Quarantine has given us a lot of extra time.
Are you wondering how you can use that time efficiently and take on some projects? Some productive projects?
Here are 9 fun and productive things you could be doing in quarantine!
Start a Non-Profit with Friends
Speaking from experience, it’s super easy to do this. Find a couple of friends, decide on a non-profit idea, and get going!
Here are a couple of steps you’ll probably need to take:
- Choose an idea. Do you want to send letters, postcards, etc to retirement centers? Do you want to create a website to help adoption centers find adopters? Do you want to provide online tutoring to young children in your area? There are many options!
- Create a “club” with your friends. Decide on a president or 2 co-presidents, a treasurer, an event coordinator, and whatever other roles you feel are necessary. This ensures equal participation and responsibility from everyone!
- Create a website and/or social media. Making a website on Google Sites is simple and free, and makes collaborating easy as well! Creating an Instagram account would make it a lot easier to broadcast your non-profit and gain attention to your purpose.
- Start doing things! Start researching, gathering letters, reaching out to the adoption center, creating advertisements… Your non-profit doesn’t become a non-profit until you start acting!
Volunteer Online
This might come as a surprise, but you can totally perform community service online!
One popular and credible field is the United Nations. You must be at least 18 years old, and depending on the role, you may need 2 years of work experience. However, some jobs simply ask for relevant knowledge of the field!
There are many other opportunities online, such as Points of Light and Teens Give.
With some research, you might be able to find many opportunities you’d enjoy!
Take (Free) Online Courses
The Internet is a wonderful place. Whether you prefer YouTube or WikiHow, you can learn something new anytime you want.
But why not take some college-level courses right now at your own pace and on whichever subject you choose? AND they could count for college credit! Two birds with one stone!
Here are some of my favorite websites that provide free and reliable online courses:
Lastly, for Apple users, iTunes U is on the App Store. iTunes U is a free app with lectures, videos, books, and more resources from universities such as Stanford, MIT, Yale, and more. You can use it right from your phone!
Do Your Driver’s Ed
If you’re an underclassman (or upperclassman!), you’re probably dying to start driving. Maybe some of your friends already have their permits/licenses, and you still don’t know what a U-turn is.
Quarantine is the perfect time to get those 30 hours of Driver’s Ed in!
I know, 30 hours sounds daunting. But very likely, you’ll finish the course in about 15 hours (not in one day, of course). After that, you can just let the screen run until you’re done.
You do need to finish the 30 hours in order to get your certificate, which you’ll need to take the permit test.
Practice Driving
Assuming that you got your permit (or if you have a giant private property where you can drive around for fun), you can now practice getting behind the wheel!
Yes, it’s scary (at first).
Yes, it’ll take more than 10 minutes to get the hang of it.
Yes, you’ll need to drive faster than 14mph.
Practice makes perfect! Start from empty parking lots, and then move to small streets. Once you’re ready, you can start driving on roads, and eventually highways!
With all the time you have in quarantine, you could be a great driver before you know it!
SAT/Test Prep
Don’t leave just yet! Now, I know what you’re thinking. Bruh.
HOWEVER, quarantine is the perfect time to squeeze in some studying!
Spend 1-2 hours every day doing practice problems before your test and you’re pretty much guaranteed to score better than if you didn’t.
With all the free resources online such as Khan Academy and Crack Sat, what do you have to lose?
Code an App
This is probably a project for the computer-science geniuses out there. Maybe you’ve even created an app already!
But if you’re a coding noob, no worries.
- You can take a Computer Science course online
- You can watch a bunch of YouTube videos on how to create an app
If you own a MacBook, you can download Xcode, a free app with its own coding language that allows you to code a complete app right on your computer!
Coding an app is definitely a big project, so if you’re down for it, be prepared to spend quite some hours on it!
Learn a New Language
If you take a language course at school, you know how incredibly annoying and difficult learning a new language can be. Or you really enjoy it!
Either way, learning a new language at your own pace and for your own interest could be the perfect way to take up extra time during quarantine.
Of course, the Internet lacks no resources in language-learning.
Check out Duolingo! It’s completely free and offers 30+ languages. The interface is also extremely beginner-friendly (and very aesthetically satisfying).
If you’d like to improve on a language you already kinda know, feel free to watch some movies and listen to some podcasts. There are probably thousands of free podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you can dig through them to find 1 that fits your taste!
Watch a Bunch of Documentaries
Documentaries can be wonderfully educational and entertaining (if you find some good ones).
By watching documentaries, you can educate yourself on issues and topics you’ve never thought about before. They take plain information such as statistics and reports and turn them into animations and movie-like videos. And they offer a lot of such information, but you won’t feel overwhelmed as you may in a lecture.
There are many free documentaries on YouTube and many on Netflix. Through some research online, you can probably find more free documentary sources.
Conclusion
As a high schooler, it’s easy to feel suffocated by the pressures of college and your future. Perhaps you’ve gone through an 8ths-life-crisis but still came up with no plans.
My tip (you probably hear this a lot): stop worrying about the future (and the past while you’re at it). The past cannot be changed and the future cannot be predicted. You are only in control of the present.
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