Many high school students ask themselves, “When am I gonna use this after I graduate?” 

High school students feel like they aren’t being taught actual things they need to know about life after high school, such as how to do your taxes, building your credit score, money management and so much more. Having a life skills class that teaches those skills would make the transition out of high school far smoother because it would help students with basic skills for adulthood. Without knowing and practicing these skills, many teens could struggle with basic responsibilities as an adult.

The life skills classes would be to help students learn how to move forward from depending on their parents to being on their own. Many students don’t even know how to change a tire or pay taxes, but they most likely could teach you that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and the quadratic formula,x = [−b ± √(b2 − 4ac)]/2a. 

Not knowing these “adult” life skills involving personal finance and basic car maintenance could make these young teens leaving high school feel very overwhelmed and unprepared for those everyday challenges. These life skills could involve things like knowing how to cope with anxiety or stress, writing a resume or even cooking, if it’s not taught at home.

“High school should teach us life skills so that when it’s time for us to move out into the real world, we’d at least be a little bit prepared and know what we’re doing,” senior Mikayla White said. “In high school I haven’t learned anything that I need to know about the real world like how to build my credit, how to budget my money, how to file my taxes, etc. and I think it’s sad”.

High school students are academically and mentally prepared for going to college but may not be emotionally prepared for all the challenges that come along with it. Not only should schools be focused on academics but also on preparing students for the future. High school and college is where young teens are starting to develop their life skills because some students don’t know what they want to do after they graduate.It’s even harder for first generation high school students because some of their parents don’t speak English and came to America without knowing anything about taxes and stuff like that, so first generation students have to go out and learn all of these skills on their own. 

According to The Washington Examiner, ¨The presence of home economics classes in schools have decreased by almost 40 percent in the past decade.” In a home economics class students often learn how to cook, how to do taxes, how to perform child care tasks, how to be financially responsible and about other subjects pertaining to home management. Topics that are usually taught about finance consist of creating a personal budget, the cost of independent living, being an intelligent customer when purchasing a car or insurance and understanding taxes.

KPS has a personal finance class which the course is designated to help students make responsible financial decisions through financial literacy and make wise spending, saving and credit decisions. However, this is an elective class and not required for graduation. This class should be a required class for graduation so that when students leave high school they will at least know some knowledge on how to handle adult responsibilities  and be more prepared.

“In a way, they make it seem like it isn’t important by not making it a priority to teach us life skills when, in reality, after we become adults, those are things we would have to do for the rest of our lives,” said Loy Norrix sophomore Eliana Lopez.

While in class, many students ask their teacher how certain concepts they learn will benefit them later on in life, but the teacher’s main answer is always “Well, you will need to learn this for college.” 

Having life skills classes would benefit students and would really help them because some students don’t plan on going to college and are going to find a job right after high school. Since children are required to go to school, this is the perfect place for them to learn these life skills and better prepare them for everything they will come across in their adulthood.