10 Questions to Ask For-Profit Online Colleges

10 Questions to Ask For-Profit Online Colleges Not all for-profit colleges are scams. In fact, some offer students flexibility and a career-oriented learning style that can be difficult to find elsewhere. On the other hand, some online for-profit programs rake in big money while leaving students with lots of debt and few job prospects. If you’re considering enrolling in a for-profit online college, hold off on signing that first tuition check until you get answers to these ten questions: 1. What is the colleges accreditation status? You’ll want to make sure that your school’s accreditation is recognized by the United States Department of Education. The most transferable form of accreditation comes from the six nationally-recognized regional accrediting bodies. 2. Is the school now (or has it ever been) on one of the federal financial watch lists? The federal government recently released a list of colleges that are being monitored due to concerning financial behavior. Although the list isn’t comprehensive, you’ll want to make sure your college isn’t on it. 3. What is the colleges graduation rate? Find out what percent of students who start the program end up graduating. If this number is particularly low, it’s a good indicator that the school may not be providing a quality experience or enough student support. 4. How many students who graduate from the program are able to find a career in their field? The federal government is starting to crack down on for-profit programs that charge a lot for tuition and leave students in the dark when it comes to career prospects. Make sure your investment is worthwhile - you’ll want to know that a reasonable percentage of graduates in your program are able to find employment. 5. How long does it actually take most students to graduate from this program? It’s likely that the average is longer than 4 years. But, if students are taking 6-8 years to earn an undergraduate degree, that might be a sign to look elsewhere. 6. How much student debt does the average student in this program take on? Tuition prices may be posted. But, how much debt are students actually accruing? When you factor in student fees, additional coursework, textbooks, and graduation charges, expenses start to add up. You don’t want to graduate with a photography degree and $100,000 of student debt. Make sure that your debt won’t be too challenging to manage with your expected income. 7. What kind of access to career development does the school offer? Traditional schools tend to offer job fairs, employer meet-and-greets, resume reviews, and other career development options. Does your for-profit program provide any services to help put your degree to use? 8. What other schools or parent companies is this for-profit program connected with? Some for-profit schools are part of larger conglomerate of schools. Sometimes, when a for-profit program fails, it takes new life with a new name. Do a bit of research into your college’s history and make sure they’ve been thriving for a while. 9. What are the advantages of choosing this school over a non-profit alternative? Some for-profit schools offer legitimate advantages. They may be able to let you focus on your career rather than saddle you with too many general ed requirements. Or, they may be able to help you finish a degree in less time and with less expense. However, this isn’t always the case. Find out by comparing your for-profit options with similar non-profit and public colleges. 10. How does this school track their statistics? Don’t just ask the above questions to a telephone recruiter and call it a day. Learn where and how they are collecting this information. Then, double-check the numbers with outside sources. Don’t rely on any school to give you the full picture without your own research to back it up. Jamie Littlefield is a writer and instructional designer. She can be reached on Twitter or through her educational coaching website: jamielittlefield.com.

Article 4 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

4 - Article Example The second part mentions about a farm six miles away from the town of Decorah in Iowa. The farm is about 890-acre and contains a stretch of woods and rolling fields of Heritage crops. This particular farm is known of its practice of letting its crops grow to seeds. It has been named home to the Seed Savers Exchange and is one of the biggest non-governmental seed banks within the United States (Siebert, Charles 6). An account of Diane Ott Whealy is mentioned concerning the seedlings of Heirloom plant types. And this is dates back to the year 1975. It is because of their enthusiasm towards keeping that specific variety of seeds that they Diane and the husband Kent decide to build a store. Currently, that store is said to have a membership of about 13,000 people and preserves seeds of several varieties of heirloom. Considering the increasing food extinction in the world, in the US, 90% of its historic fruits and vegetable varieties have vanished. For instance, of the 7000apple varieties grown in the 1800s, less than a hundred remain today. The same case is happening in Philippines where thousands of types of rice once existed: now only less than a hundred are there. Countries like; China, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Sudan are also not exempted. Some other dwindling food variety include beet, Cabbage, Cucumber, Tomato, Sweet corn, Radish, Pea, Squash, Lettuce and Muskmelon (Siebert, Charles 8). Another section of the article gives information relating to the present efforts to increasing food production in the developing continents like Africa. And this is a process that has been considered to bypass the green revolution and might only elevate the pace at which crop species and livestock breeds become extinct. Countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, are said to have sacrificed much of their crops to the mono-cropping of imported, high-yielding ones. In conclusion, therefore, this article gives ideas relating to why some of our crop varieties

