Soft skills are the set of versatile, non-technical abilities that apply to a wide variety of social, academic, and professional settings. These psycho-social competencies contribute to students’ success across school subjects, during professional internships and employment, and in personal relationships. While the high school environment can present challenges to some students’ development of soft skills, high school is actually the perfect time for students to begin to build and master core soft skills such as communication and problem-solving. This article will present a selection of key soft skills that all high school students should develop, and then it will discuss strategies for how they can acquire them.
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What Are Soft Skills and Why Do They Matter?
The phrase “soft skills” is notoriously difficult to define. Researchers have made a distinction between self-oriented/intrapsychic soft skills and other-oriented/interpersonal soft skills. The former refers to the skills that an individual can develop to understand and manage themselves (such as self-awareness and emotional regulation), and the latter refers to skills that relate to people around an individual (e.g. social awareness and active listening). The two types of soft skills work together, and a balance of both is vital for effective teamwork, communication, and leadership. As a result, colleges and employers often look for candidates who demonstrate a strong and varied set of soft skills. Despite the importance of soft skills in education and employment, they are generally underrepresented in education systems, which tend to focus on the explicit development and assessment of “hard” or technical skills.
With that in mind, here are the most valuable soft skills for high school students to develop.
Top Soft Skills for High School Students
Communication Skills
Communication skills include speaking, listening, writing, and reading. Here’s what to know about each of them:
Listening. Listening and speaking often go hand in hand. They are arguably the most important communication skills because they are the most direct (i.e. because they happen in real time). This also makes them the hardest to master (or at least the hardest to fake), because you are required to think quickly to listen well and respond convincingly. Luckily, verbal language is also the most innate form of communication for our brains, which learn to speak naturally by listening to language input.
Being an excellent listener is essential for students to succeed in the classroom and for building relationships outside of class. When conversing directly with someone — whether that person is a peer, a teacher, or an interviewer — listening is the first step to great communication.
While the brain is almost always listening to what happens around us, great communicators practice “active listening.” Active listening has three components:
Cognitive: processing the information.
Emotional: regulating your response.
Behavioral: showing that you are interested.
The cognitive aspect of active listening requires paying intellectual attention to what exactly your interlocutor is saying. Immediately process and take mental note of all of the information presented. The emotional component to the activity is about regulating your own emotional responses to the information (boredom, anger, excitement, etc.). Great listeners stay calm, open, and alert. Finally, your behavior while listening demonstrates to the other person that you are absorbing the information fully. Showing your engagement in the conversation through your words (e.g., asking thoughtful, incisive questions) and body language (e.g. nodding your head and making eye contact) encourages others to continue communicating openly with you.
Active listening takes mental effort. Becoming a better listener requires students to practice on a daily basis to strengthen those neural muscles and to build strong listening habits. Avoiding or lessening distractions, such as text messages and notifications, is also helpful for sustaining your listening attention.
Speaking. Great speakers tend to use a relaxed and conversational tone. They stick to simple sentence structures, and they use repetition to emphasize key points. Because we learn to speak first by listening, one great way to speak more clearly is to actively listen to people who speak well. Identify a public figure whose style of speech you admire — someone who you think speaks very well. Find speeches they’ve delivered or interviews with them that are available online — talk shows, podcasts, radio appearances, etc. — and simply listen to them. As much as possible, listen attentively to how they communicate: what sort of vocabulary and sentence structures do they use? How often do they pause? How and when do they politely interrupt or interject a thought? Additionally, just having these recordings on in the background while you work on homework can be helpful to absorb their speaking style.
In addition to absorbing speaking skills by listening, it’s also important, of course, to practice actually speaking aloud. Some students struggle to speak clearly in certain situations because they feel nervous or uncomfortable. Practicing speaking in a variety of situations is the best way to come across as relaxed and confident in real-life scenarios. Depending on your goals, you should practice speaking on your own or with a partner. In both cases, it’s important to record yourself so that you can listen back afterwards and self-assess. For instance, if your goal is to get better at delivering short speeches, then you could start by assigning yourself a topic (sports, politics, relationships, literature, etc.) Think silently about the topic for one minute to organize your thoughts, and then deliver a structured speech for one minute. Listen back to the recording, take notes on how you could have been clearer, and then repeat with the same topic or a new one.
