The Best & Brightest High School Guide: How to Choose a College, Prepare for a Career & Find Your Own Definition of Happiness - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alvin M. Stenzel is a writer (as well as a CPA and a corporate officer) in the Washington, D.C. area. His first book, Approaching the CPA Examination: A Personal Guide to Examination Preparation (John Wiley & Sons, New York), was an intimate, personal, motivational exploration of the mental, psychological, and physical preparations necessary to pass a major technical examination.

Mr. Stenzel has written articles for newspapers and trade journals, and has written and published a monthly newsletter on personal and spiritual issues. He has also written a number of short stories and has completed his first novel, The Crystal Pond. He is a native of Portsmouth, Virginia and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in mathematics from the University of Richmond (Richmond, Virginia). He has been active for many years in volunteer work, serving as CPR area coordinator and member of the Board of Directors for the American Heart Association in Richmond, VA, volunteer President of an employee credit union, founding board member of a professional educational society, and Treasurer of a United Way agency in Washington, D.C. He has also served twice as a Loaned Executive to the United Way campaign.

The author is in his seventh year of working with Washington area high school students in the Junior Achievement program. In the High School Company Program, he guides students in the creation of their own corporation. Through hands-on experience, Mr. Stenzel helps students learn what to expect in the business world, aiding them in planning for college and building a successful future. Mr. Stenzel was Keynote Speaker at Junior Achievement of the National Capital Area's 1994 annual awards convocation and was nominated for the Maryland Governor's Volunteer Award.

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The Best and Brightest High School Student's Guide is the first book to provide me with a realistic glimpse of the future without sounding preachy or scary. It's sophisticated enough to give students the intellectual credit they deserve, but clear enough to capture their attention. It's important to teenagers to be treated as mature people, and (the author) actually seems to understand young people: the doubts, the insecurities, the hopes, the highs and lows, the expectations, the pressure. The book truly helped me put things in perspective. (Lily Chang, Junior Achievement's 1996 Outstanding Public Speaker Award recipient for the Washington DC metropolitan area, University of Maryland Class of 2000)

For teenagers, a sense of the future usually means whether they are going to be a doctor or a lawyer. The Best and Brightest High School Student's Guide gets students to think about what the work world requires, to focus on that work world and on college and how to prepare for both of them. In addition to that kind of practical advice, there's a lot of philosophical and personal guidance, too. All those things are important and (in most books), you either get one or the other. There's a lot of experience and thought behind this book. (Rob Putt, High School Guidance Counselor, Walt Whitman HS, Bethesda, Maryland)

As an employer of some of the best and brightest, I noted with particular interest the issues you identified as being important to young people when they consider their future education and employment. From my perspective, you were right on the money. Students who read The Best and Brightest High School Student's Guide will see clearly the relevance these issues have to their lives. This is a great book that will be extremely valuable to any student who takes the opportunity to read it. (Charles T. Nason, Chairman of the Board, The Acacia Group, past President, Greater Washington DC Area Board of Trade)

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What would you like to know? Based on your position as one of America's "Best and Brightest," I bet your first questions include, "What should I expect in my future? Will I be able to find a good job? What are my chances of being successful?" Excellent questions, but my real hope is that you'll carry those inquiries one step further. How about, "What can I do now to increase my chances of finding a good job and becoming successful?" That's the question I really want to address.

Among the many challenges you'll have in your future is the pursuit of a satisfying and financially rewarding career. It won't be the only important part of building a successful life, and it may not even be the MOST important part, but it will be a significant part of the years that lie ahead. Someday, you'll have to begin by convincing an employer you are the right person for a job you really want.

One of the roles I play in writing this book for you is that of "the employer you'll someday meet when you're applying for your first job after school." I have hired many college graduates into their first "real" jobs, so a large part of this book will tell you what I look for in new graduates. I will cover some of the important evidence you can provide an employer when you apply for that important first job.

Life is difficult. If you're a teenager in high school, I bet you say Amen to that. Actually, those words happen to represent a major theme in The Road Less Traveled by Dr. M. Scott Peck, a man I see as one of our most interesting modern philosophers. Life is difficult. Does that mean life is bad, or life is unhappy, or life is an impossible challenge, or even that anything about life is negative? In my opinion, no. But yes, I agree with Dr. Peck. Life is truly difficult. ....

can about what lies ahead. A reduction in uncertainty is usually the surest step toward a reduction in stress. Once the future is a bit more predictable, stress can be reduced by developing and implementing plans to address the circumstances expected. If nothing else, working diligently toward a reasonable goal can take your mind off the stress. The larger cause of the perceived stress is usually mental, so putting your concentration elsewhere is often one of the best solutions.

In this book, I will attempt to help you gain a perspective for where you are right now. Even in the midst of the stress of high school, there are reasons to feel more comfortable with your position than you probably feel at the moment. I promise not to minimize the effects of the stress you do feel, but I will try to talk you out of some of it. Truth, clear thinking, and basic, hopeful optimism are excellent tools against unnecessary stress. Like any other habit, though, they take practice. Let's work on them.