What is democracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

What is democracy - Essay Example A popular definition of democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. Elections are held periodically (usually every 4 or 5 years) that determine ministers who would take part in state’s operations. Every adult (usually above 18 years) has the right to vote and decide on the ministers who would actively represent their country Even after election, there are checks and balances so that those who hold offices are kept on their toes. If people are not satisfied with the performance of a particular minister or party, they can show their dissent through petitions, marches, blogs, or other peaceful means. There are rooms for diverse opinions and multiple parties exist to represent different ideologies. Some countries under British model of democracy can have any number of parties, like in the parliamentary form of democracy. The number of parties is restricted to three or four in some democracies like US and UK because of administrative reasons, ensuring that democratic tenets are not compromised in the process. It is only natural that under democratic system, which promotes diverse views and opinions, there are multiple parties competing with each other. The head of state is either designated as ‘president’ or ‘prime minister.’ As democracy takes into account majority view while taking collective decisions, the basic concept right from formation of ruling council (parliament) to any minute issue regarding its operation remains the same. A country is divided into a number of regions or provinces. A candidate is selected as winner for a particular region if he or she has secured the maximum number of votes for that region. A candidate either represents a party or can stand independent. If a candidate stands independent, depending upon the constitution of that country, he or she may or may not be allowed to support a political party later on during the elected tenure. Parliament consists of group of ministers who have all won maximum number of votes from their respective regions. Ministers represent different parties, if not independent. The party that has sufficient amount of majority will be the ruling party from which key ministerial post of president or prime minister is determined. The ruling party’s members together determine who their president or prime minister would be. President or prime minister, as the case may be, allocates responsibilities to other ministers in the party, such as defense minister, finance minister, etc. This is the main concept behind any democratic form of government, which is tailored in context of a particular country. When democracy is in pure form, one can expect that there will be no distinction made on account of religion, caste, language, or culture. In democracy, there is a right for everyone to live with whatever small or big aspirations they have. Democracy gives an opportunity to all to progress, without making distinction on personal issues like sexual orientation, believe or disbelieve in reincarnation, etc. The terms democracy and civil society come side by side. While defining civil society, Jane Morse states that civil society comprises â€Å"individuals like you and me.† Interesting to note is the statement, ‘democracy depends on civil society’ by Morse. What Morse perhaps wants to highlight through this watchword is overwhelming importance of citizens. Democratic government is there to serve its citizens. Democratically elected government is not an end by itself, but means to an end of serving its citizens. According to America.gov, â€Å"Governments alone cannot build strong democracies, thriving economies, or stable societies; it is the people themselves — especially the civil society organizations — that bring people together.† While democratic government is given a mandate by citizens to run state in the best interest of citizens, civil society absorbs citizens in a m ore direct way. If there is threat on civil society, then it reflects that the problem is perhaps with the true implementation of

Issues in child development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Issues in child development - Essay Example Every childs development is judged by their intellectual function, their inventiveness, their ego strength, their relatedness to their peers and adults, and capacity to deal with new events that come across their like each day in their social life. Depression may be simply defined as a state of sadness. Many may feel depressed for a short time when things do not go their way, but when this feeling persists and interferes with daily activity a doctor may diagnose an individual with clinical depression and order medication. Genetic predisposition, personal problems, and seasonal hormonal changes are some of the many things that may trigger depression. A depressed individual may encounter feelings of despair and sadness, constant fatigue, constant headaches, among other things. If left untreated, depression may lead to suicide. (Mood Disorders, 2003) Most mothers aspire to provide a nurturing environment for their children. Depressed mothers generally want the best for their children, but their illness prevents them from achieving this goal. Depressed mothers have a much different opinion of themselves as mothers and of their childrens behaviour. They may see themselves as inadequate and think that they have little control over their childs development and they may perceive many aspects of their childs normal behaviour in a negative light. (Gurian, 2003) Many report feeling overwhelmed at the responsibilities of raising a child. Under so much stress, depressed mothers will face the normal frustrations of raising children much differently than normal mothers would. In many cases, the mother may criticize the child to the point of insulting him. Verbal abuse has been linked to lack of self esteem in children, especially when done at a young age. Some depressed mother will go even further and react violently to her childs petty