If your goal is to improve with one-on-one conversations, then you’ll need a partner to practice with. A friend, sibling, parent, mentor, or even an AI chatbot can be useful in this situation. Start by communicating with your partner about your goals (this is already a challenging communication exercise). Then, role-play the kind of scenario you want to practice. This could be a mock interview, an everyday interaction with a stranger, a tough conversation with a friend, or another situation. Aim to express your thoughts in a relaxed, confident, and clear manner. Structure your ideas simply, and be open to the possibility that you’ll change your mind about something in the middle of the conversation. If appropriate, make one or two jokes. If working with a real person, use relaxed body language and make frequent eye contact to establish a comfortable connection with your partner.
Reading. Being a great reader is another important skill for students to advance inside and outside the classroom. In communication contexts, students are required to quickly read and absorb information transmitted to them by:
Teachers (e.g. course syllabi, homework assignments, feedback)
School administrators (e.g. schedule logistics, graduation requirements, leadership opportunities)
Supervisors in work and internship settings (e.g. job responsibilities, working hours, specific deliverables)
College counselors (deadlines, application requirements, advice)
and more
Additionally, reading comprehension skills empower students to absorb important information from books, websites, news sources, and other media. Finally, strong reading skills support other communication skills by expanding students’ knowledge and vocabulary.
Writing. The ability to communicate effectively through writing reflects very well on students. On the other hand, ineffective written communication makes it more challenging for them to be understood, especially by teachers and professors.
For example, writing a great email is a highly valued skill that isn’t generally taught in school. According to this email guide from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, writing an effective email begins with asking yourself: is email the best medium for this communication? When the message is very long, nuanced, or sensitive, it’s often more effective to communicate it over the phone or in person.
If email is the appropriate way to communicate, here are a few suggestions to keep in mind:
Writing emails is fundamentally different from writing text messages to a friend, especially when writing to a teacher or a professor. For example, correct spelling and grammar are often appreciated and expected in emails.
Subject lines should be clear and to the point. They should communicate relevant dates and should be searchable later on if your reader wants to refer back to the message.
Greetings (e.g. “Dear [name]”) are expected, especially for the first message in an email chain. This is for three reasons: firstly, it’s always been polite to start by saying hello and/or addressing the person you’re writing to. It’s a practice that comes from writing letters. Secondly, it establishes a level of formality ranging from informal (e.g. “Hey Amy”) to neutral (“Good morning, all”) to formal (“Dear Professor Harrison”). Finally, a personal greeting immediately distinguishes your email from any spam or template-formulated messages sitting in your recipient’s inbox.
Like greetings, sign-offs (e.g. “All the best”) are important for establishing a formal or informal tone and, most importantly, for telling your reader who is writing to them.
Emails should be easy to read. Separate ideas into short paragraphs using line breaks, and keep the overall length as short as possible. Use bullet points and formatting options (bold or highlight important takeaways) to make it possible for the reader to gather the most essential information at a glance.
For more tips on how to improve your writing skills, check out our article on becoming a better writer in high school.
Teamwork and Collaboration
The ability to work well in a group is a multi-faceted soft skill that, when strengthened, can lead to excellent outcomes in group projects for school, extracurricular activities, sports competitions, artistic performances, and more. Moreover, as noted by Michigan State University, colleges and employers actively look for applicants who demonstrate strong teamwork skills. In both higher education and professional environments, the ability to share tasks effectively with teammates is one of the most frequently cited predictors of success. Developing and demonstrating effective collaboration skills helps high school students stand out on college applications and also makes them more employable when applying for internships and jobs.
Strong, well-rounded communication skills are an essential component of effective collaborations. Conflict resolution, self-awareness, giving and receiving feedback, and open-mindedness are also “sub-skills” that can collectively strengthen students’ teamwork abilities.
