Career College Advisor

I’ve been taking online classes since my first college semester — before I even technically decided to "go back to school."  I’d graduated high school nearly four years before, and was working full time when I decided to take a couple of classes at the community college.  One was an online class.

It was my first online learning experience, and it was back when the idea of online classes was fairly new.  The system wasn’t always that easy to navigate, and figuring out the syllabus took some work at first — but I loved that class.

So when I decided to enroll in a traditional four-year school and pursue a degree the following semester, I immediately signed up for online classes.  For the remaining three and a half years that I was in school, almost every single semester at least one of my classes was online.

There were many things that I loved about online classes — how convenient they were, how easy it made scheduling my remaining classes — but most of all, I loved being able to learn independently, and primarily by reading.  In fact, I loved it so much that I’ve been looking for online degree programs for my master’s degree.  I don’t yet know where I’ll get the money to pay for my master’s, but if and when I do, I’ll definitely pursue my degree online!

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When I was in high school, we were all pressured rather strongly to attend a traditional college and pursue a traditional career.  Four-year universities were the expectation, with only the stoners and those types of kids — you know, the ones who took shop and classes like that — attending vocational schools.

Things have really changed now, even though many adults still look down their noses at nontraditional schools.  Vocational and trade schools are becoming much more accepted than they used to be, and teens and adults are being encouraged to be proud of their strengths and pursue them, rather than being ashamed to be attending a "lesser" college or pursuing a "lesser" career.

Golf is a great example of how things have changed.  Many golf colleges have sprung up in the past few decades, recognizing that there was a need for workers in the industry who actually knew what they were doing.  There is also a widespread understanding now that you don’t have to pursue a pro golf career in order to be successful in the golf industry.  There are plenty of other types of opportunities, such as golf course landscaping and maintenance.  You could also teach golf and make a pretty good living doing what you love.

I hope this reassures you that there isn’t something wrong with you for considering a nontraditional college and/or career.  What’s important is that you do a job you can enjoy and spend a lifetime doing — and that you do well at it — not the school you go to or the type of job it is!

Technorati Tags: traditional college, vacational schools, nontraditional schools, trade schools, golf colleges, pro golf career, golf industry, teach golf

Whenever you have to make a tough decision in your life, you cause your body some undue stress. For most people, this is a temporary issue that doesn’t cause any long-term effects. For others, the effects can be seriously damaging.

Let’s imagine that we have two people who both plan to be students of cooking schools. They are each trying to decide whether they want to attend the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago or the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute. Both of them realize that this is a big decision to make and are feeling stress about trying to decide.

One of these students will experience moderate symptoms of stress. This could include sleeplessness for a few nights while mulling over the decision or headaches brought on by the stress. When the decision is made, these symptoms will go away. In contrast, the other student will experience high levels of stress which may raise blood pressure and cause the onset of long-term addictive behaviors such as emotion-based eating or daily smoking.

Each of these students experienced the same type of stress and yet they dealt with it differently. This points to the fact that it is not situations themselves which cause us stress but rather the way that we opt to deal with decision-making in those situations.

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There are two very different types of approaches that can be taken to the classroom environment. One is the collaborative approach and one is the competitive approach. The majority of classrooms will rely on the competitive approach at least to some degree (just think of the grading system in most schools and you can see this). This seems to not make a lot of sense to people who have spent time working in the real world where there is a much greater need for collaboration than there is for competition. However, the competitive atmosphere tends to bring out the best skills in students and therefore remains the preferred approach by most classrooms and educators.

One way to harness the power of competition while also fostering the ability to collaborate with others is to create situations in which teams compete against each other. This may take place between cooking schools with similar programs. For example, the students from the Culinary Academy of California could be asked to compete in a cook-off against the students getting a Scottsdale Culinary Arts Degree. Alternatively, this same type of competition could take place between the students of a single school who have been divided into groups. In either case, the team learns to work together in a collaborative environment that simulates real life while also gaining the skills that are only fully developed when engaging in competition.

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If you are considering getting an online associates degree, you should be focusing your search for the perfect degree on finding a program that is going to be merely a stepping stone to the next part of your life. The ideal online associates degree program is one that will lead to an immediate job but which can also transition well into an online bachelor degree program in case you do decide to go further with your education.

For example, the online health care associate degree is one that can lead to both employment and additional education. Immediately upon graduation, you should be able to find a good job in the health care field with only the associates degree behind you. However, you can also move forward with additional education like attending a bachelor degree nursing program.

Not every associates degree out there is going to offer you the opportunity to use the degree in a successful way over time. Many online degrees are good only for immediate job placement but don’t offer a real solid education that will let you transition to a more long-term degree in the future. Make sure that the one you choose covers both bases so that you’ll never regret your choice.

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