The school holiday is a long-awaited period to recharge and enjoy some time with loved ones. But, whether your students are going to return for their next school year or begin their next chapter after finishing school, it is also the perfect time to utilise it to get ahead with their next school year or university preparations.
We’ve done some research and have found some interesting and creative ideas that hopefully will help your students have a more positive and inspiring summer! But let’s begin with our 3 top BridgeU tips to get them ahead for the next year:
- Are they registered on BridgeU? The summer period is the ideal time to kickstart their university and career exploration!
- Set a target to Shortlist a set number of universities. Whether this could be 2 or 5 (or 10!) Shortlists, it would be a good exercise to explore universities, make notes and come back in the new year understanding their choices. It doesn’t matter if their choices change, at least they start exploring and continue working on their research and independent study skills.
- Assign tasks. Yes, it’s good to have a holiday and a break of thinking options, but nearer to the time, it would be great if they used some of the tools, such as the Strategy Advisor, to add their experiences as they go along!
At the end of this article, you can find a resource on how to use BridgeU during the summer for your students, getting them ready when returning to school. And referring to experiences, here are some of the resources we can find to help your students in enriching their holidays:
Learn new skills and gain industry knowledge
Internships offer a fantastic way to gain industry knowledge and develop transferable skills, with the choice of in-person or online.
Ask students to create a list of skills they want to develop through their internship such as coding, communication, commercial awareness and share with them the option of learning these skills via online platforms.
Some great resources for online learning are:
The International Association for College Admission Counseling has also released a fantastic resource that lists International 2022 summer programs, a full list of inspirational ways to fulfil students' time.
Take on a Research project
Summer research programmes and projects are a great way for students to demonstrate skills and their ability beyond what their test scores and grades reflect. Research projects allow students to build on their skills such as critical thinking, analytical and evaluation to name a few!
Students can create their own research projects to show initiative as well as their willingness to take on a challenge which will help them stand out in university applications.
Read lots!
Reading is a great way to pass the time as well as develop their knowledge and creativity! Why not assign a task for students to create a summer book log using Goodreads? You can also encourage them to think critically about the books they’re reading and post a review.
If your students are stuck for ideas on what to read, here are some great recommended books that are suitable for young adults from reputable sources, many of which we have read ourselves and enjoyed.
- The Time Magazine has a list of 100 Best young adult books of all time.
- Bill Gates has a blog where he writes book reviews, he recommends The Magic of Reality, A Separate Peace and The Catcher in the Rye and for young adults
- The Big Read is another excellent list of most loved books;
- And of course, Audible a great way to digest a lot of books if your students prefer audiobooks
Build a CV & log experiences
As many universities require students to submit a CV together with their application, why not have students get started sooner rather than later? The summer is a great time to reflect and write up their experiences which will help them stand out as strong university candidates. To provide your students with structure, BridgeU has a CV template readily available for them to use.
Students can also log their activities and experiences in the BridgeU Strategy Advisor. The Strategy Advisor helps students understand how to use these experiences to write application essays depending on the country they are applying to.
How have you been inspiring and advising your students on making this a purposeful and productive summer? Please share this by either contacting hi@bridge-u.com or your dedicated Customer Success Manager. We would love to hear from you!