5 lessons we impart to our students before graduation

We cannot believe how fast the first year of TAF@Saghalie has gone! The senior class started as TAF Academy 6th-graders seven years ago and will become the first TAF@Saghalie graduating class this Saturday. We cannot say enough about this group of students who started in a small school and ended their senior year with 400 or more underclassmen to be an example for!

At TAF, we understand the critical role we play in preparing students for the future. The world can be intimidating, especially for a young adult who has freshly graduated high school. That’s why we ensure our students are well-prepared to face the demands of life – and be unapologetically bold about it.

Here are 5 lessons we impart on our students before graduation:

Look, if there’s anything our students know, it’s that anything is possible by anyone, with the right tools and support. It doesn’t matter where they come from, all of our students are highly capable to succeed.

We teach our students to think critically and approach problems creatively, never accepting defeat but to learn from it. Try, try, and try again? That’s right. I mean, isn’t that the process to innovation anyway?

Not that every rule is meant to be broken but students should understand the world around them and if it doesn’t make sense or it’s not a just and fair place, then shake things up. Find new solutions and make others think about why they do what they do. Does a system or process need to be revised, are people being excluded from opportunities without basis? Speak up and say so!

For many of our students, mostly everything they will experience through the STEMbyTAF experience will be considered “a first.” From networking with industry professionals, leading events to becoming the first in their family to go off to college.

The world is quickly changing around us, and we have no choice but to keep up or get left behind. We encourage our students to innovate creatively by thinking about how they can solve community and social issues they are passionate about. We believe wholeheartedly in connectivity, where everything we do is tied to our beliefs and values. We hope our graduates will enter the world with a sense of purpose, and that purpose will drive their innovation.

We hope as our graduates fiercely pursue their dreams, they will also take time to invest in where they came from. Whether that be through TAF (as many of our alumni do return as volunteers, corporate partners, and staff) or within their childhood community, we encourage graduates to find ways to make a difference themselves – understanding that they would not be who they are without the foundation of people that supported them throughout education.