The Sims 4 High School Years Expansion comes with four new aspirations exclusive to teenagers. Goal Oriented is one of them. This aspiration is about your young Sim setting themselves goals for school and work, working their way up until they get to the top. This aspiration is rewarding, but it can also be challenging. This guide will take you through each milestone and task, how to achieve them and the reward you get at the end of all that hard work. It won’t be easy, but if you persevere, you’ll make it.
For more guides on The Sims 4, check these out:
- The Sims 4 Discover University Tips: How to Have a Successful and Stress-Free Time
- Copperdale World Guide
- Cheats for the base game, Expansion Packs, and Game Packs
Goal Oriented Milestone 1: Setting Your Sights
These are the first set of tasks for the Goal Oriented teen aspiration. They’re pretty straightforward to get you started, but even from the get-go they require a bit of work and getting your Sim out there.
Important Tip: If you going to do any of the teen aspirations, it might be a good idea to set the Lifespan to Long, to give you plenty of time to achieve all the goals in the aspiration. All the tasks can take time to achieve.
Task 1: Join an After-School Activity
The first step is to join an after-school activity. This is similar to a job, except you don’t get paid (but you can still earn rewards and gain skills).
You can sign up to an after-school activity by using the computer or phone. On the computer, the option will be under High School. On the phone, you can apply under the Business category (the orange icon with a briefcase and simoleon).
There are 4 different after-school activities to choose from in High School Years.
High School Years comes with 4 after-school activities: Cheer Team Member, Chess Team Member, Computer Team Member, and Football Team Member. If you have the Seasons Expansion, you can also join the Scout activity, and with the Get Famous Expansion, the Drama Club is available.
Pick whichever one that takes your fancy (or your Sim’s, relative to their career goals and interests) to satisfy this goal.
Important Tip: One of the tasks in the second milestone is to reach level 3 of any after-school activity, so it’s best to pick one that you’re likely to stick with. If you don’t like it or are struggling to level up, consider choosing a different activity.
Task 2: Do Homework 5 Times
This task is pretty simple: get your Sim to do their homework five times. It doesn’t have to be 5 times in a row. Sims get one set of homework every day after school, and extra credit is available to those who have a grade of B or higher. Whenever homework is available, do it and you’ll check off this goal in no time.
For more information on doing homework, see the Homework section under Milestone 2 Task 2: Earn and Keep an A.
Every time your Sim gets homework, do it. Not only will you complete the homework task, but it’ll lead you to getting that A.
Task 3: Earn 500 Simoleons
For this goal, you have to make 500 simoleons. Teens cannot get a full-time job yet, but they can get a part-time job. There are plenty to choose from with the base game and High School Years Expansion. You can also make money from doing a Side Hustle (Simfluencer or Video Game Streamer), or by doing odd jobs. There are lots of other ways to earn money, by selling handcrafted items such as paintings, or programming activities or getting tips through playing a musical instrument. By doing these things, you should soon make that 500 simoleons.
There are plenty of ways to make money, including having a job or selling items created by your Sim.
Goal Oriented Milestone 2: Major Flex
The next level in the Goal Oriented aspiration takes things up a notch, with more hard work and grafting to do to get to the next stage.
Task 1: Reach Level 3 of an After-School Activity
Whether or not you stuck with the original after-school activity you picked in the first milestone, this task requires you to get to level 3 of your chosen activity.
After-school activities take place shortly after school is over, giving your Sim a little time to get home from school and prepare for their meeting. If you want your Sim to increase their performance, set their work activity to Work Hard. This may impact on your Sim’s Fun Need, but they should get to level 3 faster. Don’t let your Sim slack off, and do not miss any meetings.
Your Sim will also have to complete daily and promotion tasks to get to the next level of their activity. Daily activities reset to Not Completed after your Sim attends a meeting. For example, a Chess Team Member to get to level 3 needs to play chess every day for a few hours until the task is marked as completed, and also get the Logic skill to at least level 4.
Complete all the promotion tasks, don’t neglect the daily task or meetings, Work Hard at the meetings, and you’ll get to the top in no time.
Attending all meetings and working hard will get you to the top of any after-school activity.
Task 2: Earn and Keep an A
Achieving this goal requires you to work extra hard at school. Getting an A doesn’t happen in one day, so you’ll have to work at it. Work hard though and you should get that A in a week or two.
At high school, you start with a grade C, then you have to work through grade B to get to grade A, the highest grade available. To get higher grades, you need to raise your school performance. This is done by attending classes, doing all homework, and passing exams.
