Do you know what you want to do with your life? That’s a tough question but regardless of what you want to do for the rest of your life you should get a university degree now. You will make more money, according to the most recent US Census 51% more, and move ahead faster.

How do you know what college to attend? Here are a few questions to start thinking about to help select the college that is right for you:

1. Is an in-state or out of state college right for you?

2. Do you want to go to a big school or smaller sized school?

3. What financial aid is available?

4. Do you prefer a suburban setting, a school in a big city or studying in the middle of nowhere?

5. What programs are of interest to you? Liberal arts or a more focused program?

6. What school rankings should be important?

7. Is there a career services office? Can you find out the percent of people who get a job after graduation?

8. Are there available programs offered by the school for extracurricular activity?

9. Do they have on campus or off campus housing available?

10. Is there a professor that could potentially mentor you one on one to develop your career interest?

11. Bonus question for today’s world: Do you know how financially secure the school is?

Once you start thinking about the answers to these questions, you can help focus on the college that is best for you!

The author is a consultant in Miami, Florida and currently writes about accredited colleges online for College Matching Service. She is currently helping to build the largest college directory online.

Photo by: Ephemeron1

Who should read this article?

This article is for prospective students of all ages. Its purpose is to show you a resource that often is not utilized properly by students interested in going to college. When you know which school you would like to attend, or you have a short list of schools, than this is the next step for you to take.

What is a college adviser?

A college adviser is a staff member at a university whose sole job is to help figure out a way to help a student attend that university. Most commonly they are used for financial aid advisement. If you do not have the funds sitting in your bank account, and most people don’t, these college advisors will help you find the money necessary to pay your tuition. This can be done through scholarships, loans, grants, and many more options.

How do I meet with the college advisory?

For my alma mater, Grand Valley State University, it was as easy as calling the Student Services department and requesting a meeting with an adviser.  Eventually I figured out it was better to request an adviser for the specific thing I was in need of, in this first case, it was with my upcoming freshmen schedule.  But further down the road I made a request for a financial aid advisor to figure out how to come up with $5,000 for my senior year’s tuition balance.

I recommend calling beforehand and setting up a meeting time on campus.  The advisor undoubtely has access to paperwork or handouts you will need.  By meeting in person and on campus, you can maximize the productivity of your meeting.

Does it cost money to speak to and adviser?

Of course not. The majority of students who attend a university are assigned an adviser if they ever have any questions.  So for prospective students, this same courtesy is extended.  Colleges know that attending college is a complicated process.  Through advisers, they have the opportunity to address all of a students concerns and to create a path to success for each student.

How do I begin?

It is very simple. Call your university and request a meeting with a student advisor. Feel free to call the main switchboard of the university, or in other words, the main phone number.  They will route you to the right department for your request.

So you’ve decided to apply to college. You collected all the paperwork and now that college application is sitting in front of you with numerous questions to answer: Where are you from? What do you want to study? Tells us something about you? And what about the main college application essay or worse essays? What should you write? 

Here are some tips to consider as you start putting pen to paper:

1. Start with an outline: Start with an outline and figure out the main points you want to touch on before you start writing.

2. Stay Focused: make sure you answer the question in full

3. Structure your essay: Make sure you have a clear beginning, a middle, and an end.

4. Get to the point: don’t get lost, make sure you don’t lose your reader along the way

5. Make it unique: think of a topic that is unique to you. Personal experiences and stories can draw in and interest readers

6. Make it your own: Giving it your own flare can give a refreshing twist to an essay

Now you have some focus, good luck!

The author is a consultant in the miami area and is currently trying to figure out how she’s going to fund college for her 22 month old daughter.

*College Graduation Photo taken by TCS Photo’s

Across the globe parents go through the same challenging dilemma of making sacrifices to increase the likelihood that their children will have a good education and future career success. The world wide community of parents wants to feel that the influence they instill in their children will be the underpinnings for which their children will use to make good decisions throughout their lives.

