Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello, this Neil Squire Society presentation
is about picking an education program
and some of the considerations
that you should have
when choosing to invest
in your personal education.
This presentation will cover
some reasons why you should research schools,
some questions to ask when you research schools
and things you should keep notes of when doing your research.
You should certainly research more than one school
when looking at furthering your personal education.
It is a huge financial commitment and a very large personal commitment
where you'll spend a significant amount of your time and energy, so you want to ensure
but the program you choose
is the right fit.
Also, if you're looking for funding to assist in the cost of your education,
you gain credibility by being able to showcase
how various programs
meet or do not meet your needs when applying for funding.
At the bare minimum, when researching different education options,
you're going to definitely need the institution contact information,
whether you received a certificate or diploma or degree
or some other certification,
whether there are any prerequisites,
courses or work that you need to have done before you can even a role in the
program,
you should also ask for the start and finish dates.
Some programs can be done in a shorter fashion,
some can be done on more gradual pace over a longer duration,
so it is a good thing to consider
when investigating education.
You should also get an idea of what the program or course titles are,
and of course,
you're going to want to get an estimate
of the costs, how much is it going to cost you
to take this program?
And cost is not an easy matter to consider,
there's a variety of things consider:
whether you have some of that funding yourself to cover those costs,
what the tuition is,
are there student fees or student union dues you have to pay,
how much are the books, some courses have all their coursework online now,
others you have to make a significant investment text books and other
educational resources.
If you're person with a disability,
there may be funding and help with some of these
but you may have to consider attendant costs,
transportation to and from your classes
and some additional cost such as adaptive equipment
or other needs or supplies that you may
have to acquire
to be enrolled in the role in the program.
Online education is something you may wish to consider.
Opportunities through online learning
is rapidly transferring education
in communities across canada around the world.
So this may not be for you,
but may be an opportunity
access training that's not available in your community.
Many education
institutions offer
online training courses.
There even some universities, such as Athabasca University
or Thompson Rivers University
which are completely online universities, which means all they do is offer online
courses.
There's also a rise of open course ware:
free online courses
that are available to anybody in the world.
Some examples of this is iTunes University
as well as the current project between
Stanford and MIT
to provide free online learning to people around the world.
Their goals to reach a billion people,
maybe you'll be one of them.
When looking for funding around your
applications for school
the question you want to keep in the forefront your mind
is "How all of this course of program lead to competative employment?
While education for education's sake is excellent,
if applying for funding to help you with your education, quite often
the fundings are tied to labor market attachment,
so they are going to be interested in how this course or this program will help you
find employment.
So there may be other things you wish to consider, or different ways to find that
employment with less or no training.
When picking your school, there's a few different things you can also consider.
It's sometimes very helpful to interview people through informational interviews or
informal meetings
that are working in the field that you're interested in
and an idea of what programs they take,
or asking employers "When you're looking to hire somebody in this profession,
what education do you wish they had?"
That can give you an idea of what employers are looking for in future employees
and help you frame
your education.
Other sources where you can find this information would be job ads,
internet searches,
testimonials from the universities or academic advisers, but certainly meeting
and talking to people
that are in the field that you wish to enter is an excellent way to
gauge where
your education efforts should be concentrated.
When you do this research across different institutions,
it is an excellent idea to keep
written notes
of your work and your research.
Many funding applications for post-secondary institutions
will ask for you to do this sort of work,
so as you do it make sure you keep track of what you find and what you've learned,
that'll help you and make your future task in applying for funding much
easier.
You'll find with this resource
a course research forum that can help frame your work and your research when
you're investigating
training opportunities.
This concludes our presentation
on researching different education programs.
If you have any questions about this presentation, please ask you're signed
facilitator.