Practical Interaction Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Practical Interaction Design - Essay Example 18). HCI is a tool-rich methodological system that provides practicality to most of the established paradigms of artistic and aesthetic studies involving interaction design in its purest sense. Physical interaction design is based on PID. It focuses more on the PID elements such as ideation and familiarity, encompassing the techniques of voice based and/or tools based conversations. Physical interaction design studies are aimed to address the issues which call for usage of some physical form and material contour. These are explicit, objective gadgets which can facilitate or mediate an interaction process. A physical interaction designer must be sensitive towards the usefulness or playfulness of the objects whose physical forms can be used to interpret human gestures. For example, students in Carnegie Mellon and Victoria University of Wellington have created gadgets of paper having objective shape, size and appearance. The gadgets have been built in such a way that they can illustrate the amalgamation of technological knowledge and emotional quotient (see Figure – 1). These gadgets (which are supplied with specialised electronic effectors and receptors) can be programmed to respond towards sound, light, Internet chatting, users’ commands, etc. The responses are expressed as motions. (Baskinger and Gross, 2010) Figure – 1: Designs adaptable with users’ gestures (Baskinger and Gross, 2010, p. 9) Advantages of Physical Interaction Physical interaction design is based on models and gadgets that can respond to the user’s physical gestures. Physical gestures can engage the whole body of the user. Hence, interactive platforms involving physical gestures can be pleasing and interesting. Physical interaction, when synchronised with biometrics and electronics, can help the designers to innovate intelligent exercising machines for enhanced biomedical/biomechanical usage. (Norman, 2010) If aspectual paradigms of physical interactions are e xplored, we can take numerous ideas from existing machines and gadgets. These ideas can be interpreted with more stress on interactivity and uniqueness of design. In 2009, Sobolewska, Smith and Turner partook in a survey-cum-experiment involving a diverse group of students (most of them had undergraduate computing degrees). Each of them was given the task of describing an electronic gadget of his/her choice. In the course of this research, one of the students described a K10D midsized digital SLR as â€Å"very solid† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95), in which all the openings are sealed to protect the gadget from temperature, dust, etc. Importantly, â€Å"The camera has a large right hand grip, so it’s easy to hold† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95). This is how the basic paradigm of physical interaction design evolves: The gadget must be made not only easy but also pleasurable and comfortable to handle. Figure – 2: The large right ha nd grip of a K10D digital SLR camera (Adapted from Letsgodigital.org, 2012) Contextually, Baskinger and Gross (2010, p. 9) have illustrated the example of â€Å"Hit Me Interactive† lighting device in their research. This model lamp with LED display instantaneously responds to touch and gestures of hands and fingers (Figure – 3). This sort of gadgets can be used to manufacture convenient and high speed signalling systems. Figure – 3: The Hit Me Interactive device that can be used

