Preparing for university: how can students adapt better to change?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs, university preparation and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 psychology and university preparation.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Jenna Gilchrist, a psychology researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada. She is studying how high school students adapt to life at university, and how techniques such as exercising self-compassion can help them regulate their emotions.

• This resource also contains an interview with Jenna and offers an insight into careers in psychology. If your students have questions for Jenna, they can send them to her online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Jenna will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Jenna’s research and challenges them to create a self-care package to help them through a transitional time.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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