Your time in middle school is like Minor League Baseball. You’re sharpening your skills and preparing for your shot in the Majors. Middle School is an awkward time where you’re transitioning from childhood into young adulthood.

Too often we write off the Middle School years as a time for kids to just learn social skills. This time is also valuable because you learn how to manage your time effectively, meet deadlines and requirements, and develop your work ethic in Middle School. The skills you practice in 6th grade will carry you throughout your whole life. Don’t let this time go to waste!

In your 6th, 7th, and 8th grade years make a list of activities or things you think are cool and interesting. You can brainstorm what careers or jobs may be contained within your interests with your Parents, Siblings, Best Friends, or your Guidance Counselor. Then it’s time to investigate these career leads.

The first website for career research I want you to check out is www.myfuture.com/career. You will get excellent information about job descriptions, job demand, salary levels, and educational requirements for the careers and jobs you’re interested in. The second website I want you to check out is www.volunteercrowd.com. You will use this site to locate local volunteering opportunities in your zip code. The idea is to volunteer your free time after school or on weekends and investigate whether you like your career choices. Knowledge is power!

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I recently interviewed Amy von Kaenel, CEO and Founder, of Volunteer Crowd. Volunteer Crowd is an awesome resource for Middle and High School students to gain volunteering experiences. Not only can students search for local volunteering opportunities by zip code, but you can even participate in Zoom based internships all over the USA with the platform. This provides great functionality during the Covid-19 epidemic for students. Click here to sign up for Volunteer Crowd, Volunteer Opportunities for Teens.

Being a College & Career Counselor I understand the hurdles that face students in finding and gaining volunteer experiences. Volunteer Crowd can help students get over the twin hurdles of searching for opportunities and earning volunteering hours by providing a single place to search, manage, and earn hours. Volunteer Crowd has relationships with Non-Profit Organizations all over the United States to provide high quality volunteer experiences for students. Students can manage all their volunteering hours and download them in an easy-to-read spreadsheet that can be used for IB programs, scholarship applications, college applications, and letters of recommendation requests. Finally, student can actually earn hours from the comfort of their home with Zoom based internships.

Click here to sign up for Volunteer Crowd, Volunteer Opportunities for Teens.

002. Find Your Mission In Life. It’s important for you to have a deeper purpose to help you get out of bed in the morning. Studies have shown that people who have a deeper purpose have better emotional health, better physical health, and live longer than people who don’t. In this Episode I give you several strategies to help you find a Mission In Life! If you are a student in middle school, or high school I suggest that you try out all the different strategies. Leave no stone unturned!

If you have a College & Career related question, please go to www.yourlifeafterhighschool.com, send me your question and I will read it on the next episode.

Automatic transcript of Episode 002. Finding Your Mission In Life.

Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome to your life after high school, the show that helps first-generation middle school, high school students and parents prepare for upcoming college and career decisions. I’m your host. Rick Palo. Think of me as your personal private online college and career counselor. Getting prepared for college can get a little funky sometimes. So let me help you plan your life after high school. Quick call to action here. If you have a college and career related question could be about finance could be about scholarships, could be about college applications. It could be about how to get an intern
Speaker 1 00:00:37 Ship or volunteer opportunities. If you have any question about the college and career process, please go to www.yourlifeafterhighschool.com and click on the, ask me a question button, answer me, give me your question and I’ll read it on the next episode. Welcome to episode two of your life after high school. The show that helps you find your career path that you want with a minimum of student debt. Okay. Last let’s do a recap of episode one. We basically talked about, uh, your legacy, how you want people to view you. So we determined that your legacy is built by the relationships you have with other people. So we’re going to take that learning, uh, one baby step further, and we’re going to work on today, uh, finding your mission in life or finding your deeper purpose. Psychological studies have shown that people who have a deeper sense of purpose tend to have better control over their emotions and their feelings better.
Speaker 1 00:01:41 Ha the people who have a deeper sense of purpose have a higher self-esteem and they also tend to live longer lives. So there are tangible benefits to having a deeper sense of purpose in your life. You will be emotionally healthier. You will be mentally healthier, you’ll be physically healthier and you will live longer. So get, get a mission in life, man, what are you waiting for? All right. So let’s go over some things that, uh, how you could develop a mission in life. You’re like, Oh, I don’t know. Uh, Mr. Palo, I don’t know what I do. I don’t know what to do to find a mission in life. Well, you know what? It’s a journey for everybody. This life is a journey and you’re going to find your own mission in life. But you know, I’m going to give you a short list of things that could help you along the way, as anything in the show, you know, take what works for you and forget the rest.
Speaker 1 00:02:35 But seriously, just look at all these different options. I’m going to give you today. Do the ones that resonate the best with you, that you think that make more sense for you, but Hey, try them all out. You know, give them all a fair shake. You know, like leave no stone unturned. If you’re a middle school student, you’re a high school student, you got a lot of time in the future. You know, you don’t, you’re not like a set. You shouldn’t be set in your ways. You’re very young, you’ve got a lot

