Showing posts with label advanced degrees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advanced degrees. Show all posts

03 October 2012

Choosing a Healthcare Career


Choosing a career path is a huge decision for anyone regardless of his or her age. Most careers are lifetime investments. No one wants to get stuck with a career they don't enjoy, but yet it happens to people every single day. It is extremely important to pick a career path that you will enjoy for years to come.
Many people who have a desire to help others are taking a closer look at the many career paths within the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry is a wonderful career path that can blossom into a bright and outstanding future, but trying to figure out which career path to take is often just as difficult as any other industry. There are doctors, nurses, nurse aides, management and much more. Which career path is right for you? Keep reading to find out.

Deciding Which Path Is Right for You

A little bit of research will go a very long way when choosing the healthcare career path that is right for you. Before you make any decisions, you will have to ask yourself a few questions. The most important question is this, what do you want to get out of your career? For some, the answer is simple. They want a career that pays them well. For others, they may be looking for a way to help people while making a decent income that helps support their family. Knowing what you want from your career is the most important decision you will ever make. 
Ask yourself this question too. Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years from now? Knowing the answers to these two simple questions will give you a better understanding of which career paths in the healthcare industry will help you accomplish these goals.

Healthcare Administration Careers Help Many Others

Choosing to pursue a career in healthcare administration gives you the unique ability to help millions of people. You might focus on management or human resources. Healthcare administration helps keep entire hospitals, and doctors’ offices organized. Without these people, the doctors and nurses would not be able to do their jobs. Every career path in the healthcare industry is going to require some kind of specialized education. Many people who choose this career path are choosing to get a healthcare degree online.

Is Becoming a Nurse the Right Choice for You?

Nurses are the ultimate care givers in any type of healthcare environment. They typically have more contact with people who are sick or injured than any other people in the entire healthcare industry. A career as a nurse is all about helping others. If you decided to pursue a career in the healthcare industry because you wanted to help other people, then being a nurse is quite possibly the best way to do that.
Nurses get great satisfaction from their jobs, and they also earn a nice salary. Nursing careers are currently in extremely high demand, and the demand is only expected to grow in the coming years. This career path will also require a specialized education.

Should You Become a Doctor?

Choosing to become a doctor takes a great effort. Depending on which type of doctor you choose, you will be facing many years of school before you can practice. Doctors make an excellent salary, and there is always a demand for their services.
A doctor can choose to work in a busy hospital, or they can start their own private practice. Either way, doctors are well-rewarded both financially and socially. Doctors help save lives, and they help cure the sick or injured. Choosing to become a doctor is not the right career choice for everyone. If you want to help people, but you don't like the idea of becoming a doctor, then you may be better suited for one of the many careers in healthcare management.
Any job in the medical industry can be lucrative and rewarding, but they will all require some sort of specialized training school. Determining which healthcare profession offers the most really depends on what you want to get out of life. There is a lot more to a career path than money. Make sure that you choose a career path that makes you happy.

Contributing author, Susan Andersen, is a clinical nurse at a local healthcare clinic in small town Pennsylvania. Her original career path was pharmacology, but says she realized that she’s better-suited for hands-on patient care.

26 September 2012

What Can You do With an Education Degree?

A degree in education may seem like a one-way street to a lifetime in the classroom, but there are many different career options for people who don't want to teach in a classroom. For those who simply want to be involved in educating kids without the pressures of the classroom setting, alternative careers do exist. In fact, some of these career opportunities allow the educator a better opportunity to engage with young people.

Museums and cultural centers
Many museums and cultural centers need the services of professional educators. Qualified candidates can serve as tour group leaders, small group educators and customer service representatives. In each of these jobs, they will be educating and engaging with kids. Someone who works at the Chickasaw Cultural Center, for instance, will need to teach about Chickasaw history and culture each day while helping visitors of all ages during their visit.

Someone who works at a children’s museum will need to guide children in interaction with the exhibits throughout their visit. The same need exists in art museums, history museums and cultural centers throughout the country. In each of these locations, understandinging how to teach and guide children is a vital skill, even though no formal teaching happens.

Non-profit organizations
Non-profit organizations often work with children and need people who are trained to do so. For example, the Girl Scouts, YMCA and Big Brother/Big Sister programs all give people the chance to teach and guide children without being in a formal educational setting. Teachers often volunteer in these organizations in the summer, but the groups need long-term commitments as well. Those with a teaching degree who are not working in a classroom can find paid opportunities with these organizations. Whether someone serves as a counselor in a camp, helps out with an after-school care program or acts as executive director of one of these non-profits, training in education will be a vital asset.

Tutoring
Tutoring is teaching on a smaller scale. Rather than working with a classroom filled with students, a tutor interacts with students on a one-on-one basis. Personal attention can be quite powerful for both students and educators, as tutoring gives the teacher the chance to work with a student’s individual strengths and weaknesses and help him or her achieve.

Community educators
Community educators work with institutions and government groups to provide education to the community as a whole. Hospitals may need educators to help spread information about health and wellness programs. Government welfare agencies may need educators to teach about proper nutrition and exercise. Financial institutions may need educators to help promote their products and provide education about finances. A degree in education makes it far more likely to land a position as a community educator, regardless of the type of organization offering the educational programming.
Education does not have to happen just in the classroom. Opportunities to teach and learn exist at museums, cultural centers, tutoring facilities and many other locations. Each of these career options engage students' minds in a less formal venue than a classroom setting. Whether a teacher is looking for a break from the classroom or a young person is considering a degree and exercising their options, educational careers show just how flexible a teaching degree can be.

