Advantages Of Earning Your Degree Online

Advantages Of Earning Your Degree Online
by: Robert Michael



Online at the Back of the Line

If earning your degree, especially as a mid-life returning student, is about personal fulfillment or training to start your entrepreneurship, then where or how you get your degree isn't important to you. What's important is simply that you learn what you need to learn.

If, however, you're looking for a degree to start or advance your career and you'll need to impress an employer or potential employer with that degree, you may be somewhat at a disadvantage having earned it online.

It doesn't seem fair, and in the next few decades this will undoubtedly change as online degrees become more common. But for now there is some resistance on the part of employers to the idea that you have learned as much as you might have in the classroom. The most notable exceptions to this are in the areas where the job skills you'll tackle once you get your degree rely on your technical and Internet savvy: high tech, new media, and telecommunications. Many employers also value an online consultant-related degree as highly as one earned on campus.

Employers' concerns about online degrees are that the student is losing out on valuable career-related input because of failure to interact face to face with instructor and peers. They also say it's just such a new concept that the jury has to be out on whether students are really learning this way - unlike classroom-focused education.

The career choices for which employers are least likely to accept online training are in health care, legal professions, biotechnology, governmental and financial services.

A survey of hundreds of human resource executives resulted in several suggestions for online-degreed job hunters: (1) Be up front with the employer that you earned your degree online; (2) Come to the interview armed with verification of the courses' or degrees' value - textbooks, tests, course materials, information on accreditation and even testimonials from respected educators or graduates who now hold influential and respected positions; (3) Offer some real hands-on experience such as an internship in the field. (4) Intersperse your online courses with courses or outside activities that show your team and people person skills - join Toastmasters, hold an office (student, non-profit organization or otherwise, join the school debate team or write for the school paper).

With one notable exception these do seem like good suggestions. The first idea, to let your employer know up front that you earned your degree online, seems self-serving on the part of these human resource folks. Surely this is not good advice for a job candidate who is under no obligation to explain how she or he got the degree - unless of course she bought it.

But that's an ethics issue. This is not. What this is more likely about is the employers' desires to delve into things about which they have no business. In the minds of many, undoubtedly, those who earn their degrees online are those who are tied down as caregivers of children, older than the age of the typical college student (which isnt' really typical anymore anyway,) or perhaps medically homebound for a time. None of which is ever the business of a recruiter.

The best advice, ultimately, for those who earn their degrees or part of their degrees online, is that they do not share this information unless asked directly. This is probably going to be sound advice at least until there has been a decade or so of entrepreneur or executive level success as a result of online-degreed education.

Learn To Speak The German Language

Learn To Speak The German Language
by: John Davison


German is one of the most widely spoken languages worldwide. It is the official language of several countries including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium. After the English language, it is the most commonly known language in the European Union, of which it is one of the official languages. The German language is the third most taught foreign language in the United States, behind Spanish and French, and there are many Americans that can trace their ethnic heritage back to German roots. There are many reasons to learn the German language, such as potential career prospects, current career enrichment, and for enhanced traveling experiences.

If you are interested in learning the German language for professional reasons, you have several options from which to choose. You can attend a college or University and earn your degree in German. Earning a degree in German will provide you with a solid foundation of the German language, both written and conversationally. With a degree in German, you will have a surprising number of career opportunities. If you are bilingual, you can be certified as a foreign language translator for example. This is a stimulating career opportunity that offers you many options. You can work full-time for a foreign language translation firm, translating important business documents or web pages for global corporations. Or you can be a freelance foreign language translator, setting your own work schedule and workload. Another career opportunity is to teach English to students in one of the German speaking countries. By knowing both English and German, you will able to enjoy a lifestyle in a German speaking country where you can have a fulfilling career, and experience the life and culture of another nation.

You might be established in a career, and be required to learn the German language in order to either communicate with overseas business associates, or to relocate. You can enroll in an accelerated German language program online, which is a fast, convenient, and easy way to learn the language. The online course will give you the skills to read, write, and communicate with others. There are several online programs available for enrollment that provide accelerated programs in German, as well as many other languages. You will find that if you need to relocate to a German-speaking country for your job, having a grasp of the language ahead of time will help to make your relocation and transition less stressful.

If you want to learn a little German in order to travel, you might consider combining your learning experience and vacation by participating in an immersion program. Learning the language in this way, you will not only learn how to communicate in German, but you will also experience the vibrant German culture. By traveling to Germany, where the language has its origins, you will become a part of the life and culture, and you will learn the language quickly and with surprising ease. You will learn the conversational and idiomatic styles of the language. You will be interacting daily with native German people who won’t necessarily be willing or able to communicate with you in English. Therefore, you will need to try to communicate with them in the German language. You will become engrossed into the everyday life of Germany. You will learn to appreciate the German culture: the history, the architecture, the food (and beer!), and the people. As part of the immersion program, you will also attend courses in which you will learn how to read and write in German as well. There is no better way to learn the German language and experience Germany.

Whether you are interested in learning the German language for academic reasons or professional reasons, or you are interested in learning how to speak German for a vacation, knowing another language is an intellectually and personally stimulating achievement that will open your eyes to a new culture.

