""I went from a 60% average in first year to graduating in the top 25% of my class."

"Finding what motivates you is important, but it might not be the first thing you try!"

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Grade 12 is the most stressful year for high school students because of the added pressure of applying to University. Here is some advice given by Sarah Chin, a Queen's University Chemistry and Education alumna, and Raza Kahn, a Western University and Ivey Business School alumnus.

If you could choose one piece of advice to give a current high school student, what would it be?

Sarah:

Advice for a grade 12 student would be to be open to whatever possibilities that come your way. I think it’s really easy to tunnel into a specific job, or even a program, and being able to see yourself in that in the future— I think it’s great to have those kinds of goals to get somewhere, but you’ll experience so many different things and meet so many people on the way. You have to be open to changing course.

On top of that too, you’re going to work towards the things you want to work towards. If you’re not working hard towards something then there’s obviously some part of that (thing) that you don’t want. So finding what motivates you and what excites you is important— and that might not be the first thing that you try. I feel like there’s this tendency in high school and even in university, where you feel like you’re in a rush to figure out what you’re meant to be doing for the rest of your life, but that can always change. If you don’t get your dream job, then you can work towards it. You have time.

Check out Sarah on LinkedIn

Raza:

What I wish I heard in grade 12 was that everything will work out because you don't stop working until it does. So what I mean by that is... Let’s say you don't get into the university you want to, I didn’t. Let’s say you don’t get the interviews you want to, I didn’t in third year. If you keep grinding, it’ll work out eventually. I went from having a 60 average in first year to becoming the top 25% in my last year of Ivey. I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I turned my whole life around, and I think if you were to look back at me in grade 12 and project where I'd be, I think I'm significantly higher now because I worked so hard at it. 

So I think everything will work out in the end because you want it to, and why that’s important is because when you go through things like your first midterms and you fail a bunch, that’s fine. You don’t have to accept it as a case fact. You can just take it and then change it so you kind of own your own destiny.

Check out Raza on LinkedIn