By Curtis Hendricks
Many people have come to me expressing how they wish they had more time to go back
to school. In the early years of my marriage I was having difficulty competing in the job arena. I
had a full time job, three kids, and a wife that I wanted to spend time with. How was I going to
attend college? I enrolled in an online program at University of Phoenix (UofPX). I received one
degree and I am almost complete with my second degree. The online program allowed me to
attend my schooling at home during times I chose. Granted, I received a lot of support from my
wife and could not have gone as far in college as I have. I now have a full-time job teaching with
no worry of needing a job or looking for the next job.
An online education is difficult because you have no one holding your hand getting you
through the course. The online education is mostly self motivated, but worth gaining an
education that works with your schedule. UofPX and Kaplan College both have local facilities
that can help you start and finish your online college education or job specific training. National
University also has a local facility to help you tailor your courses and fit them to your schedule.
Online universities and colleges are growing and becoming more popular, so popular that
top universities such as Cal Tech, Stanford, and University of California, Berkeley are offering
free courses online. Web sites such as courser.org and edx.org have free full courses for anyone
to attend via the internet. I have taken some refresher courses in mathematics from top
universities here in our state. University professors are also offering full semester lectures on
websites such as youtube.com and academicearth.org.
The information available to use is limitless. You can now attend a lecture at the top
university of your choice from your own home. Many of these courses are not worth college
credits, but they can give you a proper jump start into your college education. These courses can
offer the perfect refresher in a once lost knowledge needed for an upcoming job. These courses
helped me, and I believe they can help you. We must strive to learn something new every day.
What better way to learn than from the top educators of our time.
