Education and Business

Archive for July, 2009

Well, I finally finished my 1st semester of college and I think I did really well. I am pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice, possibly with a minor in psychology. I absolutely love school and now often wonder why I didn’t go back sooner. I think school has made me a lot more independent if that is possible. I do love it.

I have learned a lot and met a lot of great people. I have many friends now and they are real friends that I know I can count on, friends I am sure I will have throughout my life. I am also taking two summer classes and really can’t imagine myself being out of school at this point. I may end up being one of those people that stay in school forever. No, I don’t love it that much. The independence and freedom I feel from attending and the confidence in knowing I can accomplish something is remarkable.

I feel anyone considering it should really go for it , what do you have to lose, besides that the people you meet and the opportunities given you by going are fantastic. I have made some great connections with instructors in my area/field and people in general that will help me when my degree is finally obtained, and you cant beat that.

Most of my friends and some family have went back to school also and say it has changed their lives and they think it is something to do that advances you in life regardless of the career and major you choose.

I personally am thinking of being a detective or investigator, but I also love working with kids that are in trouble so that may be the direction I take. I guess it is a long haul for me in deciding exactly what I want to do but I am right on track, and when my 2-4 yrs is up, I will have made a final decision. I would just like to encourage anyone thinking of going back to school or going for their first time to take it, the support from classmates and instructors is great, and I know you can do it and you will accomplish your dreams. Good luck and God Bless.

It is highly recommended that early in the college selection process, parents and student(s) visit some schools to determine if they’ll be suitable. The criteria that must be considered before any college is applied to include:

• Average GPA, SAT I, class rank for acceptance

• The school should offer enough choices in the event the student changes their major

• Size, location, Greeks, religious affiliation

• Percentage of freshmen that return for year two

• Percentage of freshmen that graduate in four years

• Percentage of financial need met

• Percentage of gift aid/self-help awarded

• On or off campus job opportunities

• Meal plans and dietary situations met

• Name recognition

• Student/teacher ratio

• Average class size, semester or trimester

• Percentage of professors who teach and percentage of teaching assistants

• 2 or 4-year college or university

• Co-ed dorms

• Freshman cars permitted

• Handicap accessibility

• Cost of the sheepskin

It is also recommended that you determine if the school uses a need-blind or need-sensitive admissions policy. Need-blind is a practice where the student is evaluated without any regard to family income or assets. Need-sensitive is a shameful policy used by a host of elite schools such as Duke, Emory and Stanford. These schools will admit a less than qualified rich kid in anticipation of a large contribution to their own endowment funds. In essence, the wealthy family has bought an admission ticket to a school where their student might never have otherwise been accepted!

It’s anyone’s guess how many other schools enrich their coffers in this deceitful, unprincipled manner. Duke has even been brazenly open about this policy, and I find it curious that shortly after reaching their $2 billion fund raising goal in 2003, they reduced their freshman acceptance percentage from 7.5% to 4%. The words of Former U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) come to mind here, When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

Parents and student(s) should make the official unofficial visit to potential schools no later than the 10th grade. Colleges are always impressed when a 9th or 10th grader pays a visit. By keeping in touch with officials you’ve met, in essence, you will have added points to both your GPA and SAT I scores by establishing a rapport. When the time comes, administrators will be able to associate a face with your application. This helps a merely qualified student become a far more acceptable one.

However, before packing your bags and filling up the SUV with gas, make a checklist that includes the following:

Confirm that everything you plan to visit will be open and, ideally, that school is in session. Ask plenty of questions and be an attentive listener. Consider bringing a video camera or tape recorder for your notes no matter how good your memory is. Find out who reads applications from your area and, if possible, try to meet with a reader and be sure to keep in touch with them.

Student athletes should meet with a coach or two. Listen to the school radio station and get a copy of the campus newspaper. If the student has Greek intentions, visit some frat or sorority houses. Students should check out the dorm unannounced, introduce themselves to attending students and pick their brains.

Have a snack in the cafeteria. After all, their food is what the student will be eating for the next four years! Students who have decided upon their course of study should make every effort to arrange a meeting with the head of that particular department and audit a class or two. This may require an overnight, giving the student a greater opportunity to check out the dorm.

These are some college selection websites :

• For alternative criteria go to www.fairtest.org or call 617-864-4810. They have a list of some 300 schools that apply non-traditional guidelines in the Admissions Process.

• Afro-American schools: blackhighereducation.com/hbcu.html

• Jesuit schools: ajcunet.edu

• Jewish affiliation: hillel.org

• Trade and vocational schools: overview.com/colleges/

Still struggling to pay off the college loan? Have you disconnected your cell phone just to avoid those darn creditors? Need a quick get rich scheme? Well maybe not that but in this article you will find some practical ways on saving money while attending your post secondary institution.

