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MSU Extension hosts 'Adulting 101' classes for high schoolers

April 21, 2020
<p>Coins and a Lansing Board of Water and Light bill photographed on April 7, 2020.</p>

Coins and a Lansing Board of Water and Light bill photographed on April 7, 2020.

Photo by Matt Zubik | The State News

Cooking, budgeting, learning the difference between credit and debit and informed renting are all possible skills students can learn through MSU Extension's free "Adulting 101" classes, through a set of weekly seminars via Zoom next month.

Hosted remotely, the class is primarily targeted to students who are juniors or seniors in high school and plan to move out of their homes soon.

"Right now, the classes are open to anybody," Michelle Neff, an MSU extension educator, said. "Any 11th or 12th grader, or really any older teen who's interested in learning these type of skills or knowledge."

The next dates for the webinar are May 7, May 14, May 21 and May 28. A course on typical household tasks will be held on June 4, as well — all at 2 p.m. Students who are interested must pre-register online.

In total, about 1,000 students are signed up for all of the April classes, and more than 200 people signed up for the May classes. Roughly 655 people attended the first April session, Neff said.

She said she has more than 500 email addresses of students that are on a waiting list. They are able to sign up for all of the courses, or individual ones they might be interested in.

Each week of the course covers something new, ranging from household tasks to managing finances.

The course is offered throughout Michigan, but other states have shown interest as well, Neff said.

“Yeah, this is awesome, that we have so many youth and teachers reaching out to us to really pass this information onto students and it's exciting," Neff said. "We never planned this to go this crazy and this big when this was initially programmed and developed."

"Adulting 101" was originally designed to be something high school seniors could do while juniors were testing, but when schools experienced cancellations at the expense of COVID-19, the extension program worked to make it accessible online.

"It's really exciting to see a program that was really designed to be local, meeting a need here in our community — gone across the state and across the country," Neff said.

Another webinar series titled "Adulting 101 — College Ready" is expected to be posted to the MSU Extension website this week. The series will focus on student loans, financial aid, and what can be expected at college and the culture there.

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