10 tips that will transform your high school experience

what's up everyone welcome back to a brand new video and let's get right on with it recently I graduated from high school and looking back if there was just 10 things I would have killed to know if I was still in high school here's what they are and you've probably watched videos like this before but these are 10 actionable things that you can do tomorrow they're very specific so I won't waste your time let's get right on with it and I planning to make more content like this in the future so if this video brings

you value make sure to subscribe just consider it and also the best way to reach me is on my Discord server so consider joining that in the description all right so here at number one we have starting a calendar now you know I know what you guys are thinking a calendar like a calendar is only a thing that our parents do or people that work in this sort of environment do it's like the very definition of an office worker is a calendar but trust me on this a calendar is something I started way too late

in high school it's a visual representation of the time you have in your day and you can never expect to plan anything further unless you actually understand how your day is broken down now here's what I want you to do first I want you to create a layout of the fixed commitments you have in a week so if you're in high school you're starting school soon literally write the classes you're going to take when you have them and just add that to the calendar trust me you're never going to now wonder hm if I have

a doctor's appointment which class am I going to mix but more than that this also shows you exactly how much time you have left in the day for everything else and it's so freeing one of the greatest things I read was that your mind is for generating ideas not storing them so you know what is for storing ideas your calendar when you want to act on anything in your life just add it to your calendar it's that simple and it's really the foundation for the rest of the 10 steps there a lot of them that

I'm going to tell you right now to start a calendar all right now on to number two do not read your damn textbook okay this sounds very strange why would you not do the reading you have to understand that the only reason you're really reading is for a chance to to do well on a test so you have to take information in from the perspective of taking a test not from a perspective of learning the information it's a sad reality it's hard to get your head around but if you really do want to explore topic

further just do that on your own time here's what I want you to do suppose we have a class AP Bio right and you have a chapter on mitosis I've been through it the mistake I made was I opened the textbook I spent like maybe 10 hours just reading it was like 100 Pages it was insane and I took super detailed notes I basically remade the textbook in my notebook and when it came time for the test I realized I knew this stuff but I don't know it from a testing perspective so here's what I

want you to do you're going to read a summary or watch a summary video educational YouTube videos are very underrated just watch the videos and watch them with intent take notes on the videos not the textbook right after this I want you to go straight to practice problems don't even bother trying to read anything more you're going to go to practice problems and the first few problems you're going to do are going to be frustrating as because that is now building your intelligence in terms of a testing perspective not just a knowledge perspective now here's

a little tidbit on how to crack any literature or history class in high school they have to take something as subjective as a literature paper or history paper and attach an objective grading scale to it that's a hard thing to do so the first thing you need to understand is the rubric do not bother even starting your paper until you look at the rubric and literally connect the dots between the points on the rubric and your paper otherwise your paper can literally be the best piece of art in the world you're not going to get

a full score in it because that's not what they grade you on in high school you understand that they don't grade you based on the quality of the paper they grade you based on the quality of your match to the rubric here's the next thing I hate to say this but very many of these literature and history classes are very politically biased right so I live in California the bias is left leaning I hate politics I'm not going to talk about this that's not the point of this point regardless you have to understand that for

these classes your teacher is going to have a view that they want you to support let me give you an example last year in US history we were studying the atomic bomb we had to write a long paper defending a position on whether the US was justified in nuking Japan big topic right now both sides have a very valid point but that's not what you're going to do when you get a topic you're going to go in office hours or something similar and you're going to just tell your teacher that you're thinking of doing the

topic that you think your teacher also agrees with right so my history teacher was super left leaning I wish what I had done is that I had just gone up to her tell told her that hey I'm thinking of arguing the position of it was not justified can you help me find sources and I guarantee you this teacher is going to spoon feed you sources because they agree with that position they literally want you to argue this way that's their own bias you simply have to conform to it and then the even better thing is

after you write the paper in this way using the sources they gave you they can't say anything to you they literally suggested it themselves and on top of that also lines what they believe as well now yes this is an awful way to approach anything academic it's robotic it's not any genuine reflection of belief but here's the thing right are you taking literature and history just to get the grade or are you genuinely interested in analyzing the events and arguing a point maybe you are I think it's totally cool if you are but at that

