Choosing A Good Automotive School Is Crucial To Your Career

Automotive school is a necessity for anyone who wants to pursue a career as an auto mechanic. However, the school you go to can affect the path your career takes after graduation. Factors such as quality equipment, knowledgeable instructors, strong degree and ASE certification programs, the school’s qualifications and reputation, and student services all lend themselves to the overall quality of your education. Therefore, it is important to thoroughly research the automotive schools you are considering before making a final decision.

Your goal in attending automotive school is to learn as much as possible about auto mechanics; therefore, it is important to ensure that the school will provide the training you need. Part of this training is plenty of hands on experience. A good automotive program should include not only classroom lectures about automotive principles and mechanical theories, but also ample opportunity to work on cars and practice your skills. Be sure to ask how the school gets an ample supply of cars for students to train on; some schools may rely on donations, while others may attract paying customers in the community with discounted rates.

The school you attend should also have an ample supply of up to date equipment. A school with a shortage of the proper tools will make it difficult for you to get sufficient practice, and old or damaged equipment can be a safety hazard. Since your education depends a great deal on the amount of hands on experience you get, the automotive school you attend should be fully equipped to meet the students’ needs.

Naturally, the curriculum is a major factor in the quality of your education. The school you attend should have several different degree programs to choose from, allowing students flexibility in choosing their career paths. A good automotive school also offers an Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification program, where students can become certified in different areas of expertise, adding to their qualifications and increasing their potential salaries. ASE certification requires passing at least one of more than forty available tests, as well as proof of at least two years of relevant work experience; the school you attend should fully support students in acquiring these certifications.

Accreditation is also an important indicator of the quality of education a school can provide. Accreditation verifies that a school meets a predetermined set of standards; however, there are many different accreditation agencies, so it is important to research not only a school’s accreditation, but also the accrediting agency’s reputation and standards. If being able to transfer courses you have taken is important to you, be sure to find out how many other schools are accredited by the agency, and whether the credits you earn at the school can be transferred.

Additionally, you should consider the school’s reputation: an education from a school with a good reputation can make you stand out from the other applicants and help you get a job, but an education from a school with a bad reputation can also hurt your chances of getting a good job. By searching the Internet and talking to other mechanics, you can find out whether a school is known for providing quality education. You may also want to contact several dealerships and garages and ask whether they would hire a graduate of one of your top choices. After all, your education must do two things: not only provide you with quality training, but also indicate to potential employers that you have received quality training.

Similarly, student services are an important part of a good automotive school. Examples of student services are financial aid and loan offices, student housing or assistance in finding housing, and the availability of internships. Job placement services are particularly important; most good schools will offer some type of job placement assistance to students and graduates. A school that guarantees job placement after graduation may indicate a high success rate among its students. Also, many schools have relationships with local dealerships and garages, which is a considerable benefit to students and alumni of the school.

Auto Tech Schools Versus Community College Programs

Naturally, when you are researching auto mechanic programs, one of your main concerns is cost. To many people, the tuition charged by auto tech schools seems exorbitant when compared with the less expensive programs offered at community colleges. However, as a school that specializes in one area of instruction, an automotive school offers many benefits over a low budget community college program.

For instance, most auto tech schools offer better equipment than community colleges. The reason for this is that community colleges depend on the government for their funding, and as a result are constantly struggling to pay their teachers, let alone stay up to date on equipment for their students. On the other hand, the tuition you pay at an automotive school ensures that the school can provide and maintain state of the art equipment for its students.

Another advantage of the degree programs offered by auto tech schools is superior teachers. Under funding at community colleges also results in underpaid teachers, which usually means that the best and most knowledgeable teachers won’t settle for a job at a community college. Also, since an automotive school specializes in their field, rather than offering classes simply as an alternative for non-traditional or non-academic students, they tend to look for teachers who are better qualified to teach their subject.

The curriculum offered by an automotive school is also generally higher quality than those offered by community colleges. Again, this has to do with the fact that auto tech schools specialize in one field. As a result, a school that focuses on automotive training will be able to offer a choice of several different degree programs, including programs for earning Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certifications. ASE certifications are an important part of the automotive industry, as they demonstrate to employers and customers alike that a mechanic has mastered his or her areas of certification; as such, any good automotive education program will train and test students in the areas of ASE certification.

Besides factors that are directly related to the quality of a student’s education, such as high quality equipment, teachers, and educational programs, as private institutions auto tech schools can also offer superior student services, such as job placement services. Job placement services in particular are very important, as the primary reason for pursuing an education is to become more qualified for a specific job or career. Auto tech schools tend to have an office dedicated to helping graduates find jobs, and usually have a good reputation with local employers. Additionally, many auto tech schools have long term relationships with local business, meaning that many of these businesses go directly to the school when they are in need of interns or full time mechanics. All of these factors help the graduates of an auto tech school find jobs more easily than those who attended a community college.

Saving yourself money by attending a community college program may seem like a wise decision, but in the long run it may have a detrimental impact on your career path. Factors such as the curriculum, teachers, and equipment dictate how much you learn and how well you learn it, while support services for students, such as job placement assistance, help you translate your education into a career. The extra money it costs to enroll in a degree program at an auto tech school may be the difference between a quality education and mediocre training, a career in the fast track or just a job.

