Educational Options as an Adults
Educational Options as an Adults
Do
you recall the college talks growing up? How the grown-ups would push the
importance of getting a good education?! But we were so high on just living
life, and honestly, we weren’t wrong but neither were they. But fast forward to
seeing our babies turn into young blooming pre-teens, 13 going on 30. You heard
the talk of “empty nesting” but what about the pre-empty nest days. You know
where your babies need less emotional nurturing and more summer jobs and dad
time in the shop. Well, let’s talk education as an adult planning a little late
for the fun college days.
How
many thought college was not really important, we knew people who were making
it in life without a college degree. Maybe like me, you had no one before you
go to college, you just seen the hard-working dads, uncles and grandpas and
moms, aunts and grandmas holding down the 9-5 stead drop in the bucket jobs. And
that’s honestly what we thought life was meant to be. I reckon there wasn’t any
thought put into an easier way of making a living when you’re older because we
were taught to rely on the government setting up a retirement plan. Punch that
clock and put in your time and draw social security. That how life works,
right? And that’s the examples I know we grew up with. It worked good for them,
most of them anyhow. I saw my grandparent retired with paid off vehicles, debt
free, and owned their house sold it and moved outta town. There wasn’t much if any
vacations or traveling. I also seen self-employed Uncles and Aunts and cousins
struggle to pay the rent or house payment, drive sketchy rigs, and live
paycheck to paycheck working hard and living simply to stay afloat. It seemed
like that’s how you live a good life, and it was for many, a good life,
including mine.
As
I get older, and yes, times are changing. But the options that have been out
there for years, although being raised in a family who worked hard with their
hands instead of with a college degree, you catch yourself stunned to think the
internet isn’t as new as you thought, for example, its been a thing for years,
including computers and such. I cant help thinking sometimes where our family
would be today financially if our grandparents had pursued a degree.
Lets
clear the air about something. A college degree isn’t the fix all, it still
take a hard working body and good work ethic to make that degree of any value. Also,
lets address the expense that made pursuing an education unthinkable for the
majority of the world. I find no fault here in the decision of anyone on either
side of the playing field. Side note…. I did have 2 close cousin go and graduate
college. And that 9-5 job- non degree holding parents put them through college.
Lets talk times are changing have changed
Why
now would we be interested? Maybe we are pursuing a promotion or career or to
educate ourselves for a remote work, a working from home gig. The opportunities
are endless now with computers and it helps relieve the hard work on our self-employed
bodies with no government retirement plan.
What are the options?
University
or Community College, on campus or online or certifications? What's the
differences.?
As
I am not fully experienced in all these areas I am pursuing my associates
degree online through a community college.
My
brother and his wife are also doing the same but through a different college. Another
difference is my brother attends on campus classes a couple times a week for
some classes.
I am
starting into the 2nd semester of my first year. Food for thought. What I am seeing is
community colleges are a 2-year college. So, you obtain an associate degree
with them but not a bachelor or masters, Universities are for that.
I felt
intimidated by the idea of college for years. I had actually considered online
college class earlier in my life. As I started attending online classes, I found
I wish I had done it sooner in my life. It wasn’t as daunting as I had thought.
The disappointment I find as I journey through my associate degree is the
amount of self-teaching I have to do. That I wasn’t expecting. I find the
particular administration at the college I attend is very lax in their “teaching”.
If it was on campus learning their may actually be a better faculty taking teaching more serious. For instance, the videos
posted to watch are pre recorded years ago. And the pdf files for our
worksheets we are instructed to change the dates to current dates because they
are the same documents from previous years.
There's
no interaction through video chats to re-enforce the learning we do.
The
difference where my brother attends is his on-campus experience is the teacher
sees the effort he makes while the rest of the class is playing games on their
phones and not turning in assignments, he is able to excel in his classes
better than me practically self-teaching myself.
Next options are certification.
Certifications
are independent of themselves. Whatever you are learning, you focus on that
only and you receive a certification saying you passed the course. The difference
from that to a degree is your have to take 2+ years of core subject like math, English
Comp, Literature and Science along with Art and extra subjects as Sociology or Psychology
and then you can take you degree specific classes whatever you are goin into,
for me its Information Science Technology (IT) so I take classes like Linux and
Computer Forensics, computer Networking and Essentials. I enrolled for web
designing and graphic design and I have to take all these to acquire what I wanted
to learn.
The
benefit is I discovered areas I had no idea I was interested in as I am
learning all the extra stuff. So when you hear on Youtube so many saying they didn’t
learn anything beneficial in college and the certification was a better option.
Theres truth to that.
Lets discuss the next point of interest
Money. The huge reason a lot of our family didn’t pursue an
education is because honestly, I wouldn’t be pursuing debt right now to go to
college to further my education. But good news is, the government is willing to
pay you to go to college even online college. You have to keep your grades up
to a C to keep the funding but that hasn’t been difficult so far even for my brother
and his wife in their area of interest.
What about time. It is pretty easy to be a full-time student
and still have plenty of time for your family. And the opportunities furthering
my education provides for me to pursue making money to help my husband offset the
costs of living in today’s time is very promising.
One last point I want to put out there is that there are so
many certification courses out there for free if you don’t want to dive into a
degree commitment, but the workload at a community college isn’t daunting to
pursue.
Here is one of many options to start courses for
certifications
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its like journaling for others to read.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
deadline for the 2024–2025 school year is 11:59 PM Central Time (CT) on June
30, 2025:
- Federal
deadline: Submit the FAFSA by June 30, 2025
- Corrections
or updates: Submit corrections or updates by September 14, 2025
However, each college and career/trade school may have its
own deadline, which is typically early and before the academic year
starts. You can check with the financial aid office at the school you plan
to attend for more information.
You should submit your FAFSA as early as possible, but no
earlier than December 2023. You can apply for aid online at fafsa.gov.
You should also keep an eye on the individual financial aid
deadlines for the colleges that you're interested in attending. You may
need to submit additional financial aid applications, such as the CSS profile.
https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/fafsa-support
Did you attend college in your younger years? If not, did
you enroll as an adult? What made you decide to further your education or not?
What did you go to college for?
What degree did you get?
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