point again it's similar to the science classes or class with a lot of reading you should go out and do this independently because in terms of a high school view it's just see whether you can get the grade or not all right so now here with number four get your driver's license as soon as humanly possible now as a disclaimer to this I understand full well that not everyone can afford to get a license I don't want to hear any comments talking about how out of touch or Etc I might be for claiming that everyone

should get a license if it is within your means if you can afford to get a license if you have a possible car you can drive get a license if you can't afford it then this shouldn't even be a cons consideration just skip to the next topic that's all I'm going to say about that even if you bike to school I still want you to get a license even if you think oh I I don't need to go anywhere I just go to school still get a license most people become old enough to get a

license in about 10th grade or the start of 11th grade up until 10th grade I feel you're kind of chilling you don't need to really go anywhere unless it's your friend's house and your mom doesn't mind dropping you off but once you get to 11th grade at that point I feel like first the other kids around you old enough parents just you know like how how can a parent seriously tell a 16-year-old like no you have to only stay in our house it just seems wrong from a parent point of view as well as you

participate in different things in school like a sports team a club Etc you're going to rightfully be more involved in those activities which also means you're going to travel to school and other locations a lot more often for example your Club is having an event across town or your football team is having a meet up somewhere else you're going to have to drive for that you cannot possibly bik to these things because they just end up being too far away and it's too inconvenient to bike or ask your parents every single time being able to

drive when necessary is so convenient so be responsible don't drive like crap and get your license and you will you will not regret it all right so now on to number five have one like goofball friend okay what do I mean by this I totally believe in the statement that you become Five People You surround yourself with most and having a quality circle of people around you is really important thing is and this is what you probably haven't heard that it gets overwhelming high schoolers tend to worry about the same thing College jobs tests grade

extracurricular this job that Etc it gets overwhelming just have one friend you can chill with bro it's okay if he doesn't add Direct Value to your life he doesn't expand your network or they don't give you some insane opportunities or something that's fine I have a friend you know what if I was feeling stressed I used to pull up to his house we to do dumb things bro dumb as in like trespass somewhere or play a dumb video game or watch a terrible movie by dumb I don't mean like drugs or something like that okay

like I feel just my obligation to say this a goofball friend is very different than a hazardous friend okay you need to make that distinction when you hang out with a goofball friend the effects of that goofball friend are only in that sphere of your influence when you're talking out with them with a hazardous friend the impact they have on your life continues into the rest of your life don't have friends like that use a goofball friend as a way to get some quick relief from the other pressures of your life and listen this doesn't

mean you go and just like harass them like oh you're so stupid I only hang out with you because you're stupid it's not like that at all just have a friend who doesn't take things so seriously yes they might not be as high achieving or ambitious as the rest of your friends so be it it's important to have a person like this that you can just hang out with and it's really good because I'll assure you the rest of your friends are going to just commiserate with you they're never going to take that relief off

your shoulders because they're going to be talking about the exact same thing so in conclusion have a goofball friend it's okay hang out with them from time to time when you need it all right now on to number six here's how to cleanse your phone I want you to understand something your phone doesn't add value to your life you're set to believe that it's this important communication tool with other people sure but if I'm being honest that's maybe 5% of what we use our phones for the rest is Mindless social media I know this is

ironic coming from me because I'm literally making this on YouTube honestly I think long form videos can give a lot of value to your life what I'm more talking about are these brain rot like Instagram reals to an extent Tik Tok to an extent YouTube shorts these freaking scrolling platforms it's black hole and also people say that oh you can you know meet new people on social media and it's good for socializing but do you really do that when was the last time you actually took the initiative to talk to a random person and make

a random new friend on social media anyway enough rant about social media what can you do to fix this your phone is the main outlet for this social media you know I'm sure you heard before oh just delete Instagram off your phone problem solved no it's not problem solved you're going to redownload it within 2 days so the first step I want you to do is not delete the apps I want you to hide the apps so it's a great feature actually now you can hide things from the home screen and then they'll still be