Now we have been hit with the “Ostrich Pandmic!” The world wide trend of Parental Units going through life with their heads in the sand!!! Mothers and fathers who overlook the same “rights of passage“, that we all experienced in our youth. It is the tri-fecta of issues that work the same around the world just to varying degrees, drugs, sex and alcohol moving from generation to generation.

Kids have to learn on their own.

Kids have to move through their own social circles and get exposed to peer pressure. It is important that they make the correct choices. No one is immune to the influences of the tri-fecta when moving from adolescence to adulthood. Parents think that their child is special, innocent, balanced and too smart for these distractions. Those who stay up late to finish their school work and dream about the day they will get to pick a college.

The speed of the internet and our technology driven generation has moved us faster than anyone’s expectations. Kids are in constant contact with each other through text, email, IM, facebook, twitter and even the old fashioned cell phone.

Now we get to my studious, athletic and popular 17 year old daughter. My pride, my dilemma. I have shared with her the dangers from my youth and the “rites of passage” that I once went through. The challenges and values that confront us when we have to make the right choices. Trust is key, and a value that I have instilled as key to integrity.

Trust And Integrity.

I had not foreseen the possibility that I would reach a time when I could no longer trust my own child. A seemingly innocent afternoon of baking brownies with her friends… how could it turn into a night mare of “marijuana infused confections.” Followed by a car ride home, under the influence of one of life’s “rites of passage!” Now what am I supposed to do with her? Having given my child my complete trust, and a long leash of freedom in the past. I must now reign her in and evaluate her choices and her future, just when we both thought that time was coming to an end. With my head now held high above the sand, the consequences of my child’s poor decisions must now be addressed.

As a parent we want to believe that plugging all of the possibilities into life’s equation will produce the wisdom we need to guide our children properly. With college rapidly approaching as the next chapter in my child’s journey, like so many other “head in the sand, parental units,” I want to place my offspring in a safe and productive environment.

So how do I decide?

Choosing a venue of higher education for my daughter will no doubt be a life altering experience. But today, the higher education possibilities, teamed with high tech technology offer a “Pandora’s Box” of opportunities that were not afforded to the “Ostrich Pandemic” Generation. Online Education has taken higher education globally. With the economy taking an economic downward turn for so many, the prospect of an online education and a reduced housing and tuition bill has a new appeal to many. Not to mention, the ability to allow today’s youth some additional ‘home time’ to evolve within the fast pace of the high tech world adds additional food for thought.

Make a list of potential recommendation letter writers. Before asking anyone to write your college recommendation letter, take the time to consider all of your choices.

Choose the best. Review your list and choose the person that will write the best college recommendation letter. You should be 100% certain that the person selected will write positively about you.

Follow the admissions office procedures. Each online college sets its own standards for the delivery of admissions letters. Some require recommenders to mail the letters directly to school offices; some require prospective students to mail the letters in sealed envelopes with their applications.

Ask the recommender in-person or over the phone. If you live near the writer, it is best to ask in-person. If not, take the time to ask in a personal phone call.

Send the recommender helpful information. Once the letter writer agrees, give him a small packet of information that he can use when writing the college recommendation. This will help him remember your strengths and give him some material to work with.

Remind your letter writer of the deadline. As the recommender’s deadline nears, send a friendly note reminding him that the letter is needed.

Follow-up with a thank-you note. Once the writer completes your college recommendation letter, follow-up with a formal, hand-written thank-you note.

For online classes we first set priorities and pay close attention to what your instructor says about priorities. Remember that we enrolled in online classes for our benefit and we should take these classes seriously so that we do not waste out time and the time of the professor provided for us. For some students who will try out online classes, this can come out as something easy because we control our time but for other people, students and enrollees, this can be very challenging, particularly when you are alone. If you haven’t had online courses lately, the first part of the course may be daunting. This will ease up so don’t you worry.

