Making A Plan

Making a plan is important, it helps keep you on track.

You already make plans in your life. You plan having fun with your friends. When you all will get together, where you'll meet, and what you'll do. You make other plans too, sometimes they're just so natural you don't realize you planned.

For example, you've already made a couple of plans for college. You plan to attend, and you plan to use scholarships to help pay for college if possible. I know you've made those plans because you're taking the time to read this.

Now, you just need to make the plan concrete in your mind. There have actually been studies done on this, can you believe it? But those studies show that people (adults too) are more likely to follow a plan if it's written down. Don't groan, get out a sheet of paper and make your college plan, it's not painful, it will only take a few minutes, and I'll help. Or, you can just copy these questions to your word processor and answer them on your computer. Either way works. Under each question are a few others, or some suggestions for you to consider when answering the main question.

1. What type of life syle do you want for yourself?
Where do you want to live, your home state, or somewhere else? Do you want to travel? Do you want to live in a rural area or metro area?

2. How much will your preferred life style cost?
Parents can help with this, they can give you an idea of what your current life style costs. This is especially helpful if you don't know what you want exactly. You do know if you're willing to settle for less, highly unlikely, or if you want to have more than your parents do you can add $25,000 or more to your parents current yearly income. You don't have to worry about inflation in your figures, the better paying jobs increase their pay as inflation rises. This is another benefit of a college education.

3. What job do you want to have that will also allow you to live the lifestyle of your choice?
You may not know career you want, that's ok, for now you just need a job that pays XXX amount of dollars. If you have an idea of the type of job you want, you can find it's pay range. Remember to list the low end as your goal, since people making the high end have usually been doing the job for several years.

4. What will it take for you to qualify for the job of your dreams?
Attend college? Do you have a preference for which college to attend? Don't worry if you don't, we'll discuss colleges, and choosing one, in a later post.

5. How do I get into the college of my choice?
Does your school offer college prep classes? If so you'll need to list those here. You also need to maintain at least a 3.00 gpa, higher is better.

6. What do I need to do to reach and maintain a 3.00 or higher gpa?
This will depend on you. If your past grades have been in the A-B range you can just continue your current study/schoolwork process. If, in the past you've goofed off and let your grades slide you need to be very specific here about what is needed to raise and keep your grades at an acceptable level. Be very honest with yourself here.