Attend Classes
You can choose to skip class when you’re actively at school, but you don’t want to do that if you want to get an A. Missing classes is one way to knock down your grade. Make sure you don’t miss any classes and your Sim is attentive, whether or not you follow your Sim to school. If you choose to go with them for the day, make sure they get to their morning and afternoon class in time and that they’re actively taking part by making notes. If you send your Sim to school but don’t follow them, set their work activity to Work Hard. Your Sim may come home a bit Tense, but their performance will increase more than if they were working as Normal.
Class attendance is important, so if you’re looking to get an A, don’t skip class.
Do Homework
Homework also plays an important part in getting that A. Doing homework increases your performance, so make sure your Sim does it. If your Sim has a grade B, it doesn’t hurt to do Extra Credit either. Doing homework can take time, and it isn’t exactly a fun activity. If your Sim has homework, they can get an older Sim to Help with Homework. This significantly speeds up the amount of time your Sim takes to complete their homework.
If your Sim’s Fun Need is low (in the orange), it’s recommended that you get their Fun Need up to at least half of the meter. You don’t want your Sim to automatically stop doing homework because their Fun dips into the red. Find an activity that really fills up the Fun Need quickly so your Sim can get on with their homework sooner. A good idea is to have a stereo in the same room as your Sim while they’re doing their homework, then set the station to your Sim’s favorite. This way, your Sim will do their homework and gain Fun! If your Sim doesn’t have a favorite station yet, set one up in the Likes/Dislikes panel in Create-A-Sim.
If you have the Parenthood Game Pack, doing school projects is a great way to boost your Sim’s performance. Teens can do up to 4 different projects: Air Pressure Rocketry, Construct-A-Bridge, Robotics, and Electricity Experiments. You can buy these yourself in Build Mode, or your Sim may randomly bring a random project home from school. If you get one, do it, or if not, buy and do at least one to boost your grade.
It doesn’t matter which one you choose, unless you want to do one based on the skill you’ll gain from working on it. Just make sure the project is at least Good quality, ideally Outstanding. A better quality project means a bigger boost. Have your Sim work on it Carefully, not Sloppily. You can get at least one Sim to help you work on a project to speed up the process. You’re more likely to do better if one of the Sims working on it has a high skill based on the project you’re doing.
If you have Parenthood, do a school project or two to boost your school performance.
Pass the Exams
With High School Years, the high school “career” gets a major overhaul, including being able to follow your Sim to school and do classes and after-school activities such as cheerleading and football. There are also exams. Every Friday, instead of doing classes, your Sim has exams.
Alongside the usual homework your Sim takes home every day, your Sim has to study for these exams. They can do this with the self-interaction Study for Exam, found under High School, or by interacting with a bookcase. It takes a few hours to completely study for exams, but it’s something you should do if you want to guarantee your Sim passing.
There are a few ways to study for exams. You can get this task done all in one go, or do it in stages. If your Sim doesn’t have enough time to spend a few hours studying, do it in stages instead. Perhaps do half an hour or one hour per day until it’s all done. Your Sim has other things going on as well, such as homework, attending to Needs, hanging out with friends and family, going to work and after-school clubs, so it’s understandable if they don’t have a lot of time to study.
Exams take place every Friday. Make sure your Sim is prepared!
Another idea is to wait until Wednesday after school, when there’s a study session. This lasts around 2 hours. This takes place in one of the classrooms. Send your Sim to this classroom so they can attend. Once the session is over, they should be prepped for their exam on Friday.
When Friday comes, make sure your Sim goes to school and goes to both their exams. This works just like classes. You may get a chance card where you’re given an option to have a go at an answer based on your Sim’s skills, or just wing it. Pick the option that best fits your Sim. If they get a question you know they’ve got a low skill level in, you can just wing it. You may get lucky.
At the end of the school day on Friday, you’ll find out if they passed the exams or not. If they attended all their classes and exams, did all their homework, and studied, they should ace those exams, which will boost their performance and hopefully their grade!
Task 3: Attend Career Day
Career Day is an event that takes place at high school on a set day. This is an event that requires attendance, so on a Career Day, make sure you follow your Sim to school. Career Day will start at midday and finish at three o’clock. On this day, your Sim will have their morning class as normal, but then at noon, you’ll get the option to attend Career Day.
You’ll be transported to the gymnasium, where Career Day will be set up. For this goal, you technically just have to make sure your Sim goes to Career Day, but while they’re there, you might as well make the most of it. Watch the three presentations and speak to the guest speakers. Once you’ve done that, speak to your teacher about your Sim’s future. This completes all tasks for Career Day. There are computers set up in the gymnasium as well, or you can chat with the other students. At three o’clock, the event will end and the gymnasium will revert to its original state.
