Juggling Work, Family And Your Education

 

 

Many people attend college directly after graduating high school. For others, they wait until later in their lives to attend college, or attend graduate school later in life. Attending school at this time in life can be challenging as their lives have many different responsibilities. Some of these professional students also have families at home including children, work and hobbies that they are involved with. This results in professional students facing the challenge of balancing work and family while finding time to complete their education.

Scheduling is Key

Creating a schedule is critical to be able to balance these items in your life. If you think that you can do things “on the fly”, you will find that one or several areas of your life will not get the time they deserve. Work with your family, employer and others when crating your calendar. Let them know what your schedule is. That way they can work around your schedule instead of you having to adjust to theirs. Over time you may find you can make slight adjustments, but during the first few months, stick to your schedule. If you don’t respect your schedule, nobody else will. For that schedule, include time for class, studying and school projects.

If you are completing your schooling to improve your performance in the office, work with your employer for accommodations. Your office might be willing to let you set aside a half hour or hour a day of your workday to complete school assignments if they can see the benefits of your classes for them. If they won’t set aside time at work to let you complete your school work, they might be willing to allow you to work a more flexible schedule.

Set Aside a Location

Set aside a specific area to complete your school work. Isolate yourself from distractions when you are completing your school work. This is important for you to establish a time when others will not approach you with potential distractions. A small office in your home or even a bedroom are appropriate locations to use for your school work completion.

Celebrate Your Successes

Celebrate your accomplishments with your family. Your family may feel that they are losing time with you, and they are probably correct. Make them feel that their flexibility is appreciated. When you complete your courses for the semester, plan a special night out with your family. This might include a nice expensive dinner at one of their favourite restaurants.

This article was written by the team at the Engineering Institute of Technology, specialists in online engineering courses including hazardous area training certification and more.

 

Should Graduation Ceremonies Still Be Held With Silly Gowns?

 

For every person that loves the pomp and circumstance of graduation day, the quirky cap and the big baronial gown, there is a person that feels like the whole cap and gown thing is a justifiable reason to give the entire graduation ceremony a miss. So where does it all come from, and is it at all necessary in modern society?

The academic raiment that people wear when they graduate is a throwback from medieval times. The gown that people wear was actually how everyone dressed back then. It must have been great for the winter but somewhat stifling in the summer. They also present somewhat of a trip/slip/fall hazard, and so universities from back then would have been subject to considerable public liability insurance premiums.

So what about the hats? Mortarboards were originally reserved exclusively for people who’d managed to obtain a master’s degree, but are now used by both undergraduates and bachelors also. They have also been used by many as inadvertent weapons throughout the years. Many a graduate has flung their ‘Bishop Andrewes’ in excitement, perhaps a bit too far in the air and a bit too inaccurately, only to see it drop via one of its points onto the head of a fellow graduate. In 2011, no fewer than 72 graduates received hospital treatment as a consequence of an academic cap injury.

So as well as being from the past, and dangerous, they are also perceived by many to be outdated and unnecessary. As time moves on and the world of education subscribes to modernity in a million different ways it becomes more and more difficult to justify the reactionary regalia that for many a stickler, underpins what university is all about.

In an education system that no longer uses chalk boards, tinkers with the formal setting of the classroom and conducts itself in virtual environments, is there really a need for the cap and gown any longer? Whilst it would seem like somewhat of an anti-climax for everyone to turn up on graduation day wearing their jeans and t-shirts, is the cap and gown really all that necessary?

Would it not be equally as smart and fitting for each of the males to wear a nice suit, each of the females something equally as smart. Maybe that is something that the cap and gown does have going for it, though. It is epicene, creating a synchronic plateau whereby the boys and the girls are all uniform. If that is all that it has going for it then perhaps it’s doomed, because there are plenty of male graduates who doubtless feel slightly as though they are cross-dressing.

There are also the cost implications of the cap and gown. Even though people are not expected to buy them, they cost a fair amount just to hire, and for what? An elongated ceremony and a few pictures. For many, then, there’s the additional logistical nightmare of trying to offload it so that the all-important drinking binge can commence. It seems that the cap and gown is a tradition that’s clinging on for dear life.

