An Open Letter to 9th Graders

In the article, "Open Letter to 9th Graders" by Patrick Sullivan, the author goes over the skills and mindsets that freshmen need to acquire in high school in order to be successful in college. Sullivan expressed that he spent almost the last 5 years of his career trying to figure out what made the transition from high school to college easier, which is what he wanted to achieve by writing this letter. The main point that he insisted upon throughout the entire letter was that you have to work hard and make the most of your high school experience so that you may also be successful in college. Our group agreed that we need to "begin with the end in mind" and to set goals, so that we may have a finish line to reach, instead of just stumbling around blindly. We also agreed that reading, writing, and listening were extremely important because these were the foundation of everything we learned in school, and we would be nowhere without them now. That being said, we disagreed with the idea that you absolutely must love reading, because this isn't something that can be taught or learned. A student just needs that drive, determination, and desire to learn that separates the good students from the rest. After reading this article, we learned that though high school and college are different, we must begin taking the steps towards college right now in high school.