List Your Interests, Talents and Passions
Spend some time making a list. What are your interests? What are your talents? What are you passionate about? Do these lists contain common items? If so, pursue a school in those areas. Often college student interests, known talents and passions change during their college career. Many, perhaps most, freshmen in college are not 100 percent sure of their chosen degree program. And many do change their degree program during their freshman or sophomore years. There is nothing wrong with that. College is an experience in learning how to learn; and one of the things students learn about is themselves. Use the college experience to try new things, explore new subjects, talk to experts in various fields and talk to those in industry already in the workforce. Ask them what the pros and cons are of their chosen career field. Explain what your interests, talents and passions are; and query them on whether that career field is right for you.
Consider these lists, and your final list, seriously. It should not be something you do in one sitting or even a single day. Work on the lists for a couple hours, take a break and come back for another hour or so; then leave it alone for several hours or even until the next day. During these interim periods, get you mind on other things. When you return, often new thoughts and perspectives will naturally emerge.
Using Web Search Engines and Multiple Search Engines Simultaneously
You might want to read over the website “EduConsulting.Org” entitled “Approaching Omniscience” (http://educonsulting.org/hello-world/) It will give you some additional insight into using search engines. It is an interesting experiment in exploring all available information on a given subject.
When using search engines to discover “the best school for you,” do not start or only focus on colleges, universities and technical or trade schools. Look at the listed interests, talents and passions and use key words in your Web searches from these. For example, if you are thinking about becoming an astronaut, you might do a Web search for planet, solar system, universe, asteroid, comet and outer space. You may obtain some additional ideas and insights about your interests, talents and passions, discover new ones or even narrow down your chosen career field. For example, you may find yourself totally intrigued by deep space and want to consider pursuing a career as an astronomer specializing in exploring and discovering objects in and theories about deep space. For a subject like this, using two words, be sure to put quotations around the phrase (e.g. “deep space”), as opposed to using two separate words, “deep” and “space.” The search will yield different results, depending on these two search engine strategies. Also, use the singular version of words often; search engines will then include both singular and plural search results, not just the plural one. And study the “advanced search” features of search engines. Specific Boolean searches, with careful use of search criteria, may yield much more valuable information.
I would start with Web Crawler.Com and Dogpile.Com. Both of these use multiple search engines simultaneously and in my experience yield outstanding search results with minimal advertisements.
Using and Reading “Student Reviews”
You are going to find numerous sites listing dozens and sometimes hundreds of “student reviews.” Keep in mind that any college will have students complaining about the institution. And very often these are the students writing the reviews. Look for reviews from juniors and seniors or alumni; and give those more credibility than freshmen or sophomores or those who just recently enrolled and have taken only a few courses. Be very suspect of comments completely devoid of anything good to say about the institution.
Administrators, faculty and staff at many universities go out of their way to put the student interests first and foremost. This is true particularly for faculty members who have a passion for both their subject and for teaching. They deal with students first-hand every day. And many have learned to beautifully blend their passion for the subject with their passion for teaching students. They are the ones that produce the highest quality students for employment in industry, the trades and businesses of all types.
In our next article we will explore how to read and study individual websites of colleges and universities, including some of the best online schools. There are many on the Web. And the maze of information can be overwhelming.
All comments are most welcome and encouraged. Thank you for reading!