What is AVID?

Advancement Via Individual Determination, (AVID), is an organization that helps prepare students for college. AVID helps students become more organized by using a planner and helps students write and answer higher level thinking questions. AVID changes people’s lives, and in this video you will see how.

How has AVID Helped me?

Before I joined AVID I was doing good in school I just wasn’t organized and I started to become lazy towards the end of the school year. I had trouble keeping track of my homework and I forgot what homework I had to do at home. When I first joined AVID in 8th grade I was still a little lazy in the beginning of the year but AVID soon helped me realize that I needed to step up and stop procrastinating. Every Tuesday and Thursday we have Tutorials, which is a way for us to get in groups and have our AVID classmates help us with questions we have. They don’t give us the answer, they ask us questions so we can start thinking deeper than we were. The tutorials have helped me a lot by helping me get a better understanding on what to do. When it got closer to the end of my 8th grade year I was scared to start my first year of high school, but AVID helped prepare me for what was coming. AVID helped prepare me so much I didn’t walk into the high school my first day scared, I walked in thinking that this is just another place with a lot more opportunity. My AVID teachers have been telling me that our AVID class isn’t just a class, it’s a family.

College Trips.

AVID helps students be open to colleges by going on college tours. I have been on some college tours with my AVID classmates and I have enjoyed every single one. Some of the colleges we have visited are Bethel University, St. Cloud State University,  and the University of Minnesota. I like going on the tours because we get to get to learn a little history about the school, and how the AVID program is in college. During the school year there was a college fair that we got to participate in, and there were a lot of colleges in and out of state there. I got to look at a lot of them and read a little about what their campus was about. Some colleges that are out of state I thought were really interesting was Michigan State and North Dakota State.

College Ready Students.

AVID helps prepare students for college by getting them to try more challenging classes, and by getting them to think more deeper about their future. AVID isn’t just in the U.S. it’s all over the world. There are 5,749 schools that have an AVID program and 123 of those schools are in other countries. AVID helps struggling students and helps prepare them for their future so that they are no longer struggling and are on the path to success. Some colleges offer an AVID Scholarship and helps you out a lot.

How Will AVID Impact you?

If you are struggling in a class or more than one you should apply to join AVID. AVID will help you become more organized and will help teach you better ways to study and review for tests or quizzes. It will also help you think deeper about questions that you have and help you answer deeper questions. If you are also having a hard time with your time management AVID can help you with that too. AVID also has a strategy to help students take better notes. AVID students use the cornell note taking process that helps students take better notes and helps them interact with them more. Cornell notes have a system that allows students to reflect back to there notes and to help them review for a test or quiz. Another big impact AVID will have on you is helping you with your ability to think deeper about questions. Something we do in AVID is tutorial request forms (TRF’s) which is another method to help students think deeper about what a question might be asking them so they get a better understanding of it. TRF’s allow you to write down things that you know about your question and to write down what you are confused about so your classmates can ask you questions to help you find your answer. On a TRF day students will get into small groups and present the question they are confused on or their point of confusion (POC). The students would then help the student presenter by asking him/her questions to help lead them on the right track to figure out their question. The reason why the students ask the presenter questions is because they will be able to discover the answer on their own and will most likely remember it versus giving them the answer ther will forget. If you are someone who struggles in any of these things I would join AVID because it could change your life, like it has for me.