How To Kick Butt At Basketball Camp and Get A Sports Scholarship!

How To Kick Butt At Basketball Camp and Get A Sports Scholarship!
by: Lynn West



Do you know Why It so Important To Kick Butt at Basketball Camp? Yes, it is FUN. That is one reason. But a more important reason is it gives you a GREAT chance to get your foot in the door of a college basketball scholarship.

So, you may be asking, Why would doing well at basketball camp make that much of a difference? Simple! Because the most important step in getting recruited to play college basketball is getting coaches to NOTICE You. Kicking Butt at Basketball Camp can get you noticed FAST.

Getting a basketball scholarship takes many steps. However, if nobody knows about you, no matter how good you are, …you won’t get recruited.

College coaches are always looking for good athletes who can better their teams. If you are a high school player who is wanting a college scholarship, the Basketball Camp is the perfect place for both the coach and the player to get to know each other.

It is the job of the player to WOW the coaches. The coaches need to know who and where the good players are and all about them before they can recruit them for their teams.

How do they find the best players for their teams? They usually don’t do it by just surfing the net. The may find out some information on the Internet. But, they get most of their player info from other coaches and recruiters they have learned to trust.

Coaches may play against each other, but listen up… They are still friends with each other as well. They know other coaches on every level. And, they are all looking for great new players.

Coaches usually move around quite a bit, and they form many friendships with other basketball coaches wherever they go. Coaches value the friendships they have with other basketball coaches.

They are just like the rest of us; they love to be the first one to pass on good info. They talk among themselves all the time about the game of basketball and how and where they can find super new recruits. Coaches trust the opinion of a fellow coach who is also a friend rather than the word of a stranger.

The big time coaches use recruiters and scouts. They also talk with booster club members and sports big shots. In other words, they will listen to the people they already know and trust.

News of a “hot” basketball player travels fast. Today, with a click of a mouse or a phone call, a coach two thousand miles away can learn of a new up-and-coming athlete. This is really how word gets around in the world of college basketball. News of a high school star point guard could travel around the country in a matter of minutes.

What can a high school basketball player do who wants to play college basketball do to get this important attention from coaches? Easy, strut your stuff where the coach can see you or hear about you. Be a basketball camp STAND OUT!!! The camps are super places for coaches on every level to find new good players. They will be keeping their eyes open for any player who could become a basketball star.

Make the coaches think about what they could do with you if they could have you on their teams. Make them think, hey, with just a little coaching from me; this kid could be a raving sensation when he gets to college. They will be drooling over you. Believe me, if you do Kick Butt At Basketball Camp, the coaches will keep you in mind for their teams.

So, it is very important for anyone who wants a college basketball scholarship to attend as many of the camps as possible.

Just one super day or hour or even just one great play that is seen by just one coach or even a friend of a coach could lead to a full-ride college basketball scholarship. If you can jump out of the gym, believe me, the coaching world will hear about you.

New Orleans Schools Reach Out To Parents

New Orleans Schools Reach Out To Parents
by: Patricia Hawke



The unsuccessful state of public schools in the nation is epitomized by the devastation of the city of New Orleans and the New Orleans Schools. Inner city and racial achievement gaps that had been ignored before Hurricane Katrina were impossible to ignore once the districts had to be rebuilt. The biggest challenge in rebuilding the New Orleans Schools seems to reflect the overall problem with public education in the United States. While everyone seems to have an opinion, no one really knows the best way to educate our children.

Helping Parents Adapt to the New Orleans Schools

Many former students of the New Orleans Schools are still scattered in other cities around the nation. But for those who returned to the emerging new system, the past school year has been confusing and often frenzied. Low-income parents and parents with little education are rarely comfortable in academic settings. But these are the people who the New Orleans Schools need to reach out to most.

A coalition of community groups has come together to create a parents’ guide to the new New Orleans Schools. The New Orleans Parents' Guide to Public Schools contains a ton of information on the school options available, how to obtain lost documents, childcare, and picking the best school for your child.

The guide lists all 69 of the new New Orleans Schools, maps, photos, how to register, and transportation for each. The goal of the guide is two-fold. First, it aims to make parents more comfortable with the New Orleans Schools. Second, it tries to make accessing the information they need as convenient as possible. A list of locations where parents of children in the New Orleans Schools can pick up the book is available at http://www.nolaparentsguide.org .

The book's editor, Aesha Raheed, said, “Empowering all of our families is a critical step for us to redesign public education in New Orleans. We're focused on student achievement and academic outcomes. We have an opportunity to push us in that direction. We're redefining what the expectations of public education are... and making sure our students get the best education they can.”

Challenges of Low Income Populations

Educators in New Orleans Schools are intimately familiar with the challenges of educationing “at-risk” populations. Children who come from poverty, who have poorly educated parents, or absent parents, or live in dangerous environments, are more likely to suffer from attention issues, undiagnosed learning disabilites, and to struggle in school. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, many of these children in the New Orleans Schools are now dealing with post-traumatic shock issues as well.