24 September 2012

The Pros of Online and Distance Education


In this world, there are two types of people exist. One type of the people sits beside the flow of life and tries to adjust with it through compromise and sacrifice. Another type of the people turns the flow of life as per their own requirements to make their lives comfortable. When it comes to education people, who being afraid of responsibilities and expenses leave their dreams of receiving higher education in life, belongs to the first category of people. They compromise their dreams in order to fulfill other requirements of their lives. However, the second category of the people goes for distance education and change the direction of their lives as per their own requirements.

Yes, little compromise and sacrifice definitely help you run your life smoothly, but you should never compromise with your dreams. Especially, when it comes to your education, which helps you make the base of your life, you must not compromise with it. If you have a weaker base, what strength you will get to make your life happier ahead? Therefore, choosing distance education as the mode of receiving good education in life stands out as an exceptional choice which helps you receive a genuine degree by putting aside all the difficulties of your life.
How helpful distance education is for the students?
It helps avoiding real life troubles
When it comes to education; expenses, time, distance and responsibilities come up as the four main obstacles. Distance education has a genuine answer for all these.
  • While continuing to pursue your course, since you get an option to continue to your job it becomes easier for you to pay all your education expenses.
  • You study from your own place, so you don’t have to go to any other place leaving your family or responsibilities behind.
Distance education is cool
Yes, the word “cool” helps students get a better overview of the matter of distance education, because-
  • It offers students better learning facilities without binding them inside the strict rules and regulations.
  • It offers students facility to learn wherever, however and whenever they want as per their own interests.
  • It offers students a provision to stay online 24-hours-a-day. Even, they get to download study materials, make projects, read books, submit projects and give exams online.
  • No time schedules are fixed, so the students can stay relaxed and prepare themselves for the exams at ease.
  • The students can learn using mobiles, laptops, iPads, note pads, etc. which convert them into techno wizards along with giving them the right education.
  • It helps them taste the flavor of freedom, not only for their studies, but also for their exam timings or project submission timings, etc.
So, what else do you want? Hold the hands of easy learning with distance education and have bigger success in life at ease.
About The Author: The author Melissa Spears is a blogger and writing different blogs related to education is her hobby. In this blog, she has focused upon how pursuing distance degrees through UK universities help students learn better at ease.

19 September 2012

Applying a Degree in Forensic Psychology

Sadly, this country has experienced over the last 20 years a rise in sensational, media-bloated shootings, all of which have left communities grieving and wondering why – why would anyone do such a horrible, evil thing? Even worse, we’ve become almost accustomed to the tragedies, as if accepting of their eventualities, as if we’re unsurprised that people exist who can walk into a movie theater and murder a dozen strangers.

We accept that there is something psychologically wrong with the killers, but what goes on their heads intrigues us while it repels. It is because of this that we turn to forensic psychologists now more than ever, hoping their expertise and ability to delve into the psyche of truly disturbed people will offer us clues on how to spot a potential murderer and stop them, before something like the Aurora shooting happens again.

Forensic Psychologists: A Career Profile


Forensic psychologists are specifically trained psychologists who specialize in criminal investigation and the law. While the field actually encompasses surprising issues like custody disputes, insurance claims and lawsuits, a population among forensic psychologists does pursue criminal profiling while working with law enforcement and/or legal personnel. Forensic psychologists’ tasks include competency evaluations, recommending sentences, testifying in court cases and evaluating child custody cases.

One of the things that forensic psychologists do – which, thanks to popular media, both scripted and real, has become the popular conception of their job – is create criminal profiles, as well as give their expert opinion whether or not a suspect is psychologically competent to face charges and/or stand trial. This is, of course, a small and very specific aspect of forensic psychology, but it’s both fascinating and essential.

Interested candidates must start with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. (Thanks to the technology of today, nontraditional students can consider pursuing their initial psychology degree online, with a wide variety of internet-based programs.) A career in forensic psychology absolutely requires a doctoral degree; some schools offer programs with a forensic focus and will often provide the student with courses in both psychology and law. Graduate work can take between five to seven years to complete. On top of that, years of experience are necessary before the candidate should feel ready to apply for American Board of Forensic Psychology certification.

The forensic psychologist salary varies based on experience. Those just starting out can expect something in the range of $40,000-50,000. What’s incredible about the field is that those in the upper echelons of earning command yearly salaries of almost $120,000. Those forensic psychologists who work independently as consultants (who can, therefore, set their own rate) can expect the higher pay.

What Forensic Psychology Has to Say about Mass Shooters

 

While there is no definitive answer for why a person will carefully plan out an attack to murder innocent people, forensic psychologists have studied past cases and weighed in with their insight.

Some have articulated groups especially at risk based on personality traits. They cite delusional individuals, whose beliefs, though proven wrong, become their own personal truths; narcissists, who care little for others and will do whatever they must to obtain their own goals; and the severely depressed and suicidal, those who despair so deeply of living that they can be driven to take others down with them, fueled in part by their feelings of anger and self-justification at wrongs done to them.

This anger can come out in a few different ways. Some killers specifically target those who have “wronged” them – a boss who fired them or a woman who rejected them. Others will target a “representative” group: a poor student might shoot at a group of wealthy ones, even if none of them ever actually ridiculed him or her. Forensic psychologists say that a third type, the kind that targets indiscriminately, like James Holmes, the accused shooter in Aurora, CO, is the least common and the most difficult to understand – certainly the most difficult for the public to comprehend.

Forensic psychologists say that certain behaviors may offer clues: increasing interest in weapons or past mass murderers, violent fantasies or even expressed threats, however subtle or direct. What is clear is that forensic psychologists and law enforcers can only do so much. It’s a frightening truth of our time that we must be aware of these signs and symptoms and ready to speak up when someone makes us uneasy.

David Michaels is a contributing writer and psychology major in his senior year of college. He hopes one day to own his own practice as a child psychologist.