3 Steps To Getting An Online High School Education

Online high school education might make it possible for you to get your diploma. After you have left school, finishing your education is hard. There are a lot of barriers you have to overcome. High school doesn't fit well into the adult world you live in now, but you need that diploma in order to do what you want to with your life. Here are some ideas for getting your diploma using online high school education.

Step 1: Assess

Start by looking at where you are and where you want to be. If you are only a couple of classes short of the requirements for high school graduation in your school district, maybe they offer the classes over the internet, and you could finish up and graduate from your home high school.

If you need more than a couple of classes to graduate, you could earn your diploma and graduate from an online high school, taking classes to meet their graduation requirements.

Look at where you want to be, too. If you are finishing high school for your own self development, or so that you can advance in your present job, online high school education classes might be what you need. If, however, you want to go to college after you get your diploma, you might be able to find "double duty" classes that will give you both high school and college credit, so that you can enter college ahead of the game.

Step 2: Gather Information

There are four places you should look for online high school education classes: your local school district, community education in your area, local colleges and online high school education providers. Compare the requirements each program has for high school graduation, and what you would have to do to complete those requirements.

Look into ways to pay for your online high school education. If you are under 21, your local school district may be a good place to look for funding. Whether you get help from a local school district or not, you should be able to find a way to complete your high school education for free or at a low cost.

If you plan to enter college when you are done, find out what the entrance requirements are for your top three or four college choices. If they require two years of foreign language, for instance, it is much less expensive to take the classes as part of an online high school education than it is to make up the deficiency later.

Step 3:

Get started. Put together all the information you have gathered, and decide how you will go about getting an online high school education. Do the paperwork, go through the hoops and enroll in a class. You are on your way to completing your diploma through online high school education.

Kill Two Birds With One Stone - Medical Tourism

Medical tourism is a fairly new term used to describe an amazing amount of people globally that travel world-wide for health care. Why these people travel and for what differs, but basically there are two types of medical tourists – the regular tourist that adds a visit to the doctor for some minor treatment, as part of his or her holiday, and the tourist travelling primarily for medical treatment.

Before there even was a term 'medical tourism', it was common practice among the well-to-do in third-world countries to travel to the USA, Switzerland and Germany for medical care. However, since the year 2000, this trend has been reversed and now countries such as Thailand, are attracting patients from the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom.

This new market has grown as modern health care systems all over the world are struggling to meet the medical needs of their own populations. In the United States, the price of health care is beyond the means of most and there are an estimated 40 million people without health insurance. While in Britain, Canada and Holland, socialised health care ensures affordability, demand for medical services far outstrips supply and waiting lists for surgical procedures or specialty medicine can be as long as two-to-three years.

Today, governments, insurers and employers are carefully looking at outsourcing medical treatments as a way to improve access and lower health care costs for their citizens, policy-holders and employees.

Thailand's health care services are about one-half the cost of similar services in Singapore, one-third the cost of Hong Kong and one-tenth the cost in the United States.

Who are the medical tourists and what are they coming for?

By and large, medical tourists are travelling for specialty surgical and medical services. The recent upsurge in the popularity of plastic surgery, however, has led to a new wave of medical tourists and headlines like "Sun, sea and surgery" or "Scalpel tourism" have helped create the buzz for this growing phenomenon. Medical tourism destinations, such as Thailand, promote the benefit of high-quality medical care as just one more reason to visit the kingdom.

Elective out-patient procedures like check-ups, dental care, and LASIK eye surgery are becoming increasingly popular and there is a growing interest on the part of the tourism industry to include these services as part of their travel packages. Higher intensity medical services, like spinal and cardiac surgery, pose a greater challenge because these medical services are not as easily packaged and require significantly more knowledge about medicine.

Bumrungrad Hospital, located in central Bangkok, is a major player in the medical tourism field in Thailand, attracting over 360,000 international patients every year from over 150 countries worldwide. But Bumrungrad is not alone. There are quite a few other hospitals in Thailand and also in out-lying regions that are aggressively marketing their hospitals to capture a slice of this fast growing market. Both Bumrungrad Hospital and the India-based Apollo Hospital were recently featured on the CBS award winning news program "60 Minutes" as medical tourism destinations for a growing number of Americans.

Reliable figures on the size and growth of medical tourism are hard to come by, as government and immigration statistics do not yet categorize inbound travellers coming for medical care. That said, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is actively promoting medical tourism as medical tourists on average spend more and stay longer than leisure travellers.

So, whether you are the casual visitor that will take advantage of some minor medical work while in Thailand, or you are planning your vacation around your surgery, Thailand is the place to go and get it done professionally and at an extremely good price.

Discover Hidden Gems of Online Education

The World Wide Web is embracing all spheres of human life at a phenomenal rate. Ticket reservation, e-mail correspondence and online shopping have become an inherent part of our life. Sure enough, the education field was not left out of the loop…

In fact, according to CCA consulting, nearly 50% of all higher education institutions are currently engaged in some types of online learning. This percentage promises to rise drastically very soon, since the benefits of online education are vivid and speak for themselves.

