5 Reasons to Go Back to School This Year (and how to do it)

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Recent graduates tossing caps in the air

By Crystal Ladwig, Ph.D.

We all want good paying jobs, job security, and the chance to make a better life for ourselves and our families. For many adults, that may mean going back to school to learn new skills or even to get a degree.

With that in mind, here are five reasons to go back to school this year and how to do it.

1. College degree required

While there are still many vocational occupations that don’t require a college degree, more and more jobs require one. In fact, within the next few years, 65 percent of jobs will require some sort of post-secondary training. This means that many jobs that haven’t historically required a college degree will require one soon. Going back to school now will better prepare workers for this growing trend so that they will be prepared as college degrees are required more frequently.

2. Career advancement

Even if you have a degree in the area of your chosen profession, a college degree may be advantageous to you. Seeking a higher education degree shows employers a drive and hunger on the part of an employee and keeps skills current. Such positive views of an employee go a long way when you’re up for a promotion.

3. Job security

The stress and fear that go along with the possibility of losing a job are immense. In the current political climate with its ups and downs, we’ve come to expect that workers seek to do all they can to secure their jobs. Research shows that those with higher degree levels are less likely to be unemployed. Those who do lose their jobs are much more likely to get hired by a new employer more quickly if they have a higher-level college degree.

4. Higher salary

Historical trends show that those with college degrees make more money than those without them. This trend of higher salaries for college graduates continues to this day. Not only that, but having a higher education level within a career means more money, too. For example, two public school teachers teach second grade at a local elementary school. One has a Bachelor’s degree while the other has a Master’s degree. In districts throughout the country, the one with the Master’s degree will make more money even though they do the exact same work.

5. Career flexibility or second career

There are many reasons why people change careers as adults. Your company may be downsizing. You may be seeking something new and challenging. You may just be working with the wrong leaders. Regardless of your reasons, workers today have the ability now more than ever to get a new degree to add flexibility to their careers or even to start on a new one.

Where to start

The decision to go back to school isn’t easy. And once you make that decision, there’s still a lot to do. Start with choosing a degree program, college, and instructional format. Are you seeking a new career or to advance your current one? What colleges or universities offer degrees in that area? Do you prefer to learn in a traditional, face-to-face program, or would you be open to an online degree program? Online programs have been expanding and have been a viable option for going back to school-you can get an online computer science degree, a sports medicine degree, or learn game design online. Answering those questions helps you decide where to apply.

Dr. Crystal Ladwig

Contact admissions offices at each college you’re interested in to find out what you need to do to apply. There may be entrance exams that you need to take, letters of reference you need to acquire, or other steps appropriate for an adult returning to school. Explore your financial aid options as well. There are ways to cut costs, some designed especially for workers returning to school.

Finally, start organizing your time for the coming year. You can work full time, raise a family, and go to school, but it takes planning and organization. There are more options than ever for adults going back to school. Explore your reasons and options, seek guidance from admissions officers, and get ready to soar!

Dr. Crystal Ladwig has taught online and face-to-face college courses for 20 years. She specializes in training future teachers and researches the training of teachers to work with students with challenging behaviors.

40th College Television Awards Submission Period Begins Sept. 5

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The Television Academy Foundation Awards Ceremony Celebrates Student-Produced Programs From Colleges Nationwide. The submission period for the Television Academy Foundation’s 40th College Television Awards is Sept. 5 through Oct. 3, 2019.

Each year hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students, representing colleges and universities nationwide, submit their media projects to television’s most prestigious student competition—the Television Academy Foundation’s College Television Awards.

The College Television Awards honors achievement in student-produced programs and will feature stars from today’s top television shows presenting awards to winners at the red-carpet awards ceremony.

Emulating the Emmy® Awards selection process, entries for the College Television Awards are judged by Television Academy members. Top honors and a $3,000 cash prize will be presented to winning teams in eight categories: drama, comedy, animation, nonfiction, promotional, news, sports and variety. The College Television Awards also includes two additional, donor-supported, categories: the Seymour Bricker Humanitarian Award and the Loreen Arbus Focus on Disability Scholarship.

In addition to the awards ceremony, the nominees will take part in a three-day television summit hosted by the Television Academy Foundation. The summit, designed to enhance professional development, will feature panel discussions, studio tours and networking opportunities with industry executives and Academy members.

