On Your Own
“On Your Own”: The Skills You Need to Survive After High School
This course is tailored for people ages 16-19 who are about to move out of their parents' home and begin living on their own. Each weekly class focuses on a different theme, including personal finances, time management, job-hunting, insurance, and public speaking skills. Students will learn all these essential skills (and much more) through role-playing exercises, weekly assignments, and the engaging lectures of the instructor and several expert guest speakers. The classes will take place in an intimate group setting, where students can ask all the questions they want about the “real world” they're about to enter.
In the years since I graduated from high school and from college, I've learned a lot about the skills people need to thrive after they leave their parents' house. I've learned that many of those skills are not taught by teachers or parents. Instead, emerging adults today usually learn through trial and error, which is occasionally uncomfortable and usually embarrassing. I have been educating teens, through tutoring or substitute teaching, for about five years. In those five years, I have learned that most of my students don't care about the quadratic formula or the definition of onomatopoeia. They want to learn how to deal with the very real challenges of becoming adults. They have lots of questions, and they want the advice of someone who treats them like the emerging adults that they are. My intention with this course is to pass on some of the knowledge I've accumulated, the skills and information I wish I'd known when I was first entering the adult world.
- James Colligan
James Colligan has been teaching and mentoring adolescents for five years. He has a B.A. in Psychology from UC Santa Cruz, with an emphasis on identity formation and humanistic psychology.
Download the complete course syllabus 
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For more information or to register for classes, contact the Community Services office at (530) 757-5626 or stop by City Hall, 23 Russell Blvd. (corner of Russell Blvd. & B St.)
