Skills For Your Future

In 6 months from now all of you juniors (class of 2018) will be starting a month-long internship somewhere in San Diego’s south bay. During this month you will not come to the HTHCV campus, we will be visiting you. Max, other HTH faculty and myself will visit you at your internship site to learn about your project, suggest strategies to overcome any challenges and give you high-fives for your awesomeness. It often takes students, and adults, some time to wrap their heads around the idea that you will be at your internship site 6-8 hours without physically checking in at our school. How do we prepare 15-17 year olds to enter the adult world?

COMMUNICATION. Up until May we encourage, push and sometimes demand of you to try different modes of communication, such as: 1:1 meetings outside of class, professional emails, phone calls and the occasional professional text to communicate with us. These last two weeks have highlighted how busy junior year can be - culmination of athletic events, PSAT test, college informational meetings, extracurriculars and homecoming - and also how crucial good communication is. Thursday and Friday both Max and I shifted our plans to accommodate our plans for the day because more than 10 students from our team were absent, and had not communicated with us about their absence. So in this post I would like to revisit our team syllabus and suggest a few ways to communicate in hopes of preparing you to effective communicate with HTH staff, internship mentors and future employers.

Late Work Policy

Students, your teachers, classmates and teammates are counting on you to complete your work on time and to have it printed out and ready to share before class starts.

Should an emergency arise causing your work to be late, please let your teachers know right away via phone or email. All assignments have been designed with the intention of being discussed and/or used in class therefore completing it on time is of the utmost importance to a successful class. Any work not completed on time may be penalized.

Prior to class, Max and I will listen to you as to why you’re not prepared with your assignment. The responsibility is on you to communicate before class because once we’re in class we are expecting students to be ready to dive into the activity we’ve designed for you to share your learning.

Absences/Make-Up Work Policy

We expect for juniors to make a strong effort to attend our classes daily. There will be aspects of our curriculum (discussions, critique, field trips and whole class activities) that are difficult to replicate if student is absent.

Seeing and having you in class is number 1 for me (and I’m sure Max too). There are those days when staying home to take care of an illness or personal issue is more important, and we completely understand. But you are part of our community and you’re missed when you’re absent and don’t communicate. By May 2017, when you feel an illness coming on or get word of a family emergency, you should naturally reach for a phone or computer to communicate with your teachers, advisor or mentor about your absence.

Alright so a handful of you are saying, “Mrs. Nuvia, I’m already emailing you if I’m gonna miss class. Isn’t this enough?” Yes, and NO. To effectively communicate and be prepared to return to class here are some suggestions to take your communication to the next level of professionalism. Include in your email:

1. When do you plan to return.

2. An update on assignments due, especially when working in a group. Share links to completed work or make sure it’s uploaded to Google classroom.

3. Suggest how you plan to make up missed class time. For instance, if you know there is a critique happening, how will you make sure your work is looked at critically by your peers.

4. Share any clarifying questions on assignments.

As we all try to communicate there will be moments when it works well and other time not so well. We just need to do our best to listen to each other. The key is to simply try and practice over and over before you begin internship. I look forward to hearing from you in the weeks to come.