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It’s spring! What does spring mean to you? Colorful flowers? Lots of sneezing? Overwhelming displays of pastel hues? How about the yearly purge we call “spring cleaning?” Spring cleaning, as you know, can be applied to the cleaning you do in your home: the dusting of your window blinds; the scrubbing of your floors; the organizing of your attic. But the concept of spring cleaning can also be applied to your life in general. Like, for instance, to your career and education.
For our purposes today, we’re going to focus on this type of spring cleaning: the kind that applies to your career and education.
Spring Cleaning Your Résumé
Whether you are in school or working full time, it’s important to keep your résumé up-to-date. For those that are happily employed, it’s still a good practice, as it gets you to actively recognize and evaluate the contributions you make to your company, which can be very self-motivating. For those that are in school or in between jobs, it’s important to keep your résumé as relevant as possible. You never know when a job opportunity is going to surface!
Things to keep in mind:
- Don’t be vague. Vagueness on a resume is not your friend. You want to be specific and detailed.
- Don’t undervalue yourself. The better sense of your value you have, the better you will understand how your skill set can be used—both in the workplace and outside of the workplace.
- Don’t forget the specialty. Certifications and vocational training can help you take your résumé from solid to “wow” worthy.
Spring Cleaning Your Online Presence
To say that “we’re all online” is a major understatement. In fact, we’re always online, always connected. It’s part of our culture. It’s precisely why we have to stay on top of what we put out there. Our online, digital self is just as (if not more) important than the self we represent on our résumés. So, get on social media. Get on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Write a regular blog. Participate in social media chats relevant to your career. Just, simply, be involved digitally. It’ll help enhance your career immensely.
Spring Cleaning Your Education
Staying relevant to the industry is an important factor in your lasting power as an employee. One of the ways you can remain relevant is to ensure you’re aptly educated for the position in which you’re applying. Whether it’s preparing for ICD-10 with an online ICD-10 course, or adding to your office knowledge with a professional QuickBooks course, consistently honing and adding to your skill set will greatly benefit your career.
Here’s to spring cleaning! For more information about Allied’s career-specific training, please give us a call at (888) 501-7686.Labels: career spring cleaning, career training programs, education spring cleaning, Online Career Training, resume spring cleaning, school spring cleaning, spring cleaning school
Since it’s Black History Month, and since we are educators, we thought we’d highlight one particular African American hero who made a positive impact on education. This particular individual is Booker T. Washington.
In Washington’s famous 1901 autobiography, Up From Slavery, he described how he felt when he first heard about the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia:
…it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, about which these men were talking. I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night (Washington, Up From Slavery, 72).
Washington not only managed to become enrolled at Hampton by walking “about five hundred miles” to get to the school, he also graduated and eventually taught there (Washington 1901, Ch. 3). In 1881, Washington was selected to head a new normal school for African Americans at Tuskegee called the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, wherein he solidified his place as a genuine proponent of learning as a means for success. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, over the next 34 years Washington had established “more than 100 well-equipped buildings, some 1,500 students, a faculty of nearly 200 teaching 38 trades and professions, and an endowment of approximately $2 million.”
He believed so strongly in education that he urged his fellow African Americans to temporarily put aside their civil rights efforts to gain the industrial skills that would afford them economic security and eventual respect among the white community. He spoke about this in his autobiography:
Many white people who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks. They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community. The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the neighbourhood (sic) to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding something to the wealth and comfort of the community (Washington, Up From Slavery, 97).
That is so wonderfully stated. Washington had a very clear understanding of the importance, as well as the practical consequences, of education. Through education, they were able to acquire the skills they needed to attain the jobs and build the careers that were in demand at the time. They were able to create wealth, garner respect and exist as the important, contributing individuals they most assuredly were. For this we thank Mr. Booker T. Washington.
With Allied Schools, you can acquire the skills you need for today’s in-demand careers. Learn more about our career-specific, flexible and 100% online real estate programs, medical programs and business programs. Or call us at (888) 501-7686.
Sources:
- Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery: An Autobiography (New York: A.L. Burt, 1901).
- Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s. v. “Booker T. Washington”, accessed February 18, 2013, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/636363/Booker-T-Washington.
- Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Tuskegee University”, accessed February 19, 2013, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/610608/Tuskegee-University
Labels: African American education, Black History Month, Booker T. Washington, career training, career training programs, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, vocational training
Flexible. You’ve heard this term before. We say it. You say it. But what does it really mean?
- Flexible means that you can receive the education you desire at the pace you deem best for your situation within the general structure given. For parents, it means that you can study and work around dropping your children off at school, putting your babies down to rest, in the evenings after you have kissed them goodnight and flipped on the nightlight. For military service members, it means that you can get started on your career while serving your country. Your studies are with you, so it’s simply a matter of finding the time to do it. An hour here, an hour there, it’s all up to you.
- Flexible means that you can take your education with you. It’s portable. Wherever you are—at home, at the coffee shop, waiting in the car to pick up the kids at school, in military service or on the bus—your career pursuit is there with you for the journey. With the prevalence of free WIFI, you can study just about anywhere you’d like, in the comfort level that you think is best. Say goodbye to stuffy and stressful classrooms. Say hello to cozy offices, coffee shops and libraries.
- Flexible means, above all, that you are in control of your education. We want you to succeed, so it doesn't make a lick of sense to attempt to force you into a tight schedule with not much room to move about. AAU establishes some general guidelines and an overall time frame for you so that you aren’t pigeonholed into specific times that may not be best for your situation. At Allied Schools, you are given the freedom to choose, you will be happier, less stressed and more focused, which gives you the greatest chance for career success. That’s what we want: happy, stress-free, focused and successful students.
Go with the flexible in one of our many career training programs at Allied Schools:
- Pharmacy Technician
- Medical Billing
- Medical Coding
- Real Estate
- Business
- Green Energy
- Private Investigation
- Property Management
- And so much more!
For more information about our online career training programs, call (888) 501-7686 or visit us at www.alliedschools.com.
Labels: 100% online courses, Allied Schools, career training programs, flexible studies, pharmacy technician courses, property management courses, real estate training
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