Life After High School: College Options Explained

Going to college is a complex decision today. There are essentially two starting points: a two-year college degree program (Associate's Degree) or a four-year college degree program (Bachelor's Degree). From there every just builds. Eventually, you need a Bachelor's Degree to move on to graduate schools for a Master's or Doctoral degree.

Before reading more, do you know Is College Right For You?

College Option: Community College

Community colleges offer a variety of degree opportunities: professional certificates, diplomas, and associate's degrees. Community colleges receive funding from the state and are considered public institutions. An old fashioned term for a community college would be junior college, when there was less of a technical focus and only students interested in going on to a university were attending.

Community colleges are a great way to shave off the cost of obtaining a Bachelor's Degree by either completing an acceptable Associate's degree first or simply taking some of your general education credits  there. Check with your intended 4 year school for acceptance prior to embarking on a course of study at the community college. Most local state funded colleges and universities accept some course credit from the local community college.

Community colleges are great places for those looking for education specifically tied to employment. Professors are often local business leaders or experts in the field. Other students are also usually working full-time. This makes networking super easy for finding your next career.

College Option: 4 Year College or University


A traditional college or university is one of the most common options chosen by graduating seniors from high schools. It is considered by some families to be a rite of passage into adulthood and loyalty to one school isn't unusual. Admission to the college or university might also be easier for the applying student if they have legacy status, meaning a close relative is an alumni.

4 year universities and colleges offer what is called a liberal arts education. This means students graduate with not just a focus in one area, but the Bachelor's degree reflects an education in numerous subjects across the spectrum. Before starting on work in a specific major, such as accounting, engineering, or political science, students complete general education requirements. These are low level courses in other disciplines to make the student a well-rounded graduate.

Completion of a 4 year degree, or Bachelor's degree, is a requirement for most graduate level coursework (some graduate programs will consider work experience as in the field training). A Bachelor's degree also notably brings the student a higher salary upon entering the work force. The biggest problem facing students with a Bachelor's degree is making sure they have some work experience that relates to their desired career field. Proper career development planning is vital for juniors and seniors pursuing a Bachelor's degree.




College Option: Graduate School


Graduate school is a departure from the liberal arts education supplied by a 4 year college. Graduate schools offer an advanced focus on a single area of study so graduating students are considered an expert in that area. Popular graduate programs include Master's of Business Administration (MBAs), medical school, dental school, pharmaceutical school, and Master degrees in most undergraduate subject matters. For example, a student can major in Political Science for an undergraduate degree, but then study for a Master's of Public Administration at graduate school. Or, the same student could pursue a law degree at law school.

Entry requirements for graduate school are very tough. Admissions doesn't just look at your undergraduate GPA, but also your test scores on standardized tests (such as LSATs for law school, MCATS for medical school, GRE for social science graduate programs, and GMAT for applied science and technical graduate programs). 

Life After High School: Work and College Balance

Striking a work and college balance is tricky. More adults are forgoing the traditional 4-year college experience and entering the work force for many reasons. College is expensive, so working is required to raise tuition money or become eligible for employer tuition assistance programs. Yet, for the student, BOTH work and school are vitally important in life after high school, but which one wins in a scheduling conflict?

Work Schedules + Class Schedules = Chaos

If you want any kind of leeway for both work and college, you need to let your boss and professors know about your other commitments. 

• Use your syllabus and let work know you need a relaxed schedule around major exams and papers.
• Try to complete assignments early, just in case something comes up and you need to work.
• Don't try to take a full course load while working full time. Ideally, work, class time, and study time shouldn't exceed 65 hours a week.
• Many students take only one of two classes while working full time, focus on the quality of your coursework, not the quantity.

College Programs Ideal for Working

Every college is a business; no students means no tuition. With this in mind, more college programs are offering a wider variety of class schedules to accomodate working students. Make sure your chosen college program offers one of the following options to make balancing work and college easier.

• Online classes allow working students to go to class with more flexibility. There are still deadlines for completing coursework, and working students should expect weekly deadlines for writing forum posts and turning in homework for class participation.
• Modified semester schedules, such as 8 week accelerated pacing classes, allow working students to finish more classes per year. Colleges acknowledge working students can't juggle 4 classes all at once over 16 weeks, but could manage 2 classes for 8 weeks. 
• Evening classes are held one or two nights per week for an extended period of time. This option works for anyone with a rigid work schedule, or the ability to designate nights off.