001. Determine Your Legacy. In this episode Rick Palo talks about starting a Life Plan. It’s a necessary document where you will plan out the major educational and career opportunities for the next 5-10 years. The first step is to have a Mission for your life, or determining your Legacy. The most important factor to your Legacy is to have high quality interpersonal relationships. To have the highest quality interpersonal relationships as possible you must have positive intentions, you must genuinely care, and you must make eye contact. Using this simple but not widely used strategy can turn complete strangers into treasured compatriots.

If you have a College & Career related question, or you would like me to answer your question on a future podcast please click on this link, https://yourlifeafterhighschool.com/ask-me-a-question/.

Automated Transcript of Episode 001. Determine Your Legacy.

Speaker 0 00:00:04 Welcome to your life after high school, the show that helps first-generation middle school, high school students and parents prepare for upcoming college and career decisions. I’m your host. Rick Palo. Think of me as your personal private online college and career counselor. Getting prepared for college can get a little funky sometimes. So let me help you plan your life after high school. All right. We’re at episode
Speaker 1 00:00:28 One of your life after high school, I’m so excited. This is episode one is going to kick off a series of episodes that we’re going to make a life plan. I’m going to help you make a life plan for yourself. So if you’re a first-generation student, a middle school student, high school student, or you’re a parent of any one of those students, I’m going to help you walk through the process of making a life plan. And what is the life plan? Why do I need one? A life plan is a five to 10 year plan where you’re going to map out your educational and career opportunities so you can get prepared for them now. So you can take advantage of them when they come up in your life. A life plan does a lot of things for you. Number one, it saves you from wasting your time, because believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, you may be in middle school.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 You may be in high school and you think you’re going to live forever, but you’re not. There is going to be a time when you will not be alive on this planet anymore. And, uh, um, right now, if you’re a teenager, you’re not seeing that right now. You think you’re going to live forever and you know, you’re indestructable, but you’re not. When you get to be a middle age or you get to be a senior citizen, you’re going to wish you had more time or that you, you had used the time you had in a little bit better way. So if you’re a kid ask your parents, do you wish you had more time? Or could you do things over again? And you’re probably gonna, they’re probably going to say yes, you know, so time is your most precious resource and your life plan saves you from wasting your time.
Speaker 1 00:02:00 The second thing that a life plan does for you, it saves you from wasting money. Money is your second most important resource next to time. Okay? Because, uh, why, why, why, why does a life plan save me money? Well, guess what? If you’re going to go to a training program where you can learn, have a certificate to be like a welder, or you want to get an associate degree, or you want to be a psychologist and get a college degree, guess what? You got to pay something called a tuition. Tuition is a fee for taking the class. And, uh, if you’re going to be in a college degree program, you’re going to take more than one class. You’re going to probably take four classes