Sat Test

As with all decisions in life, there are pros and cons in choosing to attend a two year, vocational school or even an online school. Some of the advantages of attending a Technical School include a quicker route to working at a job in the real world. You can get an AA degree in two years, in a discipline that will allow you to work in a field that interests you. If a fast track to a paycheck is something you’re looking for, then this would be a plus for you. Typically the kind of education you get in this kind of a school is hands on and you’re actually learning by doing the work you’d be doing in a paying job.

If your grades aren’t high enough to get you into the four year university that you really want to go to, then spending two years at a community college or a Vocational/Technical school might be the answer for you. Once you’ve established yourself as a solid student by getting good grades at a two year institution of higher learning, you will have earned your AA degree and can then apply to transfer to the University of your choice to continue on for your four year degree. I know that some four year public universities have agreements with community colleges in their areas to facilitate transfer students.

One of the advantages of going to a vocational school near home is that you can probably still live at home, and that will save you money in the long run.

A drawback to having just a degree from a technical college is that an employer may be more likely to hire someone with a four year degree because they have more education behind them. However, a two year degree is an excellent start on getting your four year degree.

There are a few questions that you need to ask yourself before you choose a career based school. Is the school you’re looking at attending accredited and licensed? This means that it’s a reputable school and has passed a process of review by a peer board that includes members of faculty from other accredited universities and colleges. To pass this review a school is assessed on several points. The overall mission of the school, its objectives and goals, student requirements for admission, what services are available to students, the quality of education given to students and the reputation of the faculty.

It’s important that the school you attend is an accredited school in order for your future employer to make sure you’ve received a quality education. It also makes it easier for you to transfer credits from one school to another if you’re coming from an accredited school.

Some schools do not need to be accredited. These would be schools that offer specialty training programs in technical or art fields that don’t fall under the typical process of accreditation.

You may want to do some research to see if the school you are interested in attending is a reputable school and has a good standing in the community for giving an excellent education to its students and providing them with the skills they need to be attractive to future employers.

You’ve decided that a four year university isn’t for you. For whatever reason, your sights are set on getting a degree at a technical college. How much do you know about the technical colleges in your area? Or have you decided that perhaps you’d still like to move away from home and are thinking about finding a technical school out of state?

There are a great many technical schools for you to choose from across the nation. If you already have an idea about just what you want to do with your life, then you might know what sort of degree you’re looking to get at a technical school.

The technical field is growing and will continue to grow. Look around you and see all the laptops, the wi-fi hot spots, the cell phones, computer networks and all the gadgets that people have on hand on a daily basis. Things we didn’t have several years ago have become ‘must haves’ for us today. How many of you are walking around with an Ipod? We can’t seem to live without our cell phones or our computers. Because the technological side of life continues to grow, it only makes sense that the people who create such things, who work on and repair electronic devices will continue to be in demand.

If you love that kind of thing, then perhaps going to a technical school is exactly up your alley. You can go to a technical school and get real working knowledge and on the job skills for the trade you are interested in pursuing.

There are other degrees you can get at a vocational school as well, such as A+ Certification, Computer Networking, Computer Design, Computer Programming, Computer Engineering, Web Design, Information Technology, CAD (computer aided design), HVAC or Electrician training or even Automotive Technology. In one of my last blog posts I told you about a friend of mine who went to a voc-tech school and he received his AAS (Associate of Applied Sciences) as an Aviation Maintenance Technician , as well as FAA licenses to enable him to be an aircraft mechanic. If you’re interested in becoming a pastry chef, I know of a great school in Seattle that will make you a culinary genius! They have an excellent program in Culinary Arts. There are programs to work in law enforcement, or to work for lawyers. I found an excellent website that lists over 1,000 two year and technical colleges across the country. It’s called, oddly enough, Two Year U.S. Colleges and you can find it here http://cset.sp.utoledo.edu/twoyrcol.html What I like about this website is that it shows you how many of what type of college are in each state and then they give you a hyperlink right to each school. All the work is done for you and the information is fairly comprehensive. It pays to double check any information you find on the Internet by calling the schools and making sure it’s accurate. You can even contact the department head of the program that you’d like to pursue and get the information from him.

In my next blog I’ll talk about the benefits and drawbacks to attending a vocational or a two year college.