.jpg)
When selecting my courses each year throughout high school, I selected at least one from every major academic department: mathematics, English, foreign language, science, and social studies. I never questioned that high school was a time to remain a generalist. If I had discovered the flaws in the U.S. secondary school system earlier, I would have been a lot smarter today.
In the U.S., some students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses across numerous disciplines. Many students applying to prestigious U.S. colleges submit over 10 APs. I later learned that other countries have vastly different models which allow for greater specialization.
In the U.K., students often submit 3 A-Levels to universities, which are the result of studying those three subjects intensively over two years. U.K. universities require students to apply for a particular subject based on their A-Levels whereas U.S. universities usually do not admit students for a particular major.
Some educational models promote exploring specializations beyond the classroom. In Estonia, all secondary school students are expected to complete a research project before graduating. Students have research advisors who guide them through the research process throughout an entire year. Many students have a teacher as a research advisor, but others find advisors at universities and write longer research papers which they can publish.
Similarly, many students navigating the U.S. high school curriculum have already discovered their passions, majors, and career paths. Further developing these specializations is impressive to universities and gives students a major head start.
There are two things that U.S. high school students should do to further their passions. They can follow the British model and gain further expertise in a particular field through online coursework. Platforms such as Coursera and EdX can be helpful for this.
To be even more impressive, high school students can follow the Estonian model and conduct a research project. Research is a natural extension of learning something in-depth because it involves contributing something original to any field once you understand it well. It is the best way to gain expertise and remain in the discussion. Countless high school students engage in research every year, even entering their work into international competitions.
The main obstacle high school students face to independent research is access to research support. Jinso fills that gap by connecting high school students to university professors as mentors to share knowledge and guide them through the research process. By working with a research mentor in a field they are passionate about, a motivated high school student can develop an original argument worth sharing.
When I was a second semester high school senior, I found a research mentor on my own and produced an independent research paper in international relations. Finding a mentor was difficult, but I was fortunate to find the support I needed to discover both the accessibility and value of research. I had previously taken AP Comparative Government and participated in Model United Nations, both of which inspired my passion in international relations. Research, however, made me feel included in real discussions at the forefront of the field. It was the natural step forward.
A generalist system can teach students to think and write, but it cannot propel them into modern, relevant discussions in academia. For that, I trust Jinso and its research mentors to give students the support they need to advance through the academic community.
GitHub is a popular platform used by computer scientists to manage their collaborative projects, but a similar program does not exist for academic work. There is no standard platform to create work, connect with others, and share work in one place. Most platforms only fall into one or two of these categories.The Jinso collaboration tool is a better way for groups to work on projects. By bringing the entire academic collaboration process onto one tool, it simplifies workflows and communication.The first steps for using the Jinso platform are:
Once a user builds a network, they can create new Groups that consist of their network members. By default, the creator of a group is the admin. The most common Group is a research group, but the platform can manage several other types of academic projects. Platform users can create study groups for sharing course materials or groups of club members for extracurricular work.The admin of the Group has the ability to add new members at any time.
Admins are also responsible for creating Projects within Groups.
A Project for a research group is usually a research paper, but Projects can also be other forms of documents that could benefit from discussion and revisions. Examples include study guides, business plans, articles, and essays. Each Group can have an unlimited number of Projects within it, and all Projects within a Group are shared among the same members.
Once a user builds a network, they can create new Groups that consist of their network members. By default, the creator of a group is the admin. The most common Group is a research group, but the platform can manage several other types of academic projects.
Platform users can create study groups for sharing course materials or groups of club members for extracurricular work.The admin of the Group has the ability to add new members at any time. Admins are also responsible for creating Projects within Groups.
A Project for a research group is usually a research paper, but Projects can also be other forms of documents that could benefit from discussion and revisions. Examples include study guides, business plans, articles, and essays. Each Group can have an unlimited number of Projects within it, and all Projects within a Group are shared among the same members.
When a new Project is created, an initial revision must be shared. This can either be plain text or a PDF.
The Project will be immediately visible to all Group members with the first revision shown. Group members can comment on the revision with questions or feedback, and others can reply to comments.When another revision of the paper has been completed, the Group admin can add a new revision to the same Project.
The revision will become visible above the prior revision, and it will have a new comment box associated with it. Projects make it simple to keep track of a paper’s entire revision history and discussions at each stage.
For each revision, Group admins can also create subtasks. Arrows allow Group members to view all of the different subtasks and comment on them individually. Subtasks allow a paper to be analyzed in unique components. For example, a research paper can have a unique subtask for each of its sections, and collaborators can discuss them all separately in the comment boxes. Jinso is a quicker way to collaborate on long-term projects. It makes it easier to connect, share, and manage the development of ideas and papers. You can create a Jinso account and start using the platform today for your research and academic needs at jinso.io.
When selecting my courses each year throughout high school, I selected at least one from every major academic department: mathematics, English, foreign language, science, and social studies. I never questioned that high school was a time to remain a generalist. If I had discovered the flaws in the U.S. secondary school system earlier, I would have been a lot smarter today.
In the U.S., some students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses across numerous disciplines. Many students applying to prestigious U.S. colleges submit over 10 APs. I later learned that other countries have vastly different models which allow for greater specialization.
In the U.K., students often submit 3 A-Levels to universities, which are the result of studying those three subjects intensively over two years. U.K. universities require students to apply for a particular subject based on their A-Levels whereas U.S. universities usually do not admit students for a particular major.
Some educational models promote exploring specializations beyond the classroom. In Estonia, all secondary school students are expected to complete a research project before graduating. Students have research advisors who guide them through the research process throughout an entire year. Many students have a teacher as a research advisor, but others find advisors at universities and write longer research papers which they can publish.
Similarly, many students navigating the U.S. high school curriculum have already discovered their passions, majors, and career paths. Further developing these specializations is impressive to universities and gives students a major head start.
There are two things that U.S. high school students should do to further their passions. They can follow the British model and gain further expertise in a particular field through online coursework. Platforms such as Coursera and EdX can be helpful for this.
To be even more impressive, high school students can follow the Estonian model and conduct a research project. Research is a natural extension of learning something in-depth because it involves contributing something original to any field once you understand it well. It is the best way to gain expertise and remain in the discussion. Countless high school students engage in research every year, even entering their work into international competitions.
The main obstacle high school students face to independent research is access to research support. Jinso fills that gap by connecting high school students to university professors as mentors to share knowledge and guide them through the research process. By working with a research mentor in a field they are passionate about, a motivated high school student can develop an original argument worth sharing.
When I was a second semester high school senior, I found a research mentor on my own and produced an independent research paper in international relations. Finding a mentor was difficult, but I was fortunate to find the support I needed to discover both the accessibility and value of research. I had previously taken AP Comparative Government and participated in Model United Nations, both of which inspired my passion in international relations. Research, however, made me feel included in real discussions at the forefront of the field. It was the natural step forward.
A generalist system can teach students to think and write, but it cannot propel them into modern, relevant discussions in academia. For that, I trust Jinso and its research mentors to give students the support they need to advance through the academic community.