This post was written on behalf of OCVC

 

 

The Who of Public Relations: Your Public

It’s easy to become focused on the tactics in public relations. It can be sort of fun to plan big PR events, prepare new brochures, and write press releases. They say that speaking without thinking is like shooting without aiming: I would assert that running a PR campaign is the same. Running a stellar PR campaign will be about as useful as driving a car with out wheels if you don’t know who you are talking to.

A school district public affairs director could have many audiences he or she needs to target. They may want to target parents to encourage them to be more involved in their students lives. High school students are another audience if you wish to encourage them to avoid drugs and violence. If your district is hiring, you may want to target graduate students from a local college. Where do each of these groups receive information? Would it be effective to use Facebook to target parents? Would you want to use a televised news clip to target high school students? Do potential teachers read the paper?

Here are a few things you need to find out about an audience:

Who are they: What demographic group are you targeting? Simply targeting teenagers isn’t enough. Teenagers in San Francisco, California are likely going to be much different from teenagers in Rexburg, Idaho. Teenagers at the public Seaside High School will likely be different from students at the private St. Peter‘s Holy Cross High School (both names I invented, just FYI).

Where do they turn for information: Do they attend town hall meetings? Are they likely to attend an event with a pop star DJ? Do they have a Facebook account? Do they watch the evening news? Or do they watch Jay Leno? If you mis-target your ad campaign, your audience will never get it.

What are their key interests: What drives your audience in life? What do they want? It is important to know what your audience’s key interests are. What are their needs? How can your company, service, product, or message satisfy that need? If you misinterpret your audience’s key interests, even if they get the message they probably won’t care.

Give them a name: An excellent public relations professor taught our class to even give your key audience a name. For example, if you were planning a PR campaign to promote a new online job search tool, you might target someone like Joe. Joe is a 40-year-old man from Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a power plant and makes $35,000 a year. He watches Stephen Colbert every night and checks the Internet frequently looking for a new job.

Putting a face and a name to your audience helps you to humanize them. It connects you with what they need in life. Faceless masses usually won’t be very helpful to your cause. Public relations isn’t just about serving the needs of your employer (although that is paramount). PR is about creating value for your publics so that they can act in their own self interest.

About the Author

Derek Gurr is a public relations student at BYU and a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers can be of great assistance to those that are trying to locate and register to go to the best online universities.

 

Labor Day Gift for Parents: Since the Apple Won’t Fall Very Far From It, Plant Your Tree Accordingly

Oh Lord, what have I done?  You have turned me into my father, and my children into me.  It says in the “Good Book” that the sins of the fathers will be vest unto the 3^rd and 4^th generation.  Does this mean that they have to go through EVERYTHING I did “growing up?”

I have two wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, rebellious, independent daughters that I wouldn’t trade for the world.  It hasn’t always been that way.  Believe it or not Daddy was not a perfect saint (nor was his father) and there might have been the occasional indiscretion during their collective childhood that might not have seemed politically correct.

Having been a professional photographer since high school (thanks Cindy) and also possessing a rather unique sense of humor (thanks Frank Zappa) there have been instances where my more devilish side took precedence over what my mother (and current wife) would have thought acceptable.  If your child is already hysterical and throwing an incredible hissy fit for not getting her way (down to the swimming pool fast enough) what harm could evolve from taking advantage of their relative lack of mobility (being 18 lbs at the time) and hanging them on the hotel coat rack – just for a quick photo?  Child Protection Service does have a statute of limitations, don’t they?