The College Television Awards often serves as an entry point for a career in television for nominees and winners. Past alumni have worked as editors, writers, producers and other positions on programs including Ray Donovan, The Handmaid’s Tale, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, CBS This Morning, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Grey’s Anatomy, 60 Minutes, Empire and many more.

For additional information, visit TelevisionAcademy.com/CTA.

To read the complete article continue on to The Patch.

Teacher’s Powerful Exercise of ‘Leaving Emotional Baggage at the Door’ Has Totally Changed Her Classroom

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This Oklahoma teacher is being praised for teaching her students a powerful emotional lesson that they will not soon forget.

Karen Loewe has been teaching seventh and eighth grade students for 22 years, but her most recent day in class was apparently the most impactful day of her educational career.

For her sixth day of classes at Collinsville Middle School, she decided to try a new exercise in empathy with her students called “The Baggage Activity”.

Upon establishing that her classroom was a safe space for expression and respect, she asked what emotional baggage meant to her students. She then asked them to write about some emotional baggage of their own—and since they were not required to put their names on the paper, they could describe their issues as freely as they wanted without being identified.

he youngsters were then asked to take turns reading what their classmates wrote, and all of them were given the opportunity to identify themselves as the person responsible for the writing.

“I’m here to tell you, I have never been so moved to tears as what these kids opened up and about and shared with the class,” Loewe wrote in a Facebook post. “Things like suicide, parents in prison, drugs in their family, being left by their parents, death, cancer, losing pets … and on and on.

“The kids who read the papers would cry because what they were reading was tough. The person who shared (if they chose to tell us it was them) would cry sometimes too. It was an emotionally draining day, but I firmly believe my kids will judge a little less, love a little more, and forgive a little faster.”

Continue on to the Good News Network to read the complete article.

13 books from high school worth rereading as an adult

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Too often, the books that you’re required to read in high school English don’t feel especially relevant. Maybe it’s the way they got taught to you, or the fact that many of them were written so long ago, or maybe you just weren’t in the right headspace to try to figure out what the hell Darl Bundren was even talking about.

So, while the idea of returning to these classics as an adult may make you shudder, there are some books worth giving another chance—no matter how you felt the first time. Picking up a book that you’ve already read can transport you to the place and time when you first you encountered it.

Rereading books can also show how much you have changed over the years, picking up nuances that you missed the first time around, or finding plots that seemed pointless to suddenly be poignant. For instance, parents who pick up George Eliot’s Silas Marner, a book that has bored teenagers for generations, may find meaning in the story of adoption completely missed by teens eager to finish the dang book already.

With that in mind, here are 13 books worth revisiting:

The Jungle – Upton Sinclair

When the public read this 1906 novel about the lives of immigrants working for meager wages in appallingly dangerous conditions, they were shocked and appalled. However, it wasn’t the plight of the workers that caused an uproar, but the health code violations and sanitary conditions in the meat industry. Rereading this book through a modern lens may give you a different perspective—and it also might convince you to shop at your local farmers’ market.

Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe

This book, which takes its title from the W.B. Yeats poem “The Second Coming,” was one of the first novels that told life from the African perspective to find a global audience. The story follows Ibo (or Igbo) leader Okonkwo as he tries to live in a quickly changing world as colonists and their religion infiltrate Nigeria. While readers may be horrified by some of Okonkwo’s choices, rereading the book highlights the impact of these decisions and the tragedy of a life filled with struggle and sacrifice.

The Diary of Anne Frank

As years pass and the number of living Holocaust survivors dwindles, reading these firsthand accounts of the lives lost to hatred and anti-Semitism is critical. First-time readers of this book may have been struck by Anne’s relatable voice and daily life. As adults, the bravery of the family who took them in and the parents’ desperation to keep their family safe make the book even more searing.

Lord of the Flies — William Golding

When a plane crashes on a desert island, a group of British school boys are left to their own devices. They must learn to work together in order to survive, but without rules or adults to enforce them, they quickly turn against each other. High schoolers may read this as an all-too-real cautionary tale about their classmates and field trips, while adults may see this as a reminder of innate human evilness, even among the seemingly innocent.

Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston

Coming-of-age stories read very differently when you’re an adult. Janie Crawford’s journey to find love and independence is no different. At first read, her story seems by turns tragic, romantic, foolhardy, and depressingly inescapable. A second reading reveals more about gender, race, and marriage.

1984 — George Orwell

While the year 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s story of a dystopian future rings true whenever it’s read. High school students may pick up themes of power and control, while adults rereading it may recognize the threat of totalitarianism, propaganda, and technology that makes Black Mirror look tame.

Beloved — Toni Morrison

Through the guise of a ghost story, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel reveals the long reach and psychological trauma of slavery. While first-time readers may be aghast at the cruelties inflicted on Sethe and her family, rereading reveals new themes like the universality of pain and sorrow, as well as the complex mother-daughter relationships that play out across generations.

Giovanni’s Room — James Baldwin

This pre-Stonewall story of love between two men captures the complexity of relationships in a time when being gay was especially hard. Love—particularly tormented love—means different things to the young and the, uh, less young, so what you take away from this book changes over time. The landmark LGBTQ novel is worth rereading in the modern age.

Frankenstein — Mary Shelley

If you only remember Frankenstein as the story of a mad scientist who wanted to find life after death but ended up creating a monster you should definitely reread this gothic tale. Widely considered the first science fiction novel, it was adapted for film by none other than Thomas Edison and has meaning that academics (and high school students) are still debating today.

To Kill A Mockingbird — Harper Lee

The story of a black man falsely accused of assaulting a white woman is as relevant today as when it was released in 1960. Lee’s story—and its indelible cast of characters—tells the story of loss of innocence in a Southern town plagued with prejudice, hatred, hypocrisy, and love. It serves as a good reminder that standing up for what’s right is not easy but always necessary.

Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury

Books are forbidden in this dystopian world and, as a fireman, it is Guy Montag’s job to burn any that he comes across, in case they corrupt the minds of citizens. In high school, this book, written during the McCarthy era, was an eye-opener about the not-too-distant future. Reading it now is a reminder of a potential reality we must work to avoid.

One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel García Márquez

García Márquez manages to cram seven generations of the Buendía family’s lives into a few hundred pages. The tale starts with the founding of the town of Macondo by José Arcadio Buendía and by the end, the town and its inhabitants have survived love, death, marriage, war, a plague of insomnia, and a whole bunch of characters named Aureliano. It’s a complicated tale, multilayered and filled with symbols and metaphors that deepen and change upon rereading.

Continue on to Fast Company to read the complete article.

An Arkansas Lawyer Bought 1,500 Pairs of Shoes From a Payless Going Out of Business. Now She’s Donating Them to Kids in Need

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woman holding her children with boxes around them

When Carrie Jernigan was doing some last-minute, pre-vacation shopping with her kids at a Payless ShoeSource near their home in Alma, Arkansa, she had no idea she would soon be taking home upwards of 1,500 pairs of shoes.

“What have I done?” the 37-year-old lawyer and mother of three says she initially thought to herself.

But this was possible because in February, Payless ShoeSource announced it would be shutting down all of its stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. It was the second time in two years the company was filing for bankruptcy — the latest casualty in what’s been dubbed over the years as the “retail apocalypse.”

Jernigan was taking advantage of the sweeping sales one day this past May when her 9-year-old daughter asked if they could buy Avengers tennis shoes for a classmate that needed a new pair. Inspired by her daughter’s act of kindness, Jernigan, jokingly, asked the clerk how much it would cost to buy the entire store. Hours later, she had purchased nearly 350 pairs of shoes with the intention of donating them all.

“We made a deal to buy almost all [that] was left on the shelves,” she says.

When she returned to pick up the shoes, she found out that a new delivery was coming in — days before the store was set to shut its doors. When her kids asked to take those too, she told them they could take a peek to see if there were any children’s shoes.

“Of course, the first box I opened up was JoJo Siwa shoes,” she says, referring to the mega-popular Nickelodeon star. “Pink glitter was everywhere.”

When it was all said and done Jernigan took home nearly $21,000 worth of merchandise — the majority of which she saved from the store’s blowout sale. She intends to donate roughly 1,100 pairs to kids, and local schools and give the remaining shoes to adults in need.

Being the local school board’s president, Jernigan knows how much some parents struggle to afford school supplies, let alone new shoes, for their children. When she realized that she had way too many shoes for her school alone, she decided to hold off for few months to do a back-to-school fundraising event.

