[nabs-l] 10 Best Tips for High School Students

[T. Joseph Carter]

I'll add another:  Take notes regarding your meetings in whatever form you
need to.  After a meeting, send back an email to the person you met with
and thank them for meeting with you.  Even if it's someone you can't stand
and the meeting was hostile, do this.

Also include a summary of what was talked about in the meeting with your
thank-you.  Send yourself a carbon copy of these things and file them
away.  If you interpret something wrong in the meeting, this gives the
person you met with a chance to clarify.  If the meeting was less
friendly, it gives the other person a chance to change what they are
saying now that it's written down somewhere.  File responses you get to
those messages as well.

If it sounds like I'm saying to be paranoid, I'm not.  Generally, when
things go well--and we hope that they do--this is polite and it gives
people reminders of things they might otherwise forget.  It's a good
thing, and it makes everything much more efficient.  It only starts to
bother people if things get ugly and suddenly you have a written record of
how ugly.

Develop this professional habit early and make it a standard practice for
the rest of your life.  It really is handy, and I don't mean in case you
need to call someone a liar, either.  It puts the important details in
electronic form, and makes it easily accessible to search algorithms.
You'll be the one person in the room who can figure out what the sales
figures were three years ago without going to find the archives somewhere,
and in most companies, that's the kind of organization that gets people
promoted.  This leads to higher salary and more than compensates for the
extra hard drives you'll have to buy to save all that email and back it up
regularly.  *grin*

Joseph

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 01:39:37PM -0400, Liz Bottner wrote:
> The one thing I can think of off the top of my head is learn to advocate for
> yourself and by yourself. If students start to do this in high school, when
> they get to college it won't be as big of a shock, at least I wouldn't
> think. Even if it's starting out small, anything is better than nothing. 
> 
> Take care, 
> 
> Liz 
> 
> email: liz.bottner at gmail.com Visit my livejournal:
> http://unsilenceddream.livejournal.com 
> 
> 
> 
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