The field of online study has grown in the last decade as the convenience of online education has attracted more students with the flexibility that traditional brick-and-mortar institutions cannot offer. Yet, with greater freedom comes greater responsibility. Here are four tips on how to optimize your online educational experience.
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New York’s Governor, David Patterson recently proposed a tax on non-diet soft drinks. No doubt it would succeed as a revenue generator for the state, but would it work as a way to sway behavior?
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Since employment figures are what’s called a “lagging economic indicator’ – meaning that new jobs don’t appear until after economic activity has increased for a few quarters – it can often be frustrating to hear that “recovery has begun” when you’re still out of a job and looking.
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Debate rages over questions like, “Can taking vitamin supplements offset the damage we inflict on our bodies through eating a less-than-healthy diet?”
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The departure of two American cultrual icons yesterday – Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson – demonstrates just how tenuous our grasp is upon life. Both these legendary figures passed away years before their natural time. Their untimely demise provokes some thought surrounding the immense benefits of wellness care and other preventative medical strategies.
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I have activated the “Student & Alumni” category in advance of what should be a wave of student postings. So check back soon to read what your fellow classmates are thinking and blogging about. If you are a student or alumnus and you have a post you’d like to see on the front page, email it to me, along with your name, to
blog@online.allenschool.edu and I will post the best of your submissions on the front page.
For so many of us who are working hard to just stay afloat in our personal lives — between debt, family obligations, relationships, careers and more — it is awfully easy to forget that we are indeed living in some historically interesting times.
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My cousin is currently working a full time job and going back to school for some retraining after losing her job in an industry heavily impacted by the recession. Watching her struggle with keeping both her job performance and her studies from flagging, prompted me to look online for some ideas from others on how to balance work and studies. I will share with you what I recently shared with her. Here are some pretty common strategies for work/study balance that I encountered among the experiences of others posted online.
1) Be Organized –Whether you prefer an oldschool notepad, a traditional day planner or a fancy new PDA, it is critical to keep track of your obligations to both job and school.
2) Take an Incremental Approach – Don’t begin by trying to handle overtime at work and a full course load. Start out with a little less and see how you’re able to handle the load. If you have the bandwidth you can add more work hours or credits to your course load.
3) Balance the Difficulty of Your Classes – Select your classes wisely each semester. Mix some harder classes with some easier ones and you’ll find working and studying to be more sustainable. Taking all the tough classes together at the same time can lead to burnout!
4) Transcript Management – Keep on top of your credits. Especially if you’re attending different schools in pursuit of your educational goals. Even some credits you may have earned 10 years ago may still be transferable.
And if you’re currently a student of Allen School Online, then you’re on the right track because you’re already doing the last frequently mentioned strategy:
5) Consider Online Schools – The freedom and flexibility of taking online courses can really help out if you are working full time, taking care of children or both.
In a recent post, I listed out the top 5 best and worst job markets for healthcare related jobs in the country. I promised I would explore some of the areas in the “bests” portion of the list to continue my earlier series on “Best Job Markets in the US”. A man of my word, I am pleased to delve a bit into what makes Madison, Wisconsin such a great place to live and work.
About 75 miles west of the shores Lake Michigan, this beautiful city of 228,000 people is a youthful and vibrant place to live. For career minded singles or young couples seeking a great place to put down roots and start a family alongside their new career, Madison is an excellent choice. Almost 57% of the young population (median age 33 years) is single which is great for those seeking a new romance in addition to a new career. Yet housing and overall cost of living is attractive to those who are seeking to build a home alongside their career. The average home in Madison sells for $220,000 which is far more affordable than in areas such as New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles. The cost of living index in Madison is below the national average too. With a median annual income of nearly $50,000, the potential for good living in this Wisconsin gem is high.
Having spent a little time in Madison, I can say from experience that the city and surrounding metro areas are clean, attractive and inviting with excellent food, social activities, parks and music.
This week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the Swine Flu has covered enough of the globe to qualify as the first pandemic in over 40 years. The formal announcement made this Thursday doesn’t mean the flu strain has become any more lethal, just that it has spread beyond any ability to contain it across the globe.
Swine flu has afflicted 29,000 people so far across nearly 80 countries worldwide. Luckily, the strain isn’t hyper-virulent and most folks who contract the illness require conventional medical treatment for their mild symptoms. The WHO have urged pharmaceutical maufacturers to produce stockpiles of anti-viral medication and governments have been working on developing vaccination programs to protect populations from easy transmission of the virus.
Although the first pandemic of the 21st Century seems to be mild by historical standards, the sheer number of people infected across the globe represents a serious burden on healthcare systems and underscores the insatiable demand for healthcare and healthcare support providers in a world with a burgeoning population.
