The Edupunks’ Guide
To a DIY Credential
By Anya Kamenetz
© 2011 Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation
Smashwords Edition
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Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the Gates Foundation, especially Suzanne Walsh and Mark Milliron, for encouraging and supporting this project.
Thanks to Molly Hensley-Clancy, my able research assistant, for her reporting and other extensive contributions.
Thanks to Dennis Littky, Michael McCarthy, and the students of College Unbound for their help with user testing.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to speak with me, respond to my surveys, and otherwise help with the project.
Table of Contents
How to use the Edupunks’ Guide
Edupunk Quiz
DIY Education Manual
HowTo 1: Do Research
Online
HowTo 2: Write a Personal Learning Plan
HowTo 3: Teach
Yourself Online
HowTo 4: Build Your Personal Learning
Network
HowTo 5: Find a Mentor
HowTo 6: Get a Credential
HowTo
7: Demonstrate Value to a Network
A: Get Ready (pre-college/ exploratory/supportive)
A.1: What Do You Like? What Do You Want to Be?
Personality Tests
and Quizzes
Career Search Sites
A.2: College Search Services
Box: Online vs. For-Profit Colleges
A.3: Professional Licenses and Certification Programs
A.4 Alternative Programs for Pre-College or non-College Learners
Adult Basic
Education
Veterans
High Schoolers
B: Finish Line (some college/ college completion/ college credits / alternative college programs)
Box: Tips on Getting College Credit for Prior Learning
B.1 College Credit Services
BOX: 7 Ways to Earn
College Credit Without Taking A College Class
BOX: 7 Ways to LEARN
College Material for College Credit Without Taking a College Class
B.2 On-Ramps to College
B.3 For Returning Champions (College Completion)
B.4 Design Your Own Learning
C: Open World (non-accredited, open learning, professional networks)
C.1 Open Content
C.2 Open Social Learning
C.3 Open Learning Institutions
Box: Dan Diebolt’s independent learning methods.
C.4 Open Ed Startups
C.5 Reputation Networks
Conclusion
• • •
How To Use The Edupunks’ Guide to a DIY Credential
College takes time. College is expensive. College is exclusive. College is no longer the only way to get a great education.
The Edupunks’ Guide is a followup to my 2010 book DIY U, and specifically the Resource Guide—Chapter 7. In that book I say more about why higher education needs to change. This guide focuses on how education IS changing, and how you can be a part of it.
An edupunk is someone who doesn’t want to play by the old college rules. Maybe you have interests that don’t fit the academic mold. Maybe you’re in a remote location. Maybe you have a family, a job, or other responsibilities and you can’t take on life as a full-time student. Maybe you love new technology and new ways of learning. Or maybe you’re just a rebel!
If so, you’re in luck. There’s been a revolution in the way people spread knowledge. Sharing information openly over the Internet is way cheaper than purchasing it commercially in dead-tree format, and often the learning that happens this way is faster, more up-to-date, and more relevant to our immediate needs. A simple example is learning to make pizza. A few years ago, you may have had to take a class or at least buy a cookbook. Today you can put “how to make a pizza” into YouTube and within minutes, you’re watching a video that shows you how to fling the dough!
More and more people around the world are building on this knowledge revolution to explore new modes of learning and to transform what we mean by “education.”
What DO we mean by education, exactly? There are three big buckets of benefit that an educational institution, like a college, historically provides.
● Content—the skills and knowledge. The subjects, the majors. You could think of this as the “what” of education.
● Socialization—learning about yourself, developing your potential, forming relationships with peers and mentors. The “how”.
● Accreditation—earning that diploma or other proof that will allow you to signal your achievement to the world, and with luck get a better job. The “why.”
Each of these buckets, the What, the How, and the Why, has been profoundly affected by the information revolution. But most people are still being pushed down the assembly line of kindergarten through college without access to alternatives that might be not just cheaper or faster but smarter and better. That’s what the Edupunks’ Guide to a DIY Credential is all about.