There  also might have been the occasional excuse to throw a giant party in the back yard, invite the whole neighborhood and entire Christmas list, buy a couple of kegs and have my buddies bring over a band or two and play music ‘till the cops come.  Thankfully it was usually an excusable occasion, like St. Patrick’s day in June, and usually a reasonable hour when they finally broke us up because the neighbors across the canyon (a mile and a half away) began complaining around 1:00AM.  It is always nice to have a few friends on the police force.  There is nothing quite as heartwarming as finding your three year old toddling across the living room floor (as the adults all migrated outside) helping mommy and daddy by draining the last inch of beer, mai-tai’s, and margaritas’ out of all of the cups lining the tables.  The next morning was not usually a good one for any of us.  Thanks again for that CPS reprieve.

Having had the neighborhood built-in pool, the trampoline, the pool table in the basement, etc.  My babies were raised in, shall we say, a convivial environment.  Don’t get me wrong, we went to Church at least once a week, were involved in worship ministries, field trips, the wife taught Sunday school, etc.  Just a couple of times a year we let our hair down, so to speak.  Having myself grown up in a similar environment there was no sense of hypocrisy at all.  My parents’ best friends were good old German Missouri Synod Lutherans, and every Sunday after church we’d get together with a few dozen folks, including the Pastor, for cocktails and a bar-b-que.

My wife and I were good enough parents in most ways;  helped with homework, softball games and sodas with the other kids parents in the parks on Sunday afternoons, lots of sleep over’s, and plenty of hours on weekend mornings watching Barney and Sesame street.  There were piano lessons, they both got there kiddy Black Belts in Karate, and we put them into a Spanish immersion school.  Our two little perfect babies really never gave us any trouble at all for so long.  Then there was High School.

I’m not saying either turned bad, or got into a real huge amount of trouble, but the attitudes changed.  As is the custom in California my wife decided that not all marriages were made in heaven, and that the grass was indeed far greener on the far side of the hill and we divorced when the girls were just entering High School.  Now I’m certainly not saying that I was any saint, and that she didn’t have a reason or two to want a change of scenery, just that the “better or worse thing” was something I took seriously.  Anyhow, timing being what it was we still tried our damndest to provide a stable environment for the kids.  I moved, and so that the kids didn’t have to move during high school we split the assets in a way that allowed them to keep the house that they grew up in.

Partly, I’m sure, blaming me for that and a few other faults, and partly that they just reached the age that I remember so well as spreading wings and a total disdain for authority, Daddy became persona-non-grata for each of them for a time.  Thank God it seemed to alternate years, and one of them was always being at least cordial.  Remembering my own high school and early college years, I think most of the time I came home it was to visit a girlfriend.  We didn’t hang out a ton, but that was just the way my parents were treated by then too.  We still had the annual waters ski trips to our secret lake, but instead of cousins and their mom’s family (we stayed friends, but that just got a bit weird for a while) the girls started bringing their friends, and boyfriends, and coming up in their own cars.

The eldest graduated Valedictorian in her high school, and is the case with so many second children; the younger had no interest in competing for grades.  She is just as smart and will do just as well in life, but the 4.3 thing just wasn’t in the cards at the time.  They also both took turns being the “wild child.”

After both threatening to spread their wings and go to school back east, the younger one ended up attending my alma mater of UCSB, and the eldest ended up at USD.  I guess dad brought them up to be California kids after all.

What brought this up is that currently they are both calling me, unsolicited, just to talk.  This is MAJOR and recent.  My older one had some boyfriend problems and needed a few extra daddy sessions, and my baby had some issues with attendance, but that has been resolved and she actually is going to summer school this year and is actually graduating a year early.  I am taking the long weekend and driving down with my new wife (both kids went to dads wedding two years ago) to see my baby in SB.  We spent the first week of the summer with the eldest at my new wife’s family reunion in Utah.  Great people, but the heat made that a huge sacrifice.  They have both turned out with wonderful aspects of their mother, and of me.  They are independent, directed, hard working, stubborn, loving, kind, bossy, empathetic, and giving young ladies and I could not be more proud.

The point is this:  for those of you with young ones, be patient.  They will hurt and destroy you, disrespect and loath you, scare the bejesus out of you, piss you off, and generally take you to the poor house.   If you’ve done a reasonable job of loving them and nurturing them, with the grace of God (and a little luck) they will turn out just fine.