The Middle School Student's Guide to Academic Success: 12 Conversations for College and Career Readiness

It’s never too early to start achieving your goals!

Get started on the road to success with this unique guide to middle school and beyond—brought to you by FranklinCovey, the company behind the 7 Habits series and The Leader in Me.

Middle school is full of changes—maybe it’s a new, bigger school, maybe it’s friendships starting to get more complicated, or maybe it’s a combination of a lot of things. But these changes don’t have to be bad, in fact they could be the best thing for us—because when things start to change we have the opportunity to grow. That’s why even though middle schoolers have a ton of other things going on, middle school is the perfect time for them to start altering their habits and goals for their future success.

Sure it might sound a little scary, but with a little help it can also be exciting! Framed as twelve conversations to start having, rather than checklists or rules, this unique guide helps students start thinking about what they want their futures to look like and readying themselves to achieve those goals.

In The Middle School Student’s Guide to Academic Success, portions of which were previously published as Beat the Middle, authors Blake and Bo Nemelka offer tried and true advice, opportunities for reflection and action that middle schoolers can tailor to their individual goals and interests, and ways for parents and guardians to help them along the way. Beginning with topics students can get started on now—like setting goals, improving your GPA, working on time management skills, and balancing extracurricular activities—and moving forward to future subjects including college applications, scholarships, and money management—this book is the ultimate guide to helping readers become not only successful middle schoolers, but successful people.

Blake and Bo Nemelka grew up in Utah where they graduated from South Hills Middle School and Riverton High School. They continued their education together at Utah State University where they were selected to be student ambassadors and played for the university tennis team. The brothers each took a hiatus in their education to provide humanitarian service. Blake worked in Lima, Peru, and Bo worked in Merida, Mexico. Upon their return, Blake and Bo continued their education at Utah State University. They were both selected as Huntsman Scholars and graduated with honors from the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business. Blake later attended Vanderbilt University, where he graduated with his Master’s degree in education administration, and Bo attended Yale University where he graduated with his Master’s degree in healthcare management. Blake and Bo are each happily married with young children and continue their love for education in their personal and professional lives.