Continue on to Money.com to read the complete article.

Google announces literary activities to help kids evaluate and analyze media as they browse the Internet

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Mom and daughter looking at a tablet together

Google is pleased to announce the addition of 6 new media literacy activities to the 2019 edition of Be Internet Awesome. Designed to help kids analyze and evaluate media as they navigate the Internet, the new lessons address educators’ growing interest in teaching media literacy.

They were developed in collaboration with Anne Collier, executive director of The Net Safety Collaborative, and Faith Rogow, PhD, co-author of The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy and a co-founder of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. Because media literacy is essential to safety and citizenship in the digital age, the news lessons complement Be Internet Awesome ’s digital safety and citizenship topics.

Overview of new activities:
1. Share with Care: That’s not what I meant!
● Overview: Students will learn the importance of asking the question: “How might others interpret what I share?” They’ll learn to read visual cues people use to communicate information about themselves and to draw conclusions about others.

2. Share with Care: Frame it
● Overview: Students will learn to see themselves as media creators. They’ll understand that media makers make choices about what to show and what to keep outside the frame. They’ll apply the concept of framing to understand the difference between what to make visible and public online and what to keep “invisible.”

3. Don’t Fall for Fake: Is that really true?
● Overview: Students will learn how to apply critical thinking to discern between what’s credible and non-credible in the many kinds of media they run into online.

4. Don’t Fall for Fake: Spotting disinformation online
● Overview: Students will learn how to look for and analyze clues to what is and isn’t reliable information online.

5. It’s Cool to Be Kind: How words can change a picture
● Overview: Students will learn to make meaning from the combination of pictures and words and will understand how a caption can change what we think a picture is communicating. They will gain an appreciation for the power of their own words, especially when combined with pictures they post.

6. When in Doubt, Talk It Out: What does it mean to be brave?
● Overview: Students will think about what it means to be brave online and IRL, where they got their ideas about “brave” and how media affect their thinking about it.

Expanding resources to families
YMCA
We teamed up with the YMCA across six cities to host bilingual workshops for parents to help teach families about online safety and digital citizenship with Be Internet Awesome and help families create healthy digital habits with the Family Link app. The workshops, designed for parents, coincide with June’s National Internet Safety Month and come at the start of the school summer holidays.

Continue on here to read more.

Latinas on the Rise

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Successful Latinas pictured in a collage

The Congresswoman-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (pictured bottom left)

Until about a year ago, Puerto Rican Bronx native Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a bartender at a Flats Fix taco and tequila bar in New York City’s Union Square. Now at age 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, winning 78 percent of the vote. The young congresswoman told NowThis News, “Our district (14th District) is 70 percent people of color, and we have never had a person of color represent us in American history.”

The Wellness Influence-Liz Hernandez (pictured top left)

Liz Hernandez, former journalist and correspondent for Access Hollywood, MTV, and E! News, launched her YouTube series Wordaful in 2016. The series, which brings awareness to the impact and power of words, was founded when she saw how much her mom was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, losing most of her speech. “A lot of times communicating is taken for granted and we become reckless with how we speak to each other,” Hernandez said to Forbes. “My mom losing her speech made me want to be more responsible with mine.”

The Beauty Tycoon-(pictured bottom right)

CEO Katia Beauchamp launched Birchbox in 2010, a beauty subscription box that now has more than 2.5 million active customers. Birchbox redefines the way people discover and shop for beauty and grooming by pairing a monthly subscription of personalized samples with relevant content and a curated e-commerce shop. Birchbox’s innovation isn’t the simple concept of delivering a box of beauty samples—it’s understanding that although not every woman is passionate about beauty, every woman deserves to have a great experience buying it.

Latina Business and Education Stats

Latina-owned businesses represent nearly half of all Latino businesses.

Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business

As of 2015, the number of Latino firms owned by females grew by 87%.

Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business

About 4.4 million Latino-owned businesses in the U.S. contribute more than $700 billion to the economy annually.

Source: U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Article Source: Birchbox

How to Find a Job as a New Graduate

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Woman sitting at a desk working on a resume

Goodbye university. Hello working life. Well, that’s the plan anyway.

