Photo by Justin Taylor

Lately, I have been struggling with the question of whether or not going into debt for college is really worth it. When you see thousands who invested in themselves via taking out student loans now out of work, you really have to ask yourself this. On one hand, the college experience itself is a path of self-discovery. You learn how to multi-task well while completing projects under strict deadlines; how to express yourself orally and in writing and gain confidence in your own intellectual abilities. For someone just out of high school, learning this skill set is essential to future success in any career. However, when you have lived life a little bit, don’t a lot of these things come naturally?

But there is the double-edged sword. You can have all the skills and then some of your college-educated colleagues, but you will be passed up at promotion time because you lack that sheepskin.  An individual has to carefully weigh out the benefits and risks inherent with going back to college. Since most adult students are paying for their educations themselves, choosing the right program and college becomes even more critical.

Don’t put yourself into debt without a clear picture of how you are going to pay back that money when you graduate. You have to research whether or not your shiny new degree is going to allow you to make enough money to pay back your loans. Just because you have always wanted a degree in say, history, does not mean that getting it will be a paying proposition. This can be a hard thing to hear, but it must be said. Will your new degree allow you to pay off debt with public service? Teachers serving for a specified period of time in areas where there is a critical demand for qualified teachers may have this option. Those going into nursing may be able to exchange loan repayment with signing on with a hospital for a number of years of service. Some employers may re-imburse their employeeds tutition for attending an approved program. Look to see if options like these might be available to you before you put yourself into deep debt.

So is going back to college worth it? It certainly can be if you do your research well. Don’t forget the option of a two-year degree when you’re doing your research either. Many lucrative careers can be launched with a two-year degree, especially in medical fields with high demands for graduates such as registered nurses or physical therapy assistants. These degrees will get you into your chosen field a lot more quickly while accumulating less debt than you would attaining a four-year degree.

I have to give a plug to Nate Desmond over at Debtfree Scholar. Nate has written a very thoughtful review of Marc Scheer’s book No Sucker Left Behind:Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off. Nate says that Scheer dispells many myths about college, and exposes some very expensive practices of colleges that show very little regard for the best interests of their students. It sounds like required reading for anyone contemplating attending college. Nate is also giving away a copy of the book for anyone interested.

I have no doubt that many of you adult students out there will not only be successful in your college classes, but you will excel to the point that many of you will be invited to join an honor society. There are several great benefits to joining an honor society: it looks great on a resume, and honor societies are excellent sources of scholarships. Here are a few honor societies that you may be invited to join as adult students:

Phi Theta Kappa–Phi Theta Kappa is the honor society of the two-year college. This honor society offers some of the best transfer scholarship opportunities anywhere for students planning to transfer to a four-year college. There are transfer scholarships of $36 million available for Phi Theta Kappa members transferring to over 600 four-year colleges. They also have a number of other scholarship opportunities available for their members, including the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship that may be valued at up to  $30,000.00 for students to complete a bachelor’s degree.

Alpha Sigma Lambda–is an honor society who’s purpose is to “celebrate the scholarship and leadership of the adult student in higher education.” It’s great to be able to join an honor society with a group of your peers who know the sacrifices it takes for an adult student to get their degree.

Kappa Delta Pi–This one is for you prospective educators out there. KDP is open to only the top 20% of those entering the education field.  They offer resources for student teachers, scholarships and grants, and help you to find a job in teaching after graduation.

I was lucky enough to be a member of all of these honor societies when I attended Gonzaga. It feels really good to wear all those honor cords around your neck on graduation day when many of your younger peers may not have any! So, if you are invited to join an honor society, check out the benefits you can get from joining, as well as getting that “gloat factor” from membership.

Do you know of any other honor societies that admit adult students? Please let our readers know by posting a comment. Thanks!

If you’ve ever taken any kind of biology, history,or art history classes or are about to go into one of these “memory” classes, you should well know that 98% of the class is the memorization of terms and definitions. I will tell you that the HARDEST class I have ever taken was an Art History class, and although you may not ever take on of these classes, I can tell you that the study techniques I used for that class are sure to do you some good in any other classes along the same lines

In the class there were only 4 tests all semester and an entire textbook of art and art history from prehistoric art to the 1400’s. I also took this class as a night class, so that meant 1 class a week, for 3 hours. I don’t know about you, but that’s a whole LOT of art history to cover in one semester. Anyways there was no homework and except for one research paper written on a piece of art from an art museum, and as I said before, there were 4 tests…that’s it.

Let me just tell you about the test. There were no terms AT ALL given to you, it all had to come from your memory. To start off with there was map matching, there could be a total of 10 different countries in the maps and you had to place exactly where the matching cities were on the maps, you could not even be an inch off or it would be wrong. Secondly, there were about 20 vocabulary words that had to be matched with their definition and then also matched to the specific period or event in history that it had to do with. There was then a 5 paragraph essay in which style, historical context, technique, etc, etc, had to be used, and lest we forget that this essay was not of your own choosing but would be something very specific in which you had to talk about.

Finally, the most difficult part of the whole test was the projector slides. A piece of art would be displayed
on the projector and you were given about 5 mins each for about 10 slides to put down name, artist, art historical period, city and country, date, culture, material, and finally 5 signifigances about the piece that had to do with style, technique, historical context, and some others that I just can’t quite think of. This was one doozy of a test, and ALL of it had to be memorized, no key words, no list of terms, nothing. I managed to make it through the semester with an A which surprised even me but it was only because of the study techniques I used.

Let me give you the low down.

First off when you have a class like this you need to make NOTE-CARDS, this is extremely important, in this case of having so much information for one note card I used the extra large notecards. What I did was set the card up exactly how the test was set up with the projector slides, Name: Date: Artist: ect. I filled in all of that and the 5 signifigances and at the top I put the page number the art piece was on and the page number that the map of the city the piece was created in was on. On the otherside of that notecard I put just the page number that the picture of the piece was on. If I had had a working printer I would have just printed off the picture of the piece from the internet, it worked though, so that’s all that matters. On a seperate note card that I would use as a refrence for how the test was set up I would put Name: Artist: Date: etc, but this time leave blanks behind them instead of filling anything in. This is simply to help jog your memory of what it is that you actually need to know. With this I read through and filled out each of my note-cards for each piece of art and then continued to go over and over the note-cards until I felt I could try just using my “memory jog” card and the pictures to go through everything, and I would test myself on each card until I got everything on the card right twice, then move onto the next card. I did this over and over until finally I knew it all.

The Key to all of this is to have all your information organized in a compact way, I.E. the note-cards and to have your “memory jog” card of blanks made up. You have to force yourself to write all of this out yourself, or type it out, because in my experience writing all the info down yourself will help your memory to begin with. Don’t have your kid copy it down. Don’t have your study buddy copy it down. Don’t have Billy Bob down the street copy it down. Do the work yourself, go through your textbook and your notes and do it ALL yourself. I know that it is time consuming, in fact, making the note cards is the most time consuming thing you will have to do but it will be worth it when you’re done because then your brain has that much more time to absorb the things you are copying down before you actually start studying. After that, everything is relatively easy, just keep on going through your notecards and keep on testing yourself and DON’T STOP until you know EVERYTHING. This is the only way you will get through a class like this, be organized and keep on it and do the work yourself, I promise it will pay off!