Author: The Experts at TeenLife
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Get Reel: 5 Movie-Inspired Tips for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid If college is in your future, filing the FAFSA is the most important thing you can do to get money to help pay for it. It’s the gateway to all forms of federal financial aid, including grants, loans, and work-?study programs. These tips, based on your favorite movies, can help you star in your own award-winning FAFSA production. 1. FAFSA and Furious: Race to file your FAFSA as soon as possible from Jan. 1 on, so you don’t miss out on first-come, first-served aid. Deadlines vary by ...
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Perhaps you dream of ordering tapas in a cafe in Barcelona or actually standing on the Great Wall of China. Perhaps you want to collaborate with a researcher on the other side of the world. Or perhaps you are committed to working in a refugee center, either here or overseas. But did you know that studying a language can make you smarter and possibly help you do better in other school subjects? And if you’re in high school, your brain is on fire right now. It’s going through a growth spurt equal only to that of very young children, except ...
![Holiday Community Service Ideas [and E-Book Sneak Peek!] Holiday Community Service Ideas [and E-Book Sneak Peek!]](https://d3hk6w1rfu80ox.cloudfront.net/media/uploads/blogs/holiday-community-service-ideas-and-e-book-sneak-peek/25waystogiveback2.jpg)
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the spirit of the holidays and quickly find yourself caught up in the season’s many parties and meals. So how to share your good fortune with others? Soup kitchens and food banks are worthy causes, but sometimes they have all the volunteers they need this time of year. 1. Brighten the day for hospital patients or nursing home residents. Call a local facility and ask if someone needs company during the holidays. Some families live far away, and elderly patients may enjoy time with someone young. If you are thinking of taking siblings, ...

Who would be crazy enough to pass up free money for college? But that’s what you might be doing if you’re not taking advantage of scholarships and grants. This type of aid covers about 30 percent of college costs for the average student, according to How America Pays for College 2015, a report published by Sallie Mae, the nation’s saving, planning, and paying for college company. But, in the rush of school, test prep, applications, sports, and all the other things you are doing, it’s hard to make time to search for those opportunities. So November - National Scholarship Month ...

Oonagh Cavanagh grew up in a small Vermont town, hiking, camping, skiing, and loving anything that had to do with the outdoors. So when she was looking for a gap experience before college, she looked for a program where she could put her passion about protecting the environment to work. The answer was American University’s Gap Program. AU offers gap students a chance to spend a semester or year in Washington, D.C., both studying and working as an intern. “I was ready for a change of pace,” says Oonagh, who spent a semester interning at the Earth Day Network and ...

Use your phone and your Sherlock Holmes sleuthing skills to solve a mystery, enter a contest for a $10,000 scholarship, and help a classroom spread the message of STEM. Why’s everyone so worried about science, technology, engineering, and math? For starters, STEM occupations are projected to grow by 17 percent from 2008 to 2018, compared to 9.8 percent growth for non-STEM, according to the U.S. government. But it turns out gender has lot to do with who might be filling those jobs. When the National Science Foundation asked fourth-graders in 2007 if they liked science and math, 68 percent of ...
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It’s the land of Shakespeare, Shaw, Pinter, and, most recently, Agbaje. Why wouldn’t someone interested in the stage want to study in London? We asked the experts at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama why American students might pass on New York or Los Angeles to head across the pond. Central has 17 different full-time undergraduate courses covering not just acting but every aspect of technical theater, theater education and writing for performance. It accepts students from all backgrounds and nationalities and actors train in a community that mimics what they will experience in the industry. (Pinter, by the ...

Let’s just pretend for a moment you are driving down a busy highway going, say, 55 miles mph. And now let’s pretend I ask you to close your eyes for at least five seconds – or about the time it would take you to go the length of a football field. That would be insane, right? Startling statistics on texting while driving Well, according to a 2009 U.S. government report, that’s about how long your eyes are away from the road when you check a text and drive. And a 2013 Virginia Tech survey found that you could be distracted ...

Summer – some days it rocks and some days, well, it just seems to go on forever. So maybe this isn’t exactly the summer of your dreams. Maybe that beach romance isn’t going to happen or your job stinks or your baseball team is at the bottom of the league. No worries. There’s still time to save your summer, to turn it around and use the time wisely and proactively – or at least to have one adventure to brag about when school starts. Here are some ideas to start. 1. Learn to really cook. You don’t want to be ...

Teenagers make the perfect volunteers: they are energetic, passionate, and eager for change. Many high school students, however, consider themselves to be too busy with school, sports, and other extracurricular activities to engage in community service or particpate in a summer volunteer program for teenagers. Here are four easy tips to make volunteering more accessible to teens: 75 percent of teens and young adults ages 13 to 22 who participate in community service are friends with people who also volunteer regularly. Create incentive for volunteers to talk to their friends about joining the cause. Studies show that peer influence is ...