Making the transition from student life to full-time employment comes with mixed emotions. Beginning your career might mean sacrificing late-night drinks on a Tuesday at the campus pub, but it comes with plenty of benefits. Just picture what you’ll do with that first paycheck.

Graduating from a university or college and finding a job is a significant life event. And people handle it in different ways. Some new grads will take their time and go traveling to forestall the change. Others will be keen to get their professional lives started right away.

Regardless of when you plan on finding a job as a new grad, the process can be challenging. Many graduates lack familiarity with the basics of job searching, or how to sell themselves to employers when they have minimal work experience.

Not to worry, here we’ll cover some of the best strategies for finding a job for those who are recent graduates. This guide includes advice on:

  1. Setting expectations for your job search
  2. The importance of a well-crafted resume for new grads
  3. How to identify job opportunities
  4. Enhancing your professionalism

1) What to Expect As a Recent Graduate

OK, time for a reality check. Unless you are extremely fortunate, you will not find your perfect job right out of school. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s important to keep your expectations in check.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do everything you can to land a fantastic job. But you need to remember that there are thousands of other new grads out there looking to jumpstart their careers too. And there aren’t many ‘amazing’ jobs on offer to people who have minimal experience.

You may find that there are limited opportunities on offer with your preferred company or in your ideal role. Be flexible in this case. Look for opportunities that vary slightly from these ideals.

By all means, stay true to your interests and background. Just don’t be too narrow in your view of how you can apply your skills and experience. For example, you may want a financial analyst position with a commercial bank.

Well, maybe that commercial bank isn’t hiring analysts right now but they are hiring project assistants. Chances are good that many of the skills required of a project assistant are required of financial analysts as well.

And maybe you can start off as a project assistant, prove your abilities, and make a leap to an analyst.

The point is to look for opportunities that are relevant to the career path you foresee for yourself. This may also mean pursuing unpaid internship opportunities as a potential starting point with a company or career path.

Internships often lead to full-time, paid roles; and worst-case, an internship offers you valuable experience that you can use to help secure employment elsewhere.

2) Be Ready-to-go With Your Resume

Before you start your job search, you had better make sure you have a resume or CV that you can send along to recruiters or other contacts. You won’t find too many organizations that don’t require you to submit one or the other as part of their hiring process.

As a new grad, if you’re serious about landing a professional job, your resume or CV should look the part. So throw away that Word document you created five years ago when you applied for a job as a restaurant server, and upgrade to a modern version.

You will want to give careful attention to layout and design so that you can make a visual impact on recruiters. A resume builder can help on that front. But even more important is the content you include.

As a new grad, your best strategy for developing a resume/CV is to create an initial version that you can alter to fit the different positions you will be applying for. Don’t make the mistake of using the same resume/CV over and over again for every application.

One of the basics of resume writing is to customize your resume/CV to reflect the requirements of a particular job description. In other words, you need to show recruiters that you’ve got what they are asking for.

In terms of content, students and recent graduates can struggle to decide what to list on their resumes, especially if they lack relevant work experience. However, there are plenty of tricks for writing a resume with little to no experience.

What’s important is that you think hard about how other experiences, such as school work or extra-curricular, demonstrate the abilities you can apply to real-world work.

Continue on to novoresume to read the complete article.

The World’s Largest MBA Tour hosted by QS

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The World’s Largest MBA Tour hosted by QS is coming to a city near you! Attendees will have the opportunity to speak face-to-face with representatives from dozens of top international and local business schools and get all of their MBA-related questions answered!

Earn a salary boost, gain valuable leadership skills, or change industries altogether; the possibilities are endless with an MBA! This is a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with top local and international business schools such as Brown University, NYU, INSEAD, and many more (check your local event page for a full list of participating schools).

At the event, you will be able to get all of your MBA-related questions answered under one roof as well as network with alumni and fellow attendees. Attendees will also be able to get their resume reviewed by a professional, a professional LinkedIn headshot taken, test prep resources, and so much more – all for FREE. And if that’s not enough, by attending the event, you’ll also gain access to scholarships worth up to $7 million that will help you succeed and get that MBA you’ve been dreaming of!

Additionally, the Toronto and New York events will both have a Women in Leadership workshop!

Take advantage of this partnership between Diversity Comm and QS and register for FREE to attend an upcoming event in your city!