Leadership and Initiative
Another soft skill related to teamwork, leadership is the ability to organize a team around a shared goal. Initiative is a requirement for leaders, but can also be demonstrated as an independent skill in and of itself. Students can demonstrate their leadership and initiative skills by holding elected leadership positions in student government or student-led clubs, and by organizing events like talent shows, open mics, pep rallies, workshops, community discussions, and more. Volunteering and community service are also excellent ways to demonstrate individual initiative.
Adaptability and Problem Solving
Adaptability is a soft skill that enables students to adjust their strategies to achieve success in different, often new and surprising, environments. Students who are highly adaptable are able to calmly and effectively navigate changing and unexpected challenges that arise in academic and social situations. Students can practice, strengthen, and demonstrate their adaptability by pushing themselves frequently to leave their comfort zone. Exploring new cultures, learning a new musical instrument, or joining a new club or sports team towards the end of high school can force your brain to adapt to new challenges on the fly.
Problem-solving is a different, related soft skill. In addition to adaptability, problem-solving also overlaps with research skills, critical thinking skills, creativity, decision-making, and project management skills. Problem solving is often considered a reliable marker of students and employees who are able to work and succeed independently. The best strategy for students to build their problem-solving skills is to practice self-reliance when faced with a challenging problem. For example, if you are stuck on a coding problem, don’t immediately ask an AI assistant for help. Challenging yourself to make significant progress using limited resources forces you to approach challenges from multiple angles, building your problem-solving abilities and improving your self-confidence.
How to Develop Soft Skills in High School
We’ve presented a variety of strategies for students to begin building and strengthening their soft skills. Joining student-led clubs, school organizations, sports teams, and student governments can be powerful catalysts for soft skill development. Outside of school, another great strategy is to take on a part-time job or to apply for an internship that you are passionate about. Professional settings push students outside of their comfort zone and may inspire them to grow in directions that they wouldn’t necessarily explore from within a school environment. Finally, ask for feedback from teachers and trusted mentors who know you and can offer advice on where you have room to grow in your soft-skill development.
Polygence Pods provide another great way for high school students to develop their soft skills. This program brings together small groups of like-minded peers. Together, they’ll engage in six online sessions of group and project-based learning. All Pods are led by a PhD-level expert. There are currently Pods ongoing that are specifically geared towards soft skill development, like written communication, storytelling, and the psychology of making friends.
Are Pods right for you? Check out our college admissions results and impact on scholarship awards.
Soft Skills in Action: Real-Life Examples
Polygence alum Mariah completed a compelling research paper that clearly demonstrates the importance of soft skills gained during high school. Mariah, who is interested in international business, studied the education and early careers of several international Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). Her study analyzed the courses they took during high school and college, as well as their extracurricular experiences in clubs and organizations. She found compelling evidence that intercultural fluency, cultural awareness, and the capacity to build strong mentor-mentee relationships combine to equip “those interested in the international segment of the marketing field for the CMO position.” She writes that while “there is no single pathway” to becoming an international CMO, developing these soft skills early on prepares young professionals for success in top international marketing roles. Finally, Mariah highlights three additional soft skills shared by successful CMOs. Those soft skills are:
Leadership communication
Progressive learning
Stakeholder management
Mariah’s paper demonstrates real-life examples of how developing and strengthening core soft skills during high school can support students’ academic and professional careers after graduation.
Conclusion: Invest in Skills That Set You Apart
Soft skills are learnable. Students who are motivated to build up their core soft skills (and other life skills) should be prepared to practice them continuously to strengthen their psycho-social muscles. They should also practice self-awareness and ask for feedback from teachers and mentors for personal development support.
If you’re ready to invest in core soft skills, Polygence can help! In addition to our Pods program, our Research Mentorship Program connects students with expert mentors for ten 1-on-1 sessions. These sessions center around producing a tangible outcome through a cutting-edge, independent research project that the student is passionate about. Successfully completing a Polygence project not only demonstrates students’ technical capacities, but also shows their independence, personal growth, problem-solving skills, communication abilities, and perseverance.
Set yourself apart! Build the soft skills you care about with support and guidance from Polygence.