Getting Off Balance Has a Snowball Effect

With two very large commitments in life, work and college, there is very little room for error. Miss work to finish school work and your monthly budget is thrown off. Miss school to work and you jeopardize all of your hard work and the money you paid for tuition and books. 

• Try to add padding in your schedule so you aren't tempted to say to yourself "I'm going to be late to class anyway, I might as well not go."
• Find colleagues or other students in a similar situation, balancing work and college, and hold one another accountable.
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle of sleep, diet, and exercise to prevent the extra commitments from contributing to illness.

A smart work and college balance is the key to preventing burn out for either or both. If you constantly feel like you are rushing to make it all jive, you probably have too much on your plate. Try reducing hours at work or dropping back to one less class. Before dropping a class, speak with your program adviser to see how that will affect your graduation timetable. 

Life After High School: Deciding If You're College Material

The following article isn't meant to be offensive, but it is a great quick inventory for anyone with niggling doubts about if a traditional 4 year college education is the right path in their life after high school. As Mr. Goldblatt points out, success in college doesn't require knowing a bunch of facts, or even the skills to find them, but an intellectual curiosity to learn.

The American Spectator: Who is College Material?

I can be honest and say college was easy for me. School has ALWAYS been easy for me, but don't ask me to kick a soccer ball, please. I had semesters of 2.08 GPAs and other semesters where I was on Dean's List. One semester wasn't harder than another. The semesters where I had poor grades I did not care about the subject matter. It wasn't challenging. It wasn't interesting. I only showed up on test days. In my defense, most classes took 10% off just from missing more than 2 class periods, so averaging an 80-85 as a final grade without even going, well let's just say I had more than one professor tell me there they've never seen a student pass while missing more than half the class periods.

Before stressing out on your SATs, or struggling to live up to Mom and Dad's expectations, ask yourself, "Do you like to learn?"

The next important question: "What do you like to learn?"

It is more than okay to enjoy learning things other than general liberal arts education subjects. Many people are successful learning technical skills (mechanical technicians, hair stylists, contractors, etc.), other people are successful honing and enhancing their natural abilities with just a few strategic classes. For example, people primarily in sales, may not need to a full degree to move up and be successful. However, many successful salesmen and women complete advanced training in negotiation, closing a sale, and improving listening skills to meet a consumer's needs.

Realize though that there is no getting away from improving your education. It may not be a 4 year college, but every profession requires some type of additional training. High school alone doesn't carry you to retirement.

Training can occur on the job, at conferences, in specialized courses at local universities and colleges, and even through professional clubs and organizations. Remember, for most resumes, a 4 year Bachelor's degree is just one little line under "Education." The rest is made up of real life experiences, other education opportunities, and accolades.

Bans Aside, The Apple iPad is Not an Ideal Solution for Campus

Israel has banned the Apple iPad over concerns about it hogging wireless bandwidth. More articles came out with potential bans on top university campuses this fall, also due to networking issues. However, by and large, the Apple iPad is not an ideal computing solution for anyone hitting the books this fall.

Multitasking Is a Must

Ask anyone who has ever written a paper for college and he or she will tell you, multi-tasking is a must. You need a browser open with tabs dedicated to research sources, a tab explaining how to cite everything, and a tab or two open to your favorite social media where you can procrastinate and complain about writing said paper. That's just one application. You next need a word processing application open, and unless you are part of the select few who work best in silence, some type of motivational music playing. The Apple iPad lost you at music and one other application open.

Ergonomics Please

You type a lot in college. From emails to friends and families, to captioning all sixty of the shameful pictures you took at the party last night, typing is the new handwriting. Aside from math, most of your classes will require typed assignments. Professors gave up on reading handwriting last decade. Typing on the Apple iPad is fine for short bouts, but prolonged typing on such a small keyboard will wreak havoc on your joints. Carpal tunnel is only appropriate for jokes in college, not actual visits to the university health center.