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How Concierge Parenting Services Can Help Prepare Kids for College

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College admissions issues has been stealing the headlines. From the college admission scandal, where wealthy people allegedly paid to help their kids get accepted to high ranking colleges, to the talk of adding diversity scores to help boost some SAT/ACT tests, the news is filled with the challenges that those wanting to go to a good college may face.

Some parents are opting to take an approach that is more tailored to helping the child become prepared to excel and get into the college of their choice. This new approach, called concierge parenting services, aims to provide a customized plan to take the child to the next level, by identifying their fullest potential and capitalizing on it.

“Too often, the approaches taken in schools are failing students. Every child learns differently, so a cookie cutter approach just doesn’t work,” explains Reena B. Patel, a parenting expert, licensed educational psychologist, and author, who offers virtual workshops. “Through concierge parenting services, parents can learn exactly what their child needs to focus on in order to excel. The plan has been tailored to their unique child.”

Recently, Gallup suggested that education in the country takes the opposite approach of standardized tests, which students are being inundated with around the nation. What they suggest is that students need a test that is for them and about them, so that they become better at understanding and developing their own unique talents, which will help them succeed in school and life. This is the goal of concierge parenting, too.

Concierge parenting is service offered by Patel and other professionals in the field, in which they conduct extensive assessment on the child. Here are some of the ways that concierge parenting services can help prepare kids for college:

  • The assessments that are conducted show a child’s strengths, so that they can capitalize on them in order to reach their goals.
  • Parents receive a customized learning profile of their child, which will give insight as to how they best learn and optimize their strengths while developing areas of need. Parents can use that information to ensure that their educational needs are being addressed and how to take their child to the next level of growth.
  • Their learning profile includes such things as the child’s emotional resilience. This is important information, because it sheds light on how well the child will adapt to stressful situations or challenges. They can use the information to help the child learn more coping skills.
  • Parents receive the tools that they need in order to help their child navigate studying, taking tests, and applying for colleges. Rather than guessing how to best go about these things, the information has been tailored to the needs and styles of the individual.
  • Similar to a concierge in a hotel, parents get a tailored approach that is focused on meeting their needs and ensuring their child’s success. By taking advantage of a service like this, parents can learn their child’s strengths then nurture them and focus on excelling those strengths to be the best version of themselves.

“If you want to feel confident about your child’s education and future college acceptance, you can’t go wrong with taking a concierge parenting approach,” added Patel. “The purpose of concierge parenting is to help remove the stress, hurdles, and disappointment that may come later on. It helps your child to set out on their path with a detailed map to help them successfully get there.”

Patel offers several concierge parenting services packages, including being able to tailor a program to meet individual needs and goals. Two of her popular packages are titled Optimal Learning and New Parent. The Optimal Learning package offers a comprehensive assessment, customized report with specific tools to apply, follow up emails to ask questions, comprehensive evaluations to include, but not limited to, intelligence testing, academic testing, social and emotional readiness, and executive functioning testing. The New Parent package focuses on the idea that every baby and child is unique and has a different temperament. It’s ideal for new parents or a parent of a teen. Finding time to address challenges, such as behaviors, or how best to get your baby to sleep is hard. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a service customized just for your family and child? One that is effective and developed by a professional expert.

Each concierge parenting package includes initial consultation to identify concerns and goals, three session observation, modeling, and implementation of expert techniques, and one follow up virtual call after strategies are implemented.

In addition to offering concierge parenting services, Patel is the founder of AutiZm& More. As a licensed educational psychologist and guidance counselor, she helps children and their families with the use of positive behavior support strategies across home, school, and community settings. She does workshops around California, and virtual workshops globally where she provides this information to health professionals, families, and educators. She is also the author of a book that helps children with anxiety coping strategies called “Winnie & Her Worries,” and author of a book about autism awareness and acceptance, called “My Friend Max: A Story about a Friend with Autism.” Both of her books are available on Amazon. To learn more about her services, visit the website at reenabpatel.com.

About Reena B. Patel
Based in the San Diego area, Reena B. Patel (LEP, BCBA) is a renowned parenting expert, guidance counselor, licensed educational psychologist, and board-certified behavior analyst. For more than 20 years, Patel has had the privilege of working with families and children, supporting all aspects of education and positive wellness. She works extensively with developing children as well as children with exceptional needs, supporting their academic, behavioral and social development. She was recently nominated for San Diego Magazine’s “Woman of the Year.” To learn more about her books and services, visit the website at reenabpatel.com, and to get more parenting tips, follow her on Instagram @reenabpatel.