The one unexpected benefit of the devastating hurricane is that the New Orleans Schools are being rebuilt from the ground up. Administrators, educators, and parents of the New Orleans Schools district are creating new public schools, charter schools and other initiatives designed to provide all children with adequate public education.

Preparing Yourself For Home Schooling

Preparing Yourself For Home Schooling
by: Low Jeremy



Home schooling refers to providing educational instruction to children in the home. Home schooling supplies children with a more personalized education.

Home schooling has proven itself to be a very good method of teaching children their ABC's. The home provides a very good environment for children to learn. More children feel more adjusted and more comfortable being educated at the home. And with home education, it is more the responsibility of the parents to teach their children. And because of the time spend with each other, this approach has made parents and their kids become closer with each other.

With home schooling, parents will also be able to save a lot when it comes to expenses. They no longer have to worry about getting schooling supplies for their children as required by most traditional institutions. Home school supplies are bought according to need as opposed to requirement. Aside from required learning tools, the parents are the ones responsible for providing other home schooling supplies such as pencils, notebooks, paper and the like.

If you plan on having your own kids home schooled, you might need to be prepared. One requirement is to find time to personally teach your children. With home schooling, you do not rely on anyone else to make your kids learn. That responsibility will fall on your lap. The same goes with preparing your children's home school supplies. It won't be as extensive a list as what public schools would require, but it would be wise to have your own list ready before you do your shopping. Here is a list of important things that you should always have ready on your home for your kids' home schooling supplies.

You should be able to have paper readily available in your home. This should include ample supply of typing and printing paper. You should also be including other paper supplies such as steno and college-ruled paper as your home-schooled children grow. Also include different writing instruments handy such as pencils, pens, colored pencils, crayons, chalk, markers, etc. Also include in your shopping list other items like all-purpose glue, scotch tape, rulers, erasers, staplers, paper clips, portable blackboard, and calculators.

In preparing to home school your children, you should also be able to have different learning tools available around the home. Different subjects may require various educational tools to help your children learn and understand their lessons better. For history and geography lessons, it is important to have a globe or a world map available as well as history and geography books within reach.

For science subjects, your students would require, magnifying glasses, prisms, a microscope or a telescope depending on your child's grade level. You can also include musical instruments to teach music lessons as well as other items that you think would be helpful for other subject types.

Up-Close, Behind-the-Scenes Look at Career Training

Up-Close, Behind-the-Scenes Look at Career Training
by: Sherry Harris



Making decisions can be difficult especially if you don’t have all the facts. When it comes to deciding which career path to take the options appear to be varied and complex. In this day and age the number of fields in which to have a career have steadily increased but the career training for these fields may not be readily available. Or so it would seem. With the advent of the computer and the internet, career training has grown and expanded in leaps and bounds. So how does one make sense of so many career choices and options? Get the facts.

• Career training is highly affordable – Unlike a traditional four year college or university education, career training is quite inexpensive. In some cases the training could be charged to a credit card without exceeding the spending limit. Or a part-time job could be worked in order to save enough money to pay for the career training in cash in a relatively short time. A personal loan from your bank could also pay for the necessary training. Only one loan would be needed whereas with a college education multiple student loans are usually required to pay for tuition. Whichever method of payment you choose none of them will leave you in heavy debt for many years to come.

• Career training is convenient – In the comfort and privacy of your own home your career training can be carried out with a minimum of fuss. By means of a computer and internet access you can get started on the road to a rewarding and fulfilling career. There is no need to get in your vehicle, battle with rush hour traffic and arrive at an overcrowded university campus. Instead you can take your training at your leisure because it is up to you when, where and how long you want to immerse yourself in your studies. You set your own schedule and pace for your career training which leaves you firmly in control of your life.

• Career training is diverse – Career training gives a student unlimited opportunities to learn about any number of subjects and topics. Whichever way your interests turn you can find a corresponding career training course to match them. There are many people who enjoy the role of educator and they make their extensive knowledge available to others by means of career training courses. All you have to do is take advantage of them by means of your computer and internet access. Because experts are teaching the course of your preference you can be confident that you are receiving the best training available. This leads us to our next fact.

• Career training is efficient – Upon completion of a course your skill and knowledge level will be at peak condition because career training provides real-world experience. Instead of studying about the theory of a particular subject you will actually do the work as if you are already on the job. Career training provides hands-on interactive instruction. Receiving the experience of doing the work in the field of your choice will put you ahead of the people who merely sat in a classroom and did nothing but read books and listen to a professor give lectures. There is no substitute for real-world experience and that is exactly what career training provides. In addition most career training subjects can be learned in just a few months as opposed to a four to five year university education.

As the facts indicate, career training is a very viable option for people who want to have a career and be successful. Studies have shown that the trend in many industries is moving away from hiring people with college degrees to hiring people who have specialized skills or knowledge. Career training allows a person to choose a specific topic and gain an extensive knowledge and skill set. Employers then hire the person because they have received specialized practical training and experience in a certain area of expertise. So ask yourself, “Do I want to waste time and money obtaining a degree that I may or may not be able to use to get a job or would I rather gain a specialized skill in a short amount of time without incurring a large debt and land a great job?” If you are unsure of how to answer the question do yourself a favor and get the facts.