Values of Colleges Do Matter

You may want to get into a specific program. You may be looking for a scholarship. However, all of this is very important but so is the value set of the school. What type of core values does it have? Is it able to meet your needs through these values? If you are not sure, take the time to learn a bit more about the school before you decide to enroll.

Quality Education

One of the key things you should see in the core values of the colleges you are considering is the quality of the education provided. Some schools teach curriculums that are outdated or that fail to meet the demands of the industry in which the student will enter. The fact is, if the quality of education is not there, you cannot succeed in the best possible manner. Find out what the school offers to help you to know they are committed to constantly providing the highest quality of education possible.

Available Resources

Times are tough for some universities. This is evident in the rising tuition costs and the dwindling number of enrollees. However, as you are considering which school to attend, be sure the one you do select has the resources to meet your needs. This includes the human resources to teach classes at a smaller size. It includes financial resources to ensure that all classrooms are stocked and that all materials you need are onsite. It also includes providing you with buildings, classrooms, and equipment that are well maintained and up-to-date. Does the facility really offer the right resources for your success?

Preparing You for the World

While your focus may be on obtaining a degree, it is also important to consider whether the college has the tools to help you to enter the world and find a job easily. Does it offer career-planning services? Does the school consistently train and adjust curriculums to meet the needs of the workforce? You want to know that when you leave this school that you will have the tools, knowledge, and skills to get a job in the field.

Colleges are not all the same. As you consider all of the options you have, nothing is more important than having a school that's dedicated to helping you to succeed. This is a growing and changing industry and only the best facilities can prepare you for the work force that lies ahead of you. Look for a school with a set of values that makes it clear to you that the facility is doing all it can to prepare you.

Community College May Be A Good First Option

Entering into college isn't an easy task but it is feasible for those who have this as a goal. In an ideal situation if you are college bound you have addressed the issues that need to be addressed during your high school career and have a good enough record under your belt to be accepted to the college or colleges of your selection. Unfortunately some students don't think about going to college until after high school is done, and if they failed to make the grade or didn't do well on or in some cases even take the SATs they may believe that their chances for getting into a good college have vanished.

If you failed to get it together during your stint in high school or made a late decision on attending college there is no need to fret. There are several things that you can still do in order to make yourself ready to attend the school of your choice in the coming year.

It all initiates with making application to your local community college. Most people don't think that community colleges are worth attending but in fact they supply numerous benefits for students who are late bloomers academically and for those that are in need of a stepping stone between high school and a fully accredited University. A community college can aid a student to attain everything they need to become eligible for a good quality school in about a year's time.

There are numerous benefits but one of the biggest benefits of attending a community college for a segment of your college career is the cost is so much less that you can save thousands of dollars just by doing a year or two of classes there before moving on to the University of your choice. It is for this reason that many students, even those that are prepared to enter college straight out of high school, are opting to attend a local community college. Not only do they find that they save money off their tuition but most also discover they can save more money by living at home and working locally while completing their first few semesters of college.

Why Social Work Continuing Education?

If you just started a job in the field of social work, continuing education might be the furthest consideration from your mind. Perhaps you do not even know why it is necessary for you to take the yearly courses that may be required by your job in order to keep your certification. Many people may not completely understand this field. To some individuals, the people in this field are the bad guys in a manner of speaking. It is true that they often have to carry out difficult tasks that others do not like.

If you are in this field and have not been in it for long, perhaps you are just getting to the point where you see the broad spectrum of knowledge that you are going to need to handle the cases you run into. At a nursing home, there might be questions of power of attorney with children and their parents. At hospitals there may be questions of the mental state of a patient and whether they should go home to their children. At schools, there may be a student who needs emotional counseling. There are so many scenarios that could possibly come up. You will not likely run into all of these unless you travel to various places for your job, but they are all options for areas where you can increase your knowledge for social work continuing education.

As the time draws near for you to look into getting in those required hours of social work continuing education for your job, you will want to consider a few things as you look at various institutions. Time will of course be a factor if you work a full-time job. Learning style is another consideration, and you will also want to consider the course topics available at the various locations.

You may not have time to attend courses at the actual college. It may be out of your comfort zone not to have a teacher right in front of you, but with new technology today it can be almost like they are. You can choose from webinars and online courses that will help you to have more flexibility in your schedule. You may even be able to take reading courses.

Your learning style should also be something that you take into consideration when pursuing social work continuing education. If you are not an auditory learner then you will definitely want to have a course where you can at least see the teacher on your computer as they teach. If you do well with just listening then you might do fine with some type of mp3 course.