First, you are going to need a computer with an operating system no older than Windows XP if you’re using a PC, or either Windows XP or Mac OS X if you’re using a Macintosh. You will need to have access to some form of high-speed Internet dialup will not cut it in classes where you have to watch streaming video or download large files. You may want to download Adobe Acrobat, a commonly-used file viewing program that can be downloaded for free through Adobe’s website. You’re probably going to need a word processing program, most likely Microsoft Word. If you choose to go with a cheaper word processing program, be aware that your professors must also have that program installed on their computers in order to view your files. If you don’t already have a word processing program, check with your school before purchasing one and find out what software program they utilize most often.

Having a college online is in a way grooming oneself for a particular vocation for his future. After internalizing the things that he is interested in, he can make a list of these interests and get brochures of the bachelors degrees that are offered by universities that might interest him in going to. From the list of courses offered, one can immediately spot the courses that reflect similarities with the interests that you have listed down earlier.

The GPA is computed by adding up all the amount of grade points you received for a certain number of classes. After this, you divide the total number of grade points by the total number of units taken that semester.

Other people find it important to have a good GPA for they feel that they would be able to get  better jobs if they have high grades. This is partially true because company would want to get good students who show that they can produce good grades. Good grades are a determinant of their study habits at some level. Good grades show how dedicated a student can get with his or her work. Furthermore good grades show the knowledge the person would have for that particular field of study. If you did well during your college life, it shows that you might equally work well the office.

Visit this GPA calculator to find out more about your GPA.

There are many professors in this world. But there are only a certain number of professors that would exude a certain quality that makes them different from the rest. In college, you will get to pick your professor for each class.

When looking at whether a professor is good or not, one thing one can look at is their teaching style. The number of absences and tardiness they have in one trimester or semester says something about the teacher. It could be that the teacher is a brilliant individual who is doing so many other things at the same time. Another reason could be that the teacher is having some personal problems which affect his or her way of teaching.

Another thing one could look at their professor while they are finishing their bachelors degree is the rapport they have with the student. A good professor is one that is compassionate towards his or her students and passionate about teaching even if it entails taking extra time off to explain things to the student out of the classroom.

Lastly a good professor must be very knowledgeable about the subject matter they are teaching. This is one reason why many of the professors would have a masters degree or a doctorate degree in the subject they are teaching for this would mean that they did ample research on the subject matter, making them an authority on that subject. So when you are choosing professors for your different classes, do make sure that you ask around.

Check with the former students and compare their different experiences to see if your personality would fit the teaching style of the teacher. A great resource to do this is RateMyProfessors.com.

One thing that would make up a good university would be the choice of degrees they offer to students. They must have an array of degree programs that would allow the student to make a choice as to what bachelors degree they would like to enroll in. They should also be able to boast of a few of their degree programs where in they are known to produce choice graduates for that particular field. These degree programs they offer should have curriculums similar to other top universities around the world. This is necessary to ensure that the graduates they produce would be competent enough to compete in the global world. This would ensure that their graduate would be at par with other students from other top universities.

Another thing that would make up a good university would be the professors and instructors they assign to teach their students. The professors and instructors must be those of high caliber. They must have finished a masters degree or doctorate degree for them to be able to teach.

At the very least, they must be currently taking their graduate degree while they are teaching. This would ensure that the students would be of good quality too if they have professors who are specialized in the field that they teach. Another thing that separates a good university from an average university would be the core values they teach their students.

Some universities would boast of a system that employs the idea of cura personalis or personal care in their tutelage of the students. The teachers would closely monitor the students and be very sensitive to their needs. This would bring about students who will equally be sensitive to other people’s needs. Some universities would boast of a system that employs the idea of independence. They would leave their students to do their own studying as a way of teaching them about the real world.

The last thing that would separate a good university from an average one would be their graduates. What better way to look at a university than by looking at their products. Their products would show how the university was able to train their students to stand up by themselves in the real world. A lot of times this can be seen in the rate of employability. Employers would want to hire the best of the crop and those students from the universities they prefer would mean that the university probably did a good job of teaching the students.

But basically it is not the university that makes you. You need to choose a university that would suit the person you are. But take these things into consideration when looking at universities. Each university has its own strength. It is just up to you if you can find some similarities in the university’s strength and your own strength so that it can hone your talents.