Author: Staff (Page 50 of 62)

3 Ways to Assess the True Worth of your Degree

July 12, 2011 / Staff

The job market has always been competitive in one way or another. No matter what the job, you as a potential employee need to somehow stand out from the rest of the applicants.

These days, employers are turning their sights towards potential candidates who possess more than just a standard college education. Those on the job hunt who possess advanced degrees often look more appealing than other candidates.

Check the Accreditation of the School

If you are going to pursue advanced education, check to make sure the school offers accredited programs. It would be a terrible feeling to get to the end of a course in higher education and find out you have an unaccredited masters.

Employers will generally tend to only acknowledge advanced education degrees from accredited schools. You want to be fully recognized for all of your hard work in your advanced degree. Researching each school thoroughly will help to avoid heartache in the future.

Know the Outcome of Your Chosen Degree

While many people choose to undertake an advanced degree to benefit their current career, there are many others who choose to pursue the degree to start a new career.

If you are one of the latter, it’s a smart idea to fully research the types of jobs and potential careers that will be available to you upon completion of your course. A course may sound appealing, but it’s no good if you can’t get the kind of job you want out of it.

Ask Those in the Know

There’s no better way to find out the true worth of a degree than directly asking someone who has the same one.

Also, if you know of anyone currently working in the field you want to get into, have a talk with them and ask them what kind of advanced degree they have. There may be a better option out there that you have not yet researched.

It might also be a good idea to ring around to various companies that you could see yourself working for, and asking the human resources department exactly what type of advanced degree they would be looking for in a potential applicant.

Ringing around to businesses is also a great way to network and make some employment contacts for the future. It never hurts to get started early!

Any degree is a lot of hard work for anyone. Make sure you will be fully recognized for all of the work you have put in, and employers will then start to recognize you!

What kind of advanced degree are you thinking about pursuing? How do you know it is accredited?

Your Education

college education

New Rules are out for for-profit colleges

June 2, 2011 / Staff

We’ve been highlighting some of the troubling news stories about for-profit college scams, and we’ve welcomed the notion of new rules governing the industry.

The new rules from the Obama administration are out, but they’ve been scaled back a bit from the initial proposed rules.

The Obama administration on Thursday issued a series of highly anticipated regulations aimed at cracking down on for-profit colleges and other career training programs that leave students saddled with unmanageable debts and contribute to an unequal share of federal student loan defaults.
The final rules issued by the Department of Education, however, are significantly less stringent than a draft version released last year, giving college programs an additional three years to come in line before possibly losing access to lucrative federal student aid dollars. The changes come after an unprecedented lobbying and campaign finance offensive over the past year by the for-profit college industry, which derives a vast majority of revenues from federal student loan and grant programs and has sought to protect that income by gaining influence in Washington.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the changes came after discussion with “lots and lots of different folks,” not just the industry, and he pointed out that the colleges were not unanimous in their suggestions for changes.
“What we really wanted to do was give people a chance to reform … this was not about ‘gotcha,'” Duncan said. “We tried to be very thoughtful, very reasonable and give people every opportunity to succeed, but be very clear where we wouldn’t permit ongoing failure.”

The intense lobbying campaign helped the industry, as the rules are weaker. You can check the article for the details. Lobbyist hacks like Lanny Davis did their job.

That said, this is a decent first step. It’s appropriate that the schools have a time frame to remedy problems, and this should help weed out the worst abuses.

Meanwhile, 10 states have opened a joint probe to look into the marketing practices of for-profit colleges, so we might yet see some interesting developments in this area.

The key here is you have to do your research before enrolling in one of these schools and taking on a mound of student debt.

Your Education

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The Coolest Jobs In Sports

April 29, 2011 / Staff

Being involved with sports, in any way, form or fashion, is probably the best job that anyone can have, and there is never a lack for things to do, or to talk about. If you can manage to luck into a job in any capacity, go for it, but here are the top three jobs we’d like to take in the wonderful, wacky world of sports.

The General Manager

Sure, it’s a lot of pressure, but can you imagine anything being as great as the job of general manager? You’re enlisted with boosting a team’s sportsbook odds, watching players develop throughout the years (providing you don’t get canned), and you get the best seats in the house for every game. With the growing popularity of fantasy sports, people obviously would love to be in charge of a team, and there is no one who would turn down the job of GM (unless it’s the Pittsburgh Pirates).

The Ballboys/Towelboys

This is for the youngsters, although we’re sure a few adults would love to take the job as well, and just because we listed it for the boys, the girls can get in on the action as well. How cool is that? Free tickets to the game, seats that your friends (and their parents) would drool over, and you get to meet your heroes on a daily basis. You’re likely to make a highlight reel if you’re a ballboy who misses a foul ball, but there are worse things that could happen in life.

The 12th Man/Utility Guy/Fourth-Line Player/Third-String Guy

Look, we’d all love to be the star, but sometimes, hard work can only take you so far. The guys (and girls) out of the spotlight are, in some cases, the guys (and girls) who keep the team together. Take Chicago’s Brian Scalabrine, for example. He has earned a steady paycheck in the NBA since 2001 by being a good teammate, a guy who realizes he’s not going to play much, so he contributes in other ways like cheering the team on, and he can also see something on the court that some may miss if they’re busy, you know, playing. It’s not a bad gig if you can land it.

Your Career

How to become a lingerie model

April 18, 2011 / Staff

With the sluggish job market, people are considering all sorts of interesting career options. Yet the idea of becoming a lingerie model has always had appeal for many women. For many, it’s a glamorous career and it can do wonders for one’s self image.

This video has some helpful advice on how to become a lingerie model. The focus is on working for lingerie retailers, like Victoria’s Secret or Frederick’s of Hollywood. Yet there are many other options for lingerie models, particularly glamour modeling. Companies like Maxim and Bullz-Eye feature beautiful models in lingerie and bikinis.

One fact that some might not understand is that you don’t need to be tall to be a lingerie model or a glamour model. Victoria’s Secret is an obvious exception, as they primarily hire fashion models for their shoots, as does Sports Illustrated. Instead, it’s more important to have an hourglass figure and an ample cup size to succeed in this area. Also, there’s very little runway work in this area – that’s for the fashion models. If you’re interested in this field, you should probably avoid tattoos as well.

Listen to the video and learn more about becoming a model.

Your Career

Both parties shill for the for-profit college industry

February 17, 2011 / Staff

Some Democrats and Republicans are trying to scuttle attempts by the Obama administration to impose new rules on for-profit colleges to prevent abuses against students to rack up huge debt for dubious degrees.

The Department of Education is tired of federally subsidized student loans going to shady for-profit colleges that have poor track records of getting the students who do graduates good work — often leaving them stuck with mountains of debt. To curb this phenomenon, the agency has been moving along with a new regulation they call the “Gainful Employment” rule.
Under “Gainful Employment” rules, for profit schools would have to show that their students can find work without getting stuck with unreasonable debt in order to qualify for federal loans.
But behind the scenes, a bipartisan bloc of House members see things differently. They say the rule would reach too far and clamp down on institutions that do a decent job of educating and preparing students. But they want to tie the Department of Education’s hands completely, and block the funds they’d need to implement the rules at all.

Fortunately, many members of Congress are with the administration on this, and Obama could veto any bill with this language.

Your Career, Your Education

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