Creating The Leaders of Tomorrow: Exploring Leadership Programs For High School Students
Introduction
The field of leadership programs for high school students is never-ending, filled to the brink of opportunity and possibility. Those who participate in leadership programs for high school students will go through an impressive life-changing journey, where they will become leaders who will lead the next generation.
Why Are Leadership Programs For High School Students So Important?
Leadership skills are essential to everyone in life, whether you are a barista working at your local Starbucks, or being the lead engineer on a project for your company. Leadership skills help people live their daily lives no matter their situation, mainly because they give people proper confidence and communication skills. Communication is the backbone of our society today - and without it, everything would collapse. So, why not get students started early and have them work on themselves through these leadership programs for high school students?
Understanding Leadership Programs For High School Students
Leadership programs often can be broken down and categorized into different types of programs, because each one could have a special focus. Every leadership program offers something unique over the other - but that doesn’t mean one is necessarily better than the other, it's really how you would fit in the setting. For example, if someone is interested in computer science, it would be a lot better for them to enter an internship or a program where they can be a leader in the CS field rather than doing something about art or history.
Types of Leadership Programs For High School Students
There are a bunch of leadership programs for high school students out there, and at first, it can seem a bit scary not knowing which to sign up for. Hence, this breakdown has been created to give you a basic rundown of the most popular types of leadership programs and what they exactly include. Hopefully, this will help you get started getting your feet wet in this complicated, yet amazing field.
Skill Development Workshops
Skill development workshops are one of the most overlooked types of leadership programs - and here is why. While this may be focused a bit more on learning and less on leading, in order to be a leader everyone needs to learn exactly what a leader is, and how to be one. Generally if one is starting in the leadership field, these are an excellent way to get introduced into the environment and gain a solid understanding of what leadership entails. Skill development workshops also don’t necessarily need to be focused on leadership skills - and often these require collaboration between other participants, allowing working and establishing communication skills.
Team Building Experiences
Team Building Experiences are a great version of leadership programs for high school students, especially because they focus on building inter-team relationships. For any team or leadership to work, the entire team needs to have a strong bond or understanding of each other for maximum efficiency. Experiences where you can focus on forging those bonds will not only give you knowledge of how to do it in the future, but it open your eyes to see what strong bonds can exactly do. Team-building experiences like summer camps or competitions are really, one of the best ways to train yourself for future leadership experiences.
Mentorship Programs
Mentorships often include internships or just general shadowing events that may not appear as something good for leadership programs for high school students. However, this is arguably one of the most important types of all as it gives students a jump into the real world, almost giving them a mentor figure. This “mentorship figure” would provide students with a real chance to learn important things about their specific field, and how exactly they could become a mentor in the future.
Community Service Projects
Community service projects or programs are a great way to show leadership as a high school student. For example, of of these clubs or organizations is called CSF, ‘California Scholarship for Service’. This is a program where students volunteer for the community to give back to those who once gave to themselves. Other clubs, such as NHS also are community service-based, and can greatly improve a student's character and leadership capabilities. Either way, joining CSF or NHS is a great way for students to get started in leadership!
Leadership Seminars and Conferences
Leadership Seminars and Conferences seem like a waste of time to most people - why sit in a lecture hall learning how to talk properly? This is because they help, and believe it or not, they can be great for students to learn all about leadership. Some programs even offer free leadership training, most often if students will be going into the field of community service. If you or your student wishes to learn the fundamentals of leadership through a controlled environment, this is a great way to go.
Benefits of Leadership Programs for High School Students
Confidence Building
Having confidence as a high schooler is very, very important. Generally, in terms of self-esteem, high schoolers have started to go away from drawing it in front of their peers, and instead drawing it from themselves. Being a leader requires great skills - and quite often leaders need to have strong confidence in themselves, otherwise, who would listen to them? This is largely one of the biggest benefits of leadership programs for high school students and should be taken largely into account.
Adept Communication Skills
Communication skills are another aspect of what every teenager needs to work on, whether they are in or out of high school. Communication is key in life and is the bounding thing that makes humanity so advanced. The ability to communicate and express our thoughts in a sophisticated manner is something we take for granted. Through leadership programs for high school students, your students will be able to gain immense knowledge in how to properly talk to people and lead them. Not only will this just improve their leadership skills, but it will actively prepare them for their time in college.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Being a leader requires people to do things outside the box - meaning they have to do things that are not expected from them. Being a leader places a person under pressures that require them to make critical choices fast, which is a skill everyone could use. Having the ability to make quick and efficient decisions is a very important skill to have in life, and leadership skills can help you with that.
Building Stamina and Resilience
Stamina and Resilience are something that isn’t discussed in leadership that much, even though they literally can decide how well a leadership or administration goes. Being a leader is quite exhausting, and one great way to build up stamina is that you keep on leading! Through tons of various leadership programs for high school students, you or your student will be able to gain stamina and get used to the pressuring environment leaders have to be in every day.
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