Five Tips for Learning How to Study

Learning how to study effectively is always a challenge for students who are often overwhelmed and over-committed to school, work and extra-curricular activities. The following tips are some I learned as I struggled through my undergraduate studies. If I had known these things in high school, I'm sure I would have been a better student. By the time I reached graduate school, I was an expert. Follow these suggestions and take the fast track to success!

1.   Avoid being overwhelmed the last weeks of class by preparing all semester. Of course, the best practice is to stay current with your reading and assignments as they are given. Realistically, staying current doesn't always happen, especially if you have other more demanding classes that require your attention just to stay afloat. If this is the case, you will want to focus on Tip 2 more than ever.

2.  Spend quality time with your reading assignments. I used to tell my Introductory Psychology classes not to read a chapter word for word. The truth is, especially in Intro courses, the textbook chapters are long and arduous. Unless you're super-human, your reading attention span won't last past the first few pages. Your mind will start to wonder, and the time you spend will be non-productive. Instead, spend quality time with the chapters. Start by flipping through the pages. Look at the section titles to get a general understanding of the chapter content. Go to the end of the chapter and read the Summary or Review sections. You'll be amazed at how much you can get out of a chapter by following the steps described above. Once you have a pretty good idea of the chapter content, go back and take a more careful look. Go through the chapter section by section. Focus your reading around the words in bold print. These point to the key ideas in the chapter. Jot down some notes to help you remember these particular concepts. Be sure to include in your notes the page number on which the topic can be found for future reference. This is especially helpful if you're allowed to use your book or notes for the exam. If you spend 20-30 minutes of quality time with your reading, I guarantee you'll get more out of it than trying to read the entire chapter cover to cover.

3.   Don't cheat sleep. This tip is critical to good performance. Yes, we can push ourselves a little by staying up later than usual or getting up a little earlier, but the better you do at maintaining your regular sleep schedule, the happier and less stressed you'll be. Disrupting sleep patterns has serious consequences including insomnia. Once you've messed with your circadian rhythm, it's hard to get back to a normal sleep routine because your brain doesn't know when it's time to start shutting down. A common complaint from college students is that their brains won't shut off so they can go to sleep. Lack of sleep also triggers our stress response system, which means your body is being flooded with cortisol. Increased cortisol levels can cause insomnia so you can see it's a viscous cycle. The truth is, you can perform better when rested; therefore, you can complete the work in about half the time. If you study when you're rested, you'll not only be able to retain more information, you'll be a happier person to be around.

4.  Avoid cramming. Cramming for a test rarely produces a positive outcome. Here's the problem. Our brains can hold only a certain amount of information in short-term memory. When you cram for a test, you are literally trying to cram information into short-term memory, but your brain will only retain a limited amount of what you cram into it. I used to give this example to my students. Hold your hands together to form a cup shape. Now imagine you're putting information into this rather small container. Eventually, the container will get full. If you keep trying to put information in the container, some of the information you already put in will be forced to spill out. It works kind of like pouring too much tea into a teacup. How do you solve this problem? If you follow Tip 2 above, you will effectively transfer some of the information to long-term memory, which has a much larger capacity for retaining information. You can create large networks of information by tying the new information to something you already know. Figure out how to make it make sense and you won't forget it. Guaranteed!

5.   Factor down time into your schedule. Believe it or not, this act will help you be a better student. The truth is that our brains and bodies need down time to recover and rejuvenate. A rejuvenated brain will perform better than a brain that is drained and exhausted. The thought of down time might seem unrealistic when you're experiencing end-of-the-semester crunch time. Assignments, papers, and projects are due, and you have to get ready for the final exam. Down time doesn't have to be a long time. It just has to be time that you don't read, use the computer, or think about all the work you have ahead. Down time has to be quality time. It might include a walk around the block, 30 minutes of television, dinner with a friend, or relaxing meditation.

How to Find Teaching Assistant Courses?

Are you thinking of becoming a teaching assistant but you cannot find the right program? There are many ways on how you can find courses for this profession. You just have to make use of the resources that you have as well as the connections that you already have.

Use Search Engines on the Internet

The easiest way to find them is to look for them over the internet. Just use the top search engines that you know and key in teaching assistant courses.This will give you websites that can help you find courses that you can take within your country, state, or city. You may even be more specific by looking for courses that are done in colleges or universities, community education centers, online or web schools, as well as other educational centers.