Plug Ins A Notta

Without even a simple USB connection, the Apple iPad is severely limited in how much it can play well with others. Other peripherals you may have that is, such as a camera, printer, or even a web cam for those late night college humor video sessions. Sure, you can pay for an adapter, but the odds of having the said adapter when you want it in the mess of a standard dorm room? You'll be lucky to find your iPad!

Bottom line, for the money get a decent laptop or one of the slightly larger net books (some have a nearly standard sized keyboard) for the $500-$800 you would spend on an Apple iPad. Toshiba has some great economy priced laptops, personal testing of the Satellite series survived two plus years of moving across country and international travel. My husband even dropped his Toshiba Satellite down a submarine hatch, and it lives to tell the tale (with a broken plastic corner). Oh, and to save yourself some more change when it comes to college computing? Don't buy any student package of software until you check for free open source alternatives (www.openoffice.org).

New Type of Internship: Learn How to Farm!

Internships are a vital part of career development planning. They act as trial runs at new careers. Paid and unpaid, any internship can provide vital experience and networking contacts.

One way to ensure job security-- everyone has to eat! The recent improvements in community supported agriculture (CSAs) are developing into novel internship opportunities for the upcoming generation. A local piece about one such program, Growing New Farmers Incubator Pilot made me dig a little deeper. A little research, and it turns out there are numerous farming internships around the country.

Here is where recent high school graduates and those with college degrees can benefit the timeless agricultural business: technology. More modern farms are using web based technology, email, databases, and real-time inventory levels to fill up-to-the-moment orders for farmer's markets, high-end chefs and restaurants, and specialty grocery stores.

In the Charleston, SC area, the average farmer is 59 years old. This means within 10-20 years, there will be a large gap in supplies of locally grown produce. Many communities in the United States are facing the same plight. Yet this could easily turn into a golden opportunity for graduates looking to bring farming into the 21st century.

• Not into farming but love computers? Consider a consulting business to provide web interfaces for small, independent farms.
• Before you graduate, look for a volunteer position with a local farm. It could pave the way to a paid position later on. Remember volunteering is what you do to pad your resume while someone else is still paying for your food and a roof over your head.
• Don't think farming doesn't require an education. Savvy growers learn the latest in farming technologies. In fact, many famous college started out as farming schools (think Texas A&M, where A stands for agriculture). 2 and 4 year degree programs cover everything from growing the crops, selling the crops, and even becoming a crop inspector.
• Average salaries range from $30,00-$60,000 for ranch manager, and similar salaries for agricultural inspecter (Salary.com)

College Degrees Explained: What Exactly is a Bachelor's Degree?

The number of college degrees available to a student these days is mind boggling. There are professional certificates, associate's degrees, bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and finally doctorates. It would appear a bachelor's degree falls in the middle, but degrees don't exactly work that way. Today's post-secondary educational system hinges on what do you want to do with that diploma?

A bachelor's degree offers an educational journey that is equal parts specialized focus (major and minor coursework) and broad coverage of every subject (a liberal arts education). You might major in Mathematics, but you will be required to take classes in Foreign Language, too. There is also little technical education or experience beyond a token computing course in office suite productivity.

A typical bachelor's degree is 120 credit hours. A credit hour is the time actually spent at lecture per week, rounded up. A class meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 AM until 10:15 AM would be considered 3 credit hours. Labs are funny creatures, most require anywhere from three to five hours each week in class but only count for 1-2 credit hours. This is done to balance grade weighting for GPA calculation.

Of the 120 credit hours for a bachelor's degree, about 50-60 will be classified as general education courses. This is the basic coursework every student must complete regardless of his or her major. General education requirements, also called gen eds, are divided into categories with a certain amount of credit hours required for the category.

For example, one popular gen ed requirement is in the Social Sciences. This includes Political Science, Psychology, Social Work, and Philosophy. A student may be required to take 6 credit hours, or roughly 2 classes from the list of qualifying courses in those areas. All of these classes will be introductory courses, 100-200 level, so very little previous knowledge of political science, psychology, social work, or philosophy is needed.

There will also be stand alone course requirements for gen ed satisfaction. This includes classes like Public Speaking, some type of ethics course (might be written into each major), and foreign language courses.