Significance of moral virtues and moral principles Essay

Significance of moral virtues and moral principles - Essay Example The focus of moral principles on behavior is the major difference between principles and virtues. Moral principles designed for medical professionals are a standard for how practitioners should act and what they should do regarding treatment and in relationships with their patients. Moral virtues, in contrast, are the beliefs that a medical professional holds regarding the kind of person they should be. Moral principles are a starting point for ethical behavior, and, while far from being exhaustive, can help teach the relevant proper moral behavior. Appropriate behavior arises from the intersection of moral virtues and moral principles, and the correlation between the principles and the virtues is how those principles are able to teach those moral behaviors. Moral virtues and principles are generally the beliefs and actions supported by the general population. However, community support is not enough to designate a behavior, virtue, or belief as â€Å"moral†. Moral virtues req uire the background support of moral reason. If a principle is to be considered moral, it must teach morally valuable behavioral traits. Community morals must be backed by reasons as to why they are moral. This can cause a dilemma if the general beliefs of a community do not agree with a practitioner's personally held belief. For example, if a particular community's legal system does not allow abortions but a medical professional feels that one is morally indicated for a particular patient, he or she may be held to be immoral by principle but moral in virtue. Simply because an action fails to meet the community morality does not make such an action universally immoral. This specific example is of course controversial and does not attempt to make a statement on the morality of abortions, but simply to make a point about the difference between community standards and an individual's beliefs. Moral dilemmas can also arise from too-strict adherence to standards that have been built from moral principles. Moral principles are a guideline and a starting point for standards, but they cannot and should not be applied universally. A good example of over-applied standards affecting moral virtue is the principle of impartiality. Most medical standards and codes of ethics hold impartiality to be the correct course of behavior; these codes hold that a medical practitioner should treat all of his or her patients the same and to keep a professional distance with all patients. However, in practice, maintaining this distance is not always practical or even desirable, especially for long-term care. A principle of impartiality in a situation where such a distance is not ethical can cause a dilemma for the practitioner, as he or she must then decide whether to obey personal moral virtues or professional moral principles. The previous example is a sample of how the gap between practical ethics and theoretical ethics, of which principles are a type, can lead to dilemmas in medical practice. Principles should only be used as a starting point for developing standards of behavior. These principles need additional data and information in order to cover the true ethics implications of a situation in treatment, and they need flexibility enough to deal with the changing reality of medical treatment. As stated above, no principle can possibly cover every treatment scenario. The resultant dilemmas can be dealt with

Practical Interaction Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Practical Interaction Design - Essay Example 18). HCI is a tool-rich methodological system that provides practicality to most of the established paradigms of artistic and aesthetic studies involving interaction design in its purest sense. Physical interaction design is based on PID. It focuses more on the PID elements such as ideation and familiarity, encompassing the techniques of voice based and/or tools based conversations. Physical interaction design studies are aimed to address the issues which call for usage of some physical form and material contour. These are explicit, objective gadgets which can facilitate or mediate an interaction process. A physical interaction designer must be sensitive towards the usefulness or playfulness of the objects whose physical forms can be used to interpret human gestures. For example, students in Carnegie Mellon and Victoria University of Wellington have created gadgets of paper having objective shape, size and appearance. The gadgets have been built in such a way that they can illustrate the amalgamation of technological knowledge and emotional quotient (see Figure – 1). These gadgets (which are supplied with specialised electronic effectors and receptors) can be programmed to respond towards sound, light, Internet chatting, users’ commands, etc. The responses are expressed as motions. (Baskinger and Gross, 2010) Figure – 1: Designs adaptable with users’ gestures (Baskinger and Gross, 2010, p. 9) Advantages of Physical Interaction Physical interaction design is based on models and gadgets that can respond to the user’s physical gestures. Physical gestures can engage the whole body of the user. Hence, interactive platforms involving physical gestures can be pleasing and interesting. Physical interaction, when synchronised with biometrics and electronics, can help the designers to innovate intelligent exercising machines for enhanced biomedical/biomechanical usage. (Norman, 2010) If aspectual paradigms of physical interactions are e xplored, we can take numerous ideas from existing machines and gadgets. These ideas can be interpreted with more stress on interactivity and uniqueness of design. In 2009, Sobolewska, Smith and Turner partook in a survey-cum-experiment involving a diverse group of students (most of them had undergraduate computing degrees). Each of them was given the task of describing an electronic gadget of his/her choice. In the course of this research, one of the students described a K10D midsized digital SLR as â€Å"very solid† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95), in which all the openings are sealed to protect the gadget from temperature, dust, etc. Importantly, â€Å"The camera has a large right hand grip, so it’s easy to hold† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95). This is how the basic paradigm of physical interaction design evolves: The gadget must be made not only easy but also pleasurable and comfortable to handle. Figure – 2: The large right ha nd grip of a K10D digital SLR camera (Adapted from Letsgodigital.org, 2012) Contextually, Baskinger and Gross (2010, p. 9) have illustrated the example of â€Å"Hit Me Interactive† lighting device in their research. This model lamp with LED display instantaneously responds to touch and gestures of hands and fingers (Figure – 3). This sort of gadgets can be used to manufacture convenient and high speed signalling systems. Figure – 3: The Hit Me Interactive device that can be used