Books

College book prices have been rising along with the cost of tuition, and it is no wonder why so many students have resorted to photocopying their texts. Instead of photocopying why not buy an old edition book, all the information that you will need to know is there and you can keep that book as a reference. It�s not like the gravitational acceleration of earth is going to change with the new edition�right?

Too broke to buy book then try to find your books at the local library, not the school’s library. You will be amazed at how many books you will find at the local library, not only is it convenient but is also cheap. True, if you borrow a book for a semester it would cost you a late fee but I mean who cares right, since the $10 late fee charge is nothing when compared to $200 price tag of a new book price.

Another upcoming trend in colleges these days is the trend for students to rent their books. I guess these students probably wanted to keep their books as reference or may still need them for the following year and thought they could make some extra cash by renting them out. If you are thinking about renting then its best to rent to people that you know, and always have a legal signed document.

Always try to buy used. Many colleges now have a book buy back program, and these books can be found at the college used book room. Also, there are a ton of online book exchange sites on the net which are both free and convenient.

When to buy used & when to buy new? Good question. My rule is this, if a book is say like 4 years old then its best to buy used. The only time I recommend buying new is if the book is less than 4 years old, since it is more likely to being the latest edition, and you know for sure that the same edition is going to be used next term. This way you can sell your books for the maximum profit.

Food

Instead of buying a pop, from the local vending machine why not just buy a case of 24 to store at your locker or dorm room. You will be amazed at how much you will save when you buy in bulk.
Another way of saving on food is to visit your friend’s fridge on a daily basis and when ever possible try to attend to any free food locations (parties, club meetings, etc) on campus.

Clothing

Instead of buying those brand new check marked shoes, why not save your money for something that you will really need in college (laptop, books, contraceptives). Try to visit the local thrift store and check Ebay on a daily basis, you will be amazed at how many $1 t-shirts are out there.

Printing & Photocopying

Many students save money on printing and photocopying by the use of a scanner. The student simply scans what he/she needs and emails the scanned file back to him/her self. Not only will you save money, but will also have an electronic copy of the file which you could later download to your laptop or pda.
If you really must print then try not to use the school printing services. Most of the time these services will cost you an extra 5-10 per page, cents which could go towards the purchase of a new ink cartridge.

Money

Instead of using a credit card, why not only keep cash in your wallet/purse. Not only does this give an exact measure of how much cash you have at hand, and can spend, but will also avoid you from living above your means.

A generation ago few would have given much thought to educating themselves apart from a ‘brick and mortar’ educational institution. Certainly, for several generations, correspondence courses allowed people to gain knowledge while studying in the comfort of their homes, but these schools pale in comparison to entire universities dedicated to instructing students remotely. Let’s take a look at this growing phenomenon.

Claiming to be the nation’s leading online university, the University of Phoenix was among the first accredited universities to provide college degree programs via the Internet. Founded in 1976, the University of Phoenix began offering internet degree programs in 1989. The program has exploded in popularity to where nearly 150,000 students are in the process of pursuing degrees on the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level. Degreed programs in Business, Education, Management, Nursing, and Technology are available online through the university which claims to be the largest private university in the US.

So, why are degreed programs like those offered at the University of Phoenix so popular? In one word: convenience. You can study at home, at work while on break, on vacation, while traveling on business, etc. Because everything is accomplished online you simply log on, click into class, and go.

Yes, you need a computer, but that is what gives students the freedom that they have vs. traditional route students. Many online universities allow students to take courses at their own speed, usually one course at a time. Disciplined students can finish a course in as little as five weeks and start another course the following week. Indeed, it is not unheard of that students can receive their degrees in as little as 2-3 years after beginning the program.

Most employers recognize online educational options the same as traditional route options, therefore students find themselves available for financial reimbursement. Tuition costs are comparable to that of the “brick and mortar” institutions.

When it’s time to go to college, the word “scholarship” is confusing for both students and parents. We automatically think about student loans, FAFSA, tuition and fees, EFC, grants, and work study. But what we don’t realize is that knowing more about the scholarship process could save us thousands of dollars when trying to cover the cost of our kids’ education.

Scholarships are “free money” given away by the government, private institutions and organizations, charitable foundations, schools, universities, clubs, etc. Unlike loans, scholarships are not repaid to the scholarship provider.

Some of the scholarships available are:

With so many scholarships, how do you know which one to apply to or where can you go for an application?

