At First Tee – Silicon Valley, we believe in education and building life skills through golf. Golf is an excellent vehicle to practice collaborative and effective communication, learn self-management techniques, and set goals. These skills are developed in our first 4 class levels (PLAYer through Eagle). However, in our top level we dive deeper into 3 specific projects – career exploration, volunteering, and post high school education.
This Fall season we have had 20 Ace students (a new FTSV record) take part in the education module. Over the 8-weeks the participants explored a myriad of strategies for post high school identification starting with self-identification, and then progressing to research methods for schools, identifying what to look for and how to find it. Then we extensively discussed the college applications process, covering essay writing strategies, interviews, dates and deadlines, and identifying project management tools to set and monitor their progress and goals. We reviewed financial planning options for college, including the various available scholarships and where to find them, as well as defining and differentiating loans vs grants. We also explored the different costs associated with the multiple post high school educational options. Lastly, we introduced budgeting to help provide the framework needed to pay for school after high school.
“Ace Education is one of my favorite classes to teach,” says FTSV Program Director, Chris Moreno-Hunt. “The college process can be overwhelming, and several concepts within this process are not adequately covered in school, so anytime we can help ease their anxiety and help prepare them for their future, it is a gratifying experience.”
One of our goals is to have participants retain in our program and continue to learn the skills as they progress through our 5 levels. We are fortunate to have a large group of Ace participants that are taking advantage of these projects and passing on their acquired knowledge to our younger participants by way of volunteering.
To find out more about program please visit our Youth Classes page.