1. High Quality Education

The outstanding feature of online education is that it can rank on a par with traditional campus education, since the online instructors have the same qualifications and demands to the students.

On top of that, online educators come with practical knowledge and may be from various parts of the world. This allows students to be exposed to the knowledge that can’t be learned in books and see how class concepts are applied in real business situations.

2. Who Pays The Piper Calls The Tune

Another bulky advantage of online education is that it is “student centred.” This means that once you pick up some online course, you become your own master in terms of studying, having the unlimited choice of:

1. time and duration of your studies: since course materials are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, you can download them any time you want. Moreover, you can plan your schedule so that to be able to fulfill all your tasks apart from studying, such as work, child care;

2. way to study: this means that you can choose your own pace, methods and your own degree of intensity that work best for you;

3. place of studies: all you need to start studying online is a computer with an access to the Internet. That is all that matters. Where you are going to study is solely your choice. Thus, you can study at home, work, on a street or wherever your imagination drags you;

4. special subjects you want to pay special attention to and feel interested in.

Such freedom is a significant part of online education. At university you are restricted to certain rules that don’t register with you, but online education is custom, thus more pleasant and resulting.

3. Cost and Money Savings

Your satisfaction may be even more warmed up by the fact that online education is quite often cheaper than traditional campus education. Truth to be told, online education saves you quite a fortune.

First of all, you are saved from travel expenses, or paying for hotel rooms you will need to stay during all years of your campus education. Moreover, with online education you can print items as needed when provided with handouts and readings online. The result is the reduced expenses for the cost and time associated with never-ending copying, collating, and distributing these materials.

4. Equality with Other Students

Another benefit of learning online is that it provides the learners with the reinforced feel of equality.

Participating online is much more intimidating than in a classroom. All online students have equal opportunities to “speak up” by posting messages without typical distractions such as seating arrangements, volume of student voices, and gender and race biases.

Shy and anxious students feel more comfortable expressing ideas and backing up facts when posting online instead of speaking in a lecture room. Students can also think longer about what they want to say and add their comments when ready. In a traditional class room, the conversation could have gone way past the point where the student wants to comment.

5. Vast an Unlimited Resources

Since there are no geographical borders in online education, students can find diversity of course materials that may not be available to them during traditional education. Internet links can take you to other web-sites, databases, libraries, agencies, special archives and much more.

It should be also mentioned that with technology it is much easier to learn. Course materials include resources with a variety of perspectives in any number of media types-photos, audio, texts – thus enhancing the quality and the interest factor of your course. This is especially true for professional training such as medical billing training or purchasing training.

6. Unlimited Access to Teachers

Online environment makes your instructors more approachable. Thus, whenever you have a question to specify or want to get a sound piece of advice, you can contact with your online instructor either via e-mail or in chat boards whenever it is convenient for you without waiting for office hours. In his return, the teacher will try to respond as soon as possible. This option for communication provides enhanced contact between instructors and students.

Taking everything into account, we can see that online education is undoubtedly the best option for those who wish to get qualitative and appropriate education which will easily fit in in their hectic lifestyles. If things keep on developing at the same rate online education promises to deliver even greater benefits in the future.
by: Linda Correli

Useful Tips On Online Bachelor Degree

hose of us that got our degrees from conventional universities would envy those having their distance education online bachelor degrees from the comfort of their living room or office. Until now, you have to stay in the same location with your teacher and fellow students before earning any type of degree. But thanks to the internet, you can earn the same quality degree from home or office.

In the conventional universities and colleges, you can’t learn at your pace. You have to learn at the pace set by the teachers and fellow students. All lectures must be attended at the set time. You’re disciplined for missing lectures. And you have to get ready for the examination on the set date. Failure to prepare for the examination for that date and time means failure in the exam. But with distance education online bachelor degrees, the environment is quite different. You attend all your lectures whenever and wherever you like. All that is required is a computer with fast internet access. You learn and your assignments at your own pace and get ready for the exam at your own convenience.

Even though you don’t come in physical contact with your teacher and fellow students when running an online bachelor degree, the internet still make it possible to interact. This is done through chat rooms. The online medium of study even promotes privacy than its conventional medium. You’re closer to your teacher and he or she takes you through the course according to your schedule. And there is nothing to be ashamed of when you ask a ‘foolish’ or ‘absurd’ question.

But you need to understand that it’s not easy earning an online bachelor degree. You must strive hard for it just like any good thing in life demands. The degree or diploma certificate from reputable and reliable online institutions does not come easy. It takes lots of hard work and determination on your part.

Earning an online requires your ability to balance your study with your busy schedule. Never assume that your boss will reduce your work because you’re pursuing an online degree. In fact your ability to do both will send a word to him or her that you’re well able to handle multi tasking effectively. This is why I often counsel people like you to inform their family member of their intention when signing in for online education. This will make member of your family to cooperate with you. They’ll understand when you say you don’t have time for play.