ECHS Students Get Reality Check
What is the difference between expectations and reality?

For some it is four wasted years of college and thousands of dollars in student loans spent on a career that isn't all it was cracked up to be. For some Early College High School students, however, the result may be different.

Some of the ECHS students in Taylor are getting a lesson in reality early through a reality-based education, which is teaching them how to prepare for what is going to be expected of them in the real world.

One of the tools that ECHS is using to teach this lesson is an online program appropriately titled, “Reality Check.” The ECHS students got a chance to experience a little piece of reality last week, a lesson that may save them four years and thousands of dollars.

In an online game resembling the children's board game “Life,” the students got to choose what kind of house they wanted, what kind of car they wanted, and pick out the lifestyle that they expected to have after college graduation. Once the students decided on a lifestyle, the budget calculator told them how much money they were going to need in order to maintain that type of lifestyle. Then, the computer let them know what type of degrees they would need to earn in order to make the amount of money that they were going to need to afford that lifestyle.

Many of the students got a reality check indeed, when they found out the difference between the amount of money they were hoping to earn and the amount it is possible to earn in the career of their choice. The students learned what choosing one field over another would mean in terms of the lifestyle that they would be able to have.

“I always figured that I'd have enough money with what I want to be, but once I did [reality check] I realized that I wouldn't,” ECHS student Kellie Hearn said.

However, the reality check program is just one of the many projects that the ECHS students are working on during the first Summer Academy. They have learned test-taking skills, note-taking skills and have used a ‘discovery wheel' to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are in different areas of learning. Students got to figure out what the most effective ways for them to study are, so that the time they will spend preparing for exams will be worthwhile.

In addition, students in the ECHS summer program have been working on research and presentations, so the students can be prepared for the realities of the classroom as well as the realities of the business world.

One of those presentations will be on Friday, when the students will have to dress up and make presentations on their career choices as a result of what they learned in the reality check class.

Richard Kolek, ECHS principal, said these learning strategies are coming at an invaluable time, since the students will need these techniques over the next four years of high school.

“We are making sure that [the students] have the resources and the support that they need during those 30 hours [of classes],” Kolek said.

While reality can often be tough to handle, some ECHS students are spending part of their summer getting ahead, by getting prepared for what is to come.

“I like the fact that we get to come and have the summer academy to get to do something bigger,” Hearn said. “It's also cool to know that we are going to be the first generation and are going to set the example for others.”