prospective employee received a good education or not.

Regardless of how I feel about rankings lists, I need to acknowledge their place in my role as a college counselor in Asia.  Still, in reading a recent New York Times article titled "Colleges Rattled As Obama Seeks Ratings System," I can't help but think of my students.  Obama is seeking to creating a rating system of colleges and universities in the United States in order to better inform students about what they will get for their tuition dollar.  This is in response to higher tuition rates and the government's need to know that the billions spent each year on financial aid are going toward helping and not hurting students.

I have mixed feelings about Obama's plan.  One one side, I do think that college has become far too expensive.  My son is five years old and I simply can't imagine how much college will cost when he is ready to go in thirteen years (or how I will pay for it!).  I think that colleges and universities should be examining ways to stop tuition inflation in order to make college a more affordable entity.  On the other side, Obama is simply looking for an easy answer to a difficult problem.  How will yet another one size fits all list really tell the whole story of what a college can give to its students?

I'm interested in hearing what you think!  Please leave a comment!    

The Beginning...A Very Good Place To Start!

I've been thinking for some time about starting a college counseling blog as a way to help my students navigate the seemingly scary process of college admissions.  Here we are at the beginning...a very good place to start!

Since I'm often on Facebook connecting with colleagues and friends, I see so many articles about the good and the bad associated with the college process.  Working in an international community, I often hear the different forms of advice that each culture gives to their children in preparation for this process.  As a teacher, college counselor, and former college admissions officer, I am doing my best to prepare my students through college counseling workshops and one-on-one meetings.  I'm sure, to my students, that this endless string of advice from social media, parents, peers, and even their college counselor sounds more like a blaring siren in an already loud world.

From my point of view, there is far too much stress in this process - but, I tell my students everyday, there doesn't have to be!  The college process is one of self discovery, of learning how to be proud of your talents and passions, of writing about the most meaningful part of who you are, of finding a home for the next four years where you will grow and thrive.  What can be more exciting than that!

At the end of the day, I believe in HAPPINESS and this is something I want to instill in each and every one of my students.  Happiness in the college process, but also happiness in where they will spend the next four years, happiness in their search for knowledge and, most importantly, happiness in who they are as individuals.

Below is a speech I wrote and delivered to elementary, middle, and high school parents about the happiness that can be found in the college process.

What Makes You Happy?