Some scholarships are based on your kid’s grades or financial needs, while others are awarded based on ethnic groups, athletic or artistic abilities, or given to students interested in a particular field.

In some instances, your kids don’t have to have perfect grades to apply for a scholarship, and some don’t even ask for any proof of income.

For example, the Work-Study Scholarship will require your kid to work part-time for the money given and most jobs are on campus.

Finding information on scholarships on the Internet can be difficult because you won’t find everything you need to know to finance your child’s education.

A year ago, when my daughter was going to college, I searched the Internet and the only thing I found simple enough to do was fill out a FAFSA application. Since I didn’t have time to search the Internet at the moment, and because other information I found was so confusing, I decided just to fill out the application and did nothing else.

I promised myself that for the next year, I would search in advance because even though my daughter got some financial aid, I was convinced that there had to be other resources out there for her education.

That’s when I came accross a guide written by a father that went through the process of getting a scholarship for his child, who spent time talking to financial aid officers at many universities and discovered that just filling out the CSS Profile and FAFSA financial aid forms and meeting some deadlines is only half the battle in acquiring Federal Pell grants, college need-based grants, and Federal Stafford and Perkins loans.

I learned how college financial aid offices actually determine what federal aid and state grants will be given out to potential students and if you know in advance how to prepare yourself to receive the maximum amount for your child’s college education, you will obtain better results.

Once you know where to find the information and when and how to apply for a scholarship, it will be easy to obtain financial aid for your kids.

In modern society passing educational examinations becomes an increasingly important and essential means to a better job and improved living standards.

The structure and nature of all examinations are things we cannot change to suit ourselves. Hence we need to find ways of dealing effectively with them – ways of making their systems and requirements actually work for us.

There are ways of doing this and the following can be successfully used by anyone studying for any examinations because exams usually have certain key common elements.

Check Out The Syllabus As an examinee, you have to abide by certain rules and constraints. The time length of the exam, how many question you have to answer, and so forth.

But the examiners also have to abide by certain rules – and they cannot change them (at least not without adequate notice) any more than you can! They have to publish a syllabus for every examination and they can only ask questions on what is contained within that syllabus. Once you know the syllabus, you know where the starting and finishing lines are and how far you have to run

Moreover, all parts of the syllabus are not equal: some parts of it are more equal than others. Some topics will hardly ever be questioned while others will come up every year. Highlight the syllabus using two colours: red, say, for those areas that come up very frequently; green for those which rarely come up. Do this only after a systematic inspection of past exam papers, as the next section will explain.

Then use a third colour to highlight those (hopefully very few) parts of the syllabus which you have really serious difficulty with. Providing these parts are not numerous, and depending on how often they come up, it may be possible to leave them on one side. But do use sense and judgement in doing this!

Whatever You Are Studying, First Study The Exam Papers Studying past examination papers is almost as crucial as studying the subject you have chosen!

Get hold of as many past papers as you can. The more you have the better you will be able to discern any patterns. Draw up a grid on A4 paper. Divide the top horizontally into years – as many as you have past papers for plus one for the year in which you are going to sit the exam Divide the lefthand vertical into as many subject areas as seems appropriate from your inspection of the syllabus and past exam papers. Do this very careful and only after you have become very familiar with the exam topics. Also, make allowance for any coupling of topics because sometimes examiners like to link one topic with another. If you have, say, a dozen past papers and a particular linking has only come up once, you are probably save to forget it. But if it has occurred, say, three or four times it needs to go down.

So now you have large set of cells, each of which relates to a particular year and to a specific topic. Place a cross in each cell for the year in which a given topic has come up. If there is a pattern, and very often there is, you will soon see it. The relative frequency with which the various topic come up will now be easy to see.

It is not that examiners are doing a parallel kind of exercise to determine the structure of the next examination they set. They might well be unaware of the kinds of patterns we are talking about. But examiners do have at least a mental scheduling of the relative importance of particular topics and an impression of what have been chosen recently.

Now use the spare column on the right-hand side, which relates to the year you are going to sit the exam, to mark those subject areas which seem most likely to come up this next time. These are the ones which you need to spend extra time on. The other areas need to be covered as well, but your projections need special care and attention.

In the case of some examinations such a pattern may not seem to emerge. But often it will. In any case, it is worth the investment of time to find out, and whether it does or not it would be foolish not to inspect as many past papers as possible. You need to see how the questions are phrased, how they are divided, sometimes even subdivided, whether there are any special conditions imposed, such as papers which are divided into different sections with different lengths of time allowed for each, and so forth.

Overall, many students just seem to accept the constraints of an examination system as a barbed wire fence they can do nothing about. But the foregoing might just give you a set of wire cutters!