DIY, or Do-It-Yourself, is a movement about self-reliance and empowerment. DIY communities help each other get the knowledge and tools they need to solve problems and accomplish goals on their own without being told how to act or being forced to spend a lot of money. That can mean growing your own food, fiing your own car, publishing your own writing or putting on your own rock show. In the case of DIY education, it means getting the knowledge you need at the time you need it, with enough guidance so you don’t get lost, but without unnecessary restrictions. DIY doesn’t mean that you do it all alone. It means that the resources are in your hands and you’re driving the process.
This guide is full of people, programs, and ideas from around the country that are part of the future of learning. I’ve spoken to over 100 learners from programs and sites around the country and around the world that offer new methods of content delivery, new platforms for socialization, and new forms of accreditation. Most of them take advantage of the technology now at our disposal—they’re either all-online programs that complement the experiences you’re already having, or hybrid programs, combining in-person and online experiences. Nearly all of them are cheaper than your average state university. Many are even free! And I’ve given you the tools to go out and find even more options, and to create them for yourself.
I want everyone who reads this book to get excited about taking charge of his or her own learning. Being an edupunk is not for the faint of heart. Without exception, the students I talked to said that being self-motivated and having good time management skills are absolutely essential for success along a DIY educational path. I would add that you need to be the type of person who’s willing to try something new, even if it’s a little unproven and untested.
I also think this guide will be a good read for educators and administrators who want to incorporate the latest technology, social media, and collaboration strategies to create excellent learning experiences while controlling costs; and organizations, developers, and social entrepreneurs interested in building the future of higher education.
In order to figure out which parts of the guide to read and in what order, take this quick quiz.
1. What’s your current level of education?
A. High school
diploma/GED or less.
B. Some college credits, military training,
or on-the-job training, but no degree.
C. I already have a college
degree or more.
2. What’s your primary educational goal right now?
A. I’m not really
sure yet.
B. I want to get a credential that will enable me to
get a good job.
C. I’m interested in exploring my interests,
developing my potential, and lifelong learning.
3. How comfortable are you with learning independently?
A. I don’t
know.
B. I prefer a good amount of guidance, from peers or
authorities, at least at first.
C. Bring it on!
4. Do you ever “geek out”? Use online forums? Follow blogs related to a hobby, music, or politics? Read random topics on Wikipedia for fun?
A. No, not
really.
B. Sometimes.
C. I’m the original geek!
Results:
If you answered mostly “A”s, read all 6 HowTos in the DIY Education Manual. Then read Section A, “Get Ready,”. It has information on programs and sites that will help you explore the educational landscape and get your feet wet with online learning. Then read section C, “Open World,” for more on free resources to make your learning better.
If you answered mostly Bs, read HowTos 2-6. Then read Section B, “Finish That Degree.” It’s all about alternative college programs that will help you get to a degree faster. You should also read section A.3, about certificates, licenses, and other alternative credentials. Then read section C, “Open World,” to figure out how to keep learning outside your program and demonstrate your learning to the world.
If you answered mostly Cs, read HowTos 2-6. Then skip directly to Section C, “Open World.” It’s about open and free sources of content, learning taking place on peer-to-peer networks, formally or informally, and new, experimental forms of open accreditation through professional networks. If your plan includes a degree, you might want to check out Section B after that.
DIY Education Manual
This section contains step by step instructions on the basic skills you will need in order to embark on a DIY educational path. There are 6 howtos in the manual that will help you access the content, socialization, and accreditation that are part of any successful learning experience.
You can find more details in the text, but this section will help you get started right away.