Visit Schools

You may also want to visit the schools that you have in your area. Most colleges and universities will have assistant courses that will help you with your career plans. The advantage that you have when you visit the schools is that you can see the facilities, classrooms, and the surrounding areas. You can also have a feel of the place and see if this is the right school for you. You can even talk to a career counsellor or some members of the faculty if you have questions about their teaching assistant courses.

Ask Teaching Assistants

If you happen to know any of your friends or family members who are teaching assistants, you may want to set a meeting with them and ask questions about these courses. You can ask them how they got their certification as well as their license. You can inquire about the place where they were able to apply for teaching courses as well. This way, you can have an idea how they became a teaching assistant and you can inquire about the difficulty or the complexity of the things that they had to go through while they were studying their courses in order to become what they are right now.

Join Forums and Discussion Boards

If you do not know anyone who is a teaching assistant, you may want to look for one through the internet forums or discussion boards about it. Here you can start a thread about courses that they had to take and where they had to take them. You can get hints and tips on how to go about the difficult courses as well as how to go through the trainings and seminars. By signing up and being a member in forums, you can have people who can directly give you their experiences about the these courses.

Deciding On an Engineering Degree

If you are currently a college bound student and have yet to decide on a degree you'd like to acquire you are not alone. Choosing a degree that will suit you well is a daunting task and your future job and career will depend on it. If you are still undecided, you should consider studying for an engineering degree. Why an engineering degree, you say? Believe it or not, there are vast opportunities that lie in the broad field of engineering.

If you are part of the general public that does not understand exactly what an engineer does, than you'll be glad to know there is a plethora of different types of jobs that falls under "engineering". If you graduate with a degree in engineering, you will likely be involved in the research, design and development of new products and services. Whether it's electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, bioengineering, or civil engineering, you have a number of different choices that can cater to things that interest you.

If you like designing medical technology, gaming systems, cellular phones, robots, or cars than electrical engineering is for you. If you prefer working with large buildings, bridges, roads, and dams than you will be interested in civil engineering. Whether it's big or small, the field of engineering encompasses designing and creating most of the world in which we live.

Engineering also incorporates skills more than just that of the technical variety. Even though it is a technical subject, a good engineer will also need to develop considerable management and communication experience, as both of these are important to the engineering field. The degree will encompass a number of different subjects and skills from math, to design, to mechanics, and more.

Whether it's designing and manufacturing computers or cars, or helicopters and houses, engineers have had a hand in it. While a scientist will ask why a problem arises, an engineer wants to find a solution to the problem. If you like to use your imagination, judgment, and reasoning to solve problems, then this degree is the perfect option for you.

How Alternative Educational Methods?

21st century, latest technological gadgets and modern outlook - we seem to have everything. There's still something which we crave for when it comes to education for our little ones and that is different teaching methods. Why is it that, we, as parents are not satisfied with the teaching methods adopted by schools and colleges? Is it because children are pressurized too much into studying or is it that education in school is only limited to academics?

Whatever be the reason, parents are trying to look for alternative educational methods, wherein their children can not only learn better, but also in an easy way, without stressing them. So, what are the other methods available for parents to explore? As of now, we can find that there are 3 alternative educational methods available for parents and children. They are:

1. Montessori schools 

2. Waldorf/ Steiner schools 

3. Friends schools 

4. Homeschooling

While the Montessori schools and Waldorf schools are gaining popularity among many, friends school and homeschooling are not much known in India. One can find that the Montessori Method of learning is fast catching up in our country as an alternate educational method. Initially, one may notice that the child is not taught on par with the subjects and topics in regular schools, but as they get used to the schedule and pattern of learning, they are exposed to more topics and subjects. With hands on experience given importance to understand the various concepts, children find that they love the very thought of going to school and learning.

Montessori methods not only emphasize on the importance of the child to understand the concepts, but also help them in their overall development. A 7/8yr old child being able to give a speech on a greener planet and global warming with data is something which can mesmerize anyone of us. Yes, this is possible through the Montessori Method, wherein children learn to deliver speeches and take part in debates as early as 8/9years.

The Waldorf method is also on the similar lines, wherein a child's creativity is put to task to imagine and understand everything and also use analytics to analyze the same. One can also find that in this method of teaching/learning, a teacher is given the freedom to choose the syllabus and curriculum that they term fit for the students of their class. This helps the teacher decide on how much to cover in a topic and also how much can the students understand and learn.