You’ll get to experience Career Day at least once. Check the calendar and make sure to go with your Sim to school on that day.
Goal Oriented Milestone 3: Goal Oriented
You’ve made it to the final stage in the Goal Oriented aspiration! It’s been a lot of work so far, but it’s not over yet. There’s just one final task to do before you complete the aspiration and get your reward trait.
Task: Reach Level 3 of a Side Hustle
The final hurdle in completing the Goal Oriented teen aspiration is reaching the top of a Side Hustle. First off, what is a Side Hustle? These are two new part-time careers that come with High School Years. They are Video Game Streamer and Simfluencer. Streamers are based around video games and live streaming games, while Simfluencers focus on social media and gaining followers through product reviews. Both of these activities are fun and rewarding – and they’re not just exclusive to teens; older Sims can do them too.
Like after-school activities, Side Hustles have three levels, and level three is your goal. It’s not too difficult to get to the top, whichever Side Hustle you pick. Ideally, go with the one more suited to your Sim. It’s easier, for example, to do the Streamer Side Hustle if your Sim likes video gaming or already has some skill in it. Regardless, getting to the top is not impossible.
For both Side Hustles, you must have a computer available, either for gaming or uploading product reviews.
Find out what you need to do to get promoted in your Side Hustle.
To reach level 3 of either Hustle, you simply need to complete the daily and promotion tasks and attend work every day.
For both careers, since it’s only part time, your Sim will work 2 hour shifts 5 days a week. You can choose the hours, either early in the morning (5.30 to 7.30am) or late at night (9 to 11pm). Whichever one you go with is down to your personal preference.
When your Sim goes to work, ideally set the activity to Work Hard to give your Sim’s performance a boost, getting them to the top faster.
Video Game Streamer
This Side Hustle has your Sim live streaming themselves playing video games. Many of the tasks and activities associated with this Hustle can be found under the Careers option on the computer. To get to level 3, you need to get the Video Gaming skill to level 4 and the Entrepreneur skill to level 4. You can raise the Video Gaming skill by playing video games. For the Entrepreneur skill, there are a few ways to build it as a teenager. You can:
- Sell paintings done on an easel
- Perform on a musical instrument in public
- Publish books
- License songs your Sim has written
- Sell crafted items on Plopsy (only available if you have the Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack)
- Sell a listed outfit on Trendi
By doing these different activities, you’ll soon reach level 4 of the Entrepreneur skill.
The Streamer Side Hustle is great if your Sim loves to game.
Simfluencer
Simfluencer Sims work with social media, mainly creating and posting lifestyle reviews. This is a daily task, one that’ll lead to promotion to the top. For this, you’ll need access to a “lifestyle item” such as a chess table or easel. Click on one of these and you’ll see the option Make Lifestyle Product Review. Your Sim will head to a computer and work on it. This doesn’t take very long. Once that’s done, open up your Sim’s inventory, where you’ll see a black USB-type stick. Select this and Upload Lifestyle Product Review. Your Sim will go on the computer again and post their review, fulfilling their daily task as well as gaining the Entrepreneur skill.
To get to level 3 of the Simfluencer Side Hustle, your Sim will need level 4 Charisma as well as level 4 Entrepreneur. Aside the tasks listed above in Video Game Streamer, doing product reviews also gains Entrepreneur skill.
Another way to boost performance is by the activity Record Video while your Sim is at work. This will help get to level 3 quicker.
Make sure to upload your Lifestyle Product Review, found in your Sim’s inventory.
Rewards for Completing the Goal Oriented Aspiration
If you’ve completed the Goal Oriented aspiration, congratulations! All that hard work paid off! For your troubles, you get rewarded with a trait: Highflier. This will allow your Sim to be more successful in careers, particularly the Business career. This will make getting promotions much easier.
Beyond the Goal Oriented Aspiration
There’s always that question of what to do once you’ve finished with an aspiration. You are free to start from scratch with a new one, but what? That is entirely up to you, but the Goal Oriented aspiration will give your teen a good head start in life. With getting that A at high school, your Sim can graduate early, giving them opportunities to move onto bigger and better things. If you have Discover University, you can send your teen off to university early. Plus, if you keep their Lifespan as Long, they should still be a teenager when they head to university. Or maybe with high school over, they’ve got time to go travelling before embarking on a long and successful career when they age up to a young adult.
That rounds up everything you need to know about the Goal Oriented teen aspiration that comes with The Sims 4 High School Years Expansion. Let us know your favorite thing about the High School Years Expansion in the comments.