on your phone you just won't see them this does is that when you open your phone the first thing you see is not just this bombardment of icons and colors for you to click on and waste your time here's what my phone looks like it's a black screen I have a few critical apps and then in my home I also have very critical apps right like my calendar as I mentioned earlier I have a clock a clock and a calendar work very well together then I have a camera and then messages once you get it

to this point already it's going to feel better you have to actually scroll down and search for the app you want to open here's the next thing I want you to do I want you to download two apps clear space and opal now these apps accomplish the same thing they're both screen time blockers you have to pay for clear space to have more than one app and clear space tends to be the most strict app so I'd say like for the app that takes the most of your time for me that's Instagram right I have

clear space set on Instagram and then I have opal which is definitely less strict than clear space I got set on things that are not as addictive so just YouTube what's motivating about this is that clear space takes a counter you don't want to break your streak it really does have a psychological effect on you for me I have a streak over 290 days and at this point there's no reason I'd ever break that streak and listen it's going to be hard the first week I downloaded clear space I deleted the app and I had

Instagram unblocked within 1 week but I had the discipline to redownload it commit to it and at this point I just don't feel that desire for Instagram anymore because it really doesn't add anything it's just raw dopamine if there was an actual valuable thing with Instagram I feel like I'd resist the clear space restrictions a lot more but I don't it's so natural for me to not need that app anymore it's very freeing and I think this will definitely save you at least 2,000 hours across the course of your high school career all right guys

I know that one went out for a very long time here's how to bring any notes into an exam now another disclaimer for you guys this is cheating you're not allowed to bring notes into an exam but I want you to understand and this is something I noticed way too late in my high school career other people are going to cheat even if you have the Integrity not to your classmates are going to it really does affect your psyche when these other people seem to effortlessly get good grades and you just can't figure it out

often times it's this method I'm about to show you now if you've taken algebra I'm sure you have a little calculator called a 884 all I'm going to say is that you can Jailbreak this calculator and add the noap to it I'm not going to explain how to do it because I don't want you to use this method the point of this is you should be cognizant that it's this easy to cheat teachers are not paid enough to do this much research in my school the only Safeguard they had for ti4 notes was you to

clear the ram of the ti4 that doesn't do anything against this method it stores it in the program memory I'll be honest here from my perspective especially in public high school your .5% away from getting an a something that will actually genuinely affect the course of your future and you really think that your last resort is to use this then it's out there it takes a simple Google search the main thing I want to make you guys aware of is that it exists and that your classmates are more than likely using this so don't compare

yourself to them when it's this easy to get away with stuff like bringing notes into exams in high school so that is all I'm going to say about the notes one I would not recommend using it I have never used used it but be aware of it here is how to become overpowered in school through school administrators this is something I've heard literally nobody talk about I'm sure you've heard the conventional wisdom oh get to know your teachers form a relationship with your teachers Etc but let me clear you in about how School Works yes

your teachers do control your grade and from that perspective the only thing that really matters to you is that raw grade then fine knowing teachers will get you far enough but I assume it's not I assume you want to have a level of knowledge above that and that's what school administrators get you because they are the ones that really control the high level things that happen in the school who exactly are School administrators cuz you might not even know generally in high school you have a principal big dog right the person who is a public

figure consider the principal the president of the school almost always you're going to have at least two assistant principles below the principal consider these guys like the cabinet members of the president they control very large overextend areas of policy so if you can get to know one of them it gives you a great in into more knowledge let me give you an example so I participated heavily in my school's Student Government I led all media Communications at one point I spent my first year as videographer I made all the videos which is you know very

fitting I'm a YouTuber and the second year I got promoted and I ended up actually managing all media production for the entire school it was a fun role for sure now overseeing this was one of my school's four assistant principles here's the first positive I got from this guy I got a customized letter recommendation generally you have guidance counselors and if you're not aware yet when you're applying to colleges almost every college requires a letter of recommendation from a guidance counselor now here's the problem these guidance counselors don't care about you they have 500 other

kids they're trying to mess with they're just going to write their own template and slap it on to their R recommendation and ship it off to colleges but it doesn't have to come from a school guidance counselor a letter recommendation can also come from a school administrator for me I got my letter written by a school administrator he did only three other letters that entire year now which letter you think is going to be better obviously the one with three it's going to be personalized it's going to go into detail about why my contribution to