Gallup. It’s time to try the opposite of standardized testing. gallup.com/education/237284

One-Year or Two-Year MBA: Is There a Simple Answer?

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By Steve Fortin

There are now literally hundreds of MBA programs available worldwide. Evaluating an MBA today is roughly the equivalent of talking about a car—one needs more specific details to really understand how one program compares to another.

In the same way that there is often little in common between a small sports car and a large SUV, MBA programs come in many variations. Indeed, there are many comparative factors to consider, including a program’s standing in global rankings, academic design, specializations, entry requirements, delivery mode, or, most relevant to this discussion, its duration.

MBAs have become diversified products, catering to segmented clientele’s needs. Upon exploring whether a two-year MBA program is superior to a one-year program, there is, unfortunately, no simple answer to suit all circumstances.

Internships and career changes

The first argument in support of a two-year MBA program pertains to the job market. Even within a two-year program, students are under pressure, as they juggle academics with career-prep workshops. Most programs begin in August and employers arrive on campus as early as September to recruit, both for summer internships and full-time jobs. Many students say that they are unsure of the field in which they wish to specialize, yet are asked to commit to a job search within a chosen industry almost immediately.

In a two-year MBA program, this issue is actually less problematic. Students complete internships first and are then provided with additional opportunities to engage with employers the following autumn. Moreover, some students accept full-time jobs with the same employer, usually during the last two weeks of their summer internship. Most remain in the same industry, but move laterally to a different employer and/or to a different job category. Finally, some realize that the chosen industry was not for them and move to a different one altogether, typically seeking a different field of specialization in their MBA. Given the duration of the program, students will have one more round of campus recruitment and a full eight months of courses left, making such transitions possible and easy to make. We have found that students enter the next round of recruitment better prepared, more aware of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their goals and aspirations.

A two-year MBA program allows more time to build a strong foundation

The second argument in support of a two-year MBA program relates to academics. To acquire in-depth knowledge, one needs time flexibility to build their schedule, as well as to digest and integrate content. While knowledge can often be acquired relatively quickly, developing competency requires more time. One needs to read, apply the material, build presentations, study, write exams, and experience the use of the material in real life.

One aspect that most professors will likely agree on is that the faster one is forced to learn something, the faster this material will be forgotten. A two-year MBA program allows more time to build a strong foundation, as well as to consider and select options within a given field. More time allows for more informed choices, and more informed choices translate to a more adapted education.

The third and final strength of a two-year MBA program is its resilience to errors. Students may not be aware of the different choices that exist in management education or on the management job market. If a student begins his or her studies in marketing and either struggles academically or lacks interest, there is time to reorient. As mentioned previously, if a student completes an internship and does not appreciate the practical aspects of a field, there is still time to change direction. Finally, it is also noteworthy to mention that a key advantage of an MBA is the networking opportunities that it brings. However, it can be more challenging to build lasting relationships over a more condensed period of time.

Value of one-year vs. two-year MBA may hinge on your circumstances

To summarize, the value of a two-year MBA program over a shorter one is essentially a matter of “it depends.” As a rule of thumb, the more removed an applicant is from the world of management at the time of admission, the more he or she should contemplate the two-year degree. The strength of a two-year program is the additional time that it affords to build expertise, explore the job market, and validate both academic and career choices. In my opinion, ideal candidates for such a program would be international students, as well as those seeking a career change, such as engineers, lawyers, teachers, artists and others who are interested in a management career and/or in relocating to a different country.

However, the closer one is to the world of management, the stronger the argument in favor of a one-year MBA. Those looking to move up in their career are the target clientele. Career climbers are less likely to feel the need to acquire knowledge of the job market, or to build strong foundations in management. Thus, students who meet this profile will likely be well-served by a one-year degree. This is why, after all, MBA programs of varying durations exist in the first place, as they are built to adapt to different clienteles and their respective needs.

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, the proof is often in the pudding. Indeed, this is probably the strongest argument of all: When given a choice to go faster, our well-informed students choose to take more time!