A major is just the 30-40 credit hours of upper level coursework a student chooses to focus on. Each major will have “core classes,” three or four classes everyone in the major takes at some point. It is vital you stay on top of prerequisites, or classes you need to complete before taking others. The major will also include “electives,” or classes you choose from a list within the subject matter.

Minor coursework is conducted in a similar way to major coursework, but usually comprises of only 12-18 credit hours. Each university department offers course tracks for minor coursework, just as they do for major coursework. A growing trend for undergraduate students is to forgo a minor in favor of a greater variety in coursework. For example, a student majoring in business may choose to divide her major between courses developing writing skills and knowledge of computing systems.

An undergraduate bachelor's degree will only get you so far, and that may only be the interview room, where employment is concerned. Students should not believe the myth that a degree alone will land you a good job. It is imperative along with the education there is practical experience. This means moving beyond typical college student jobs and maybe surviving a few semesters where you are stretched thin.  

Save Money on College Costs: The 5 Year Master's Program

College is now attainable for most adults. Part-time, online courses, and evening courses have removed major barriers to obtaining a Bachelor's degree. Employers still need a measuring stick to identify candidates willing to go the extra mile. In many professions, that extra mile is a Master's degree.

Traditional universities are capitalizing on the increased demand for graduate degrees. Conventional wisdom always recommended college students get a graduate degree at a different institution than where their undergraduate degree was completed. This advice is becoming little more than a kudos as a college education is more about transitioning into a career rather than remaining in academia.

One of the biggest bangs for the undergraduate's buck is a 5 year Master's degree program at their undergraduate college or university. Students interested in a 5 year program should know and declare their degree intentions early. Most 5 year Master's degree programs have strict tracks for course offerings. Deviating from the recommended course tracks, even as early as the first semester, will tack on extra time needed to complete the program.

Popular 5 year Master's degrees include teaching degrees, nursing degrees, and business degrees. 5 year programs are typically offered for the professions most often requiring a Master's degree for entry to mid-level employment. Universities then use this as a selling point to potential students considering another school. Why go somewhere else and take 6 years to get two degrees when we can get you there in 5 years?

A Master's degree is still meaningless without qualified work experience. A savvy college student entering into a profession keen on graduate degrees should look for a 5 year Master's program with a paid internship included in the degree structure. Remember, education is only learning about doing something. Employers want to see qualified candidates with the proper education who can also demonstrate they can do the work.

Save Money on College Costs: Take Gen Eds at a Community College

Half of a 4 year college degree is nothing but general education classes. Roughly 60 credits, or two full years, of college is offered at deeply discounted prices at your local community college. For private colleges and universities, students should check with the Registrar and Course Catalog for acceptance of specific courses.

State funded colleges, also known as public universities, are required by law in some areas to have acceptance policies with state funded community colleges. Even without the requirement, most public colleges work closely with community colleges to match general education requirements with their course offerings. The more basic and universal a course requirement is, the more likely you can find it at a community college much cheaper.

Don't fret about the quality of the community college class. At even top institutions, lower level course offerings (Gen Eds) are handled by adjunct faculty. An adjunct faculty member is like a moonlighting professor-- he or she also teaches at other institutions. Guess what other institutions adjunct faculty teach at? Community colleges! Not wanting to waste effort, classes at both the community college and four year university frequently use the exact same textbook and syllabus.

Defraying the cost of a four year degree isn't without a little tradeoff. Student activities are often lackluster at community colleges in comparison to traditional four year universities. But, community colleges specifically cater to students with other demands on their time, such as a job.

Community colleges offer a wider variety of class times than four year colleges because their student population is not in residence. This can also lead to accelerated college degree completion, as many community colleges offer alternative semester divisions, enabling students to complete more courses in less time. Just make sure you watch for any policy from the four year college or university requiring the last thirty to forty credit hours prior to graduation completed at that institution and no other.

Besides, if your chief concern about going to college is the activities, you are probably going for the wrong reason. Although if you are really concerned about living the college lifestyle, consider dual enrollment. Take one or two courses at the more expensive and fancy four year institution, and a few gen eds at the community college.

And what about the students who worked and saved money by going to community college for the first two years? Well, when you both graduate with the exact same degree in a graduation ceremony from the exact same school, their resume won't need filler like “Organized the Intramural Frisbee Golf Tournament.”