the school mattered from a purely transactional standpoint that's one reason to know them knowing these School administrators is almost like having a VIP pass to the rest of the school especially if you do a lot of work for the school for example you join the school lead leadership class or something school administrators almost develop a obligation to return something in favor to you I got into any football game completely for free it was completely off the books it was probably not allowed and you know I can almost guarantee the same thing exists for you I

give you another example once in second semester I used some AI on a paper now here's where my relationship with my lit teacher didn't matter she's required to report me for that right which is you know fair enough I messed up guess what it got erased right I met with the assistant principal and he literally just called it a speeding ticket he was like yeah you know what I'll treat this like a speeding ticket your first offense it's whatever I know that you're a good person I know that you've done so much for this school

so we'll just take this off the books right now and don't worry about this could have been reported as a cheating incident which is taken very seriously in high school nothing it was erased knowing these people matters because assistant principles actually have that kind of power another example I'll give you I have so many I led my school's TV news program right we had bi-weekly news and everything going on in our community in the school we got a room all to ourselves in the library to make a full-fledged recording studio and that was not possible

by knowing teachers that was only possible by knowing a school administrator I'd say that if you really are just in school to get the grade and get out it's optional if you really want to do anything more than that especially engage with the school in any meaningful way one of the best ways to level up your experience is to get to know School administrators here's how to start a school club without any sort of approval clubs are very important I think a lot of you might want to start a club to get into a good

college or just because you like something now what's most likely going to happen is you're either going to have other students like Club Commissioners that are going to check your club or a panel of teachers now one option is to try and get to know these people problem is it's like a literature class they have objective criteria for something as subjective as a club so you can know these people all you want it doesn't matter because they're still going to have be forced to object your Club to the same objective that they used in their

internal documents and the only way I know this is because I was in the student government and that's why just screw the system okay literally nothing is stopping you from going up to a random teacher saying hey this is a cool Club I want to start would you mind sponsoring it only thing you'll really lose out on from a practical standpoint is you might not get a page on your school's website and you might not get a bank account sponsored by the school I'll give you an example I wanted to start a biking Club I

applied to the school the club commissioner was literally one of my friends and this is how I realized that it doesn't matter how well you know the committee of clubs my club got turned down because of liability right it's cycling someone could fall off their bike and die I don't care I just reached out I started my club anyway it became one of the most active clubs on campus we had weekly group rides for months with over 10 students showing up to each one we went all over my city and that was all without a

speck of official approval and guess what I still put on my call jobs I still said all of the great things we accomplish with that club because at the end of the day having this stamp of approval from your school means nothing if your Club doesn't actually do something meaningful don't just give up on your Club idea if you get rejected by your school start it anyway reach out to a teacher find students who are interested and literally just start it for the heck of it and it'll reach the same resolution it'll still have the

same impact on your life you'll still accomplish what you want finally that brings me to number 10 here's how do always make plans get out of the group chat you're never going to say these plans are just stuck in the group chat forever in high school your friends and you are going to be busy it's going to be hard for you guys to find the time when you're both available now I've been working on my own business this summer and this is how I actually learned of calendar apps this just came full circle it's so

poetic right I talked about starting a calendar at the first point and now we're talking about how you can use your calendar through calendar booking apps now that sounds complicated calendar booking out what does that mean all that means is you can send a link to someone and they can choose time your available on your calendar this is one called calendly it's completely free suppose you want to meet up with your friend you're both have busy schedules you just send them your calendar link they choose a time when they're available and since you have everything

in your calendar they'll also know when you're available so they literally just choose a slot in your calendar and you guys can meet up and you know what you can even get your friends to start their own calendars too when your whole friend group has calendar set up that is the ultimate friend group you can meet up the most out of any friend group in the school because all be so in line with how much time you guys have I use it for booking client calls but you can use it for booking with your friends

too hopefully this brought you some spec of value I tried to make these things as specific and actionable as I possibly could I don't think I've seen many of these tips anywhere else if you like this video yet again please consider subscribing it does help me out a lot and if you want to ask me anything my Discord server is there it's the easiest way to reach me and I'll see you guys in the next video see you