HowTo 1: Do Research
Online
HowTo 2: Write a Personal Learning Plan
HowTo 3: Teach
Yourself Online
HowTo 4: Build Your Personal Learning
Network
HowTo 5: Find a Mentor
HowTo 6: Get a Credential
HowTo
7: Demonstrate Value to a Network
HowTo 1: Do Research Online
1. Start with Google, the most-used search engine on the web.
2. Put your phrase in quotes to return pages with the exact words, like this: “African-American history”
3. Search on Wikipedia (Wikipedia.org) to get an overview of the topic. Follow the links to an article’s sources at the bottom of the page.
4. Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) will give you scholarly journal articles and other verified sources of information.
5. YouTube (Youtube.com) is good for videos—a quick entry into a topic. Or just Google your phrase and the word “video.”
6. For news stories, try http://news.google.com/
7. For links on news, trends, and up-to-the-minute happenings, you can search Twitter.com with a hashtag, like this: #americanidol.
8. Try posting your question to a site like http://openstudy.com/ or http://wiki.answers.com/.
9. Put in your search terms plus the word “forum” or “blog” to see what ideas other people have discussed on message boards or on blogs.
10. A successful online research session will leave you with 20 open tabs or windows at the top of your screen. Follow your curiosity, but keep track of the links you’re following in an email draft, Word document, or an application like Evernote or Diigo so you can consult them later.
More tips on searching from students in the alternative, experimental Trade School (see section C.5):
Catherine Grau: “I use Google books, Google video, and “looking inside” books on Amazon.com.”
Osvaldo Gonzalez: “I use Vimeo for photography tutorials. Sometimes, I’ll search Twitter to see if anybody is discussing a term.”
Sam Barnes: “Sometimes, I’ll do an image search of words or phrases I find beautiful. For instance, a while back I searched “event horizon,” and discovered a fascinating blog called Fractal Ontology through one of the images that appeared as a result.”
Lauren Cucinotta: “I Google something I’m interested in, and “follow the path” and save the important information I like to Evernote.”
Howto 2: Write a Personal Learning Plan
Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Why do you want to study? The answer is in YOUR hands. If your educational career is not limited to the stereotypical four-years-of-full-time-college + one-internship + job, or even if it is, edupunks can use a personal learning plan to guide their explorations. You can write yours in a notebook, with markers on construction paper, or a document on your computer. Here’s what it should contain.
1. Goal. Pick your path. Set a deadline. “I want steady professional employment in the field of sustainability.” “I want to start a business that feeds my love of jewelry.” “I want to combine teaching English with travel.” (“I want a college degree” is not a goal, because it’s not an end in itself.) Set a deadline.
2. Current Status. Interests and accomplishments, both academic and extracurricular. College courses taken, creative pursuits, volunteer work, personality test results.
3. Learning Steps: the type of credential you want to initially pursue (certificate, license, exam, associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, professional degree or PhD); the specific content and skills you’ll need to master; institutions that may become a part of your quest; prior learning credits, or credits-by-exam, if any, that you’d like to include. Even specific books, videos, websites that you’re planning to read, watch, or use.
Tip: You can read online syllabi like the ones at http://www.saylor.org/ or a departmental website of a college of your choice, to get a sense of what courses go toward what degrees.
Tip: learning steps should include building your personal learning network, which we’ll talk about in Howto #3.
Tip: Don’t forget to list skills that are not included in the traditional liberal arts curricula, but that might be key to your personal goal, like financial management skills, or web development, or getting fluent in a second language.
4. Experiential Steps: the social experiences you want to pursue as part of your learning, including internships, volunteering, travel, leadership of an organization, or experience working with a mentor.
5. Who Can Help: Parent, sibling, friend, academic advisor at a college of your choice—someone needs to read this learning plan and help hold you accountable for it.
6. Next Steps: What are you going to do in the next day, week, month, and year to make your plan a reality? It’s a good idea to review weekly, monthly, or every semester with your guide from step 5.
Tip: I like the website Workflowy (www.workflowy.com) for creating to-do lists. You might also want to try sketching out your plan on a piece of paper.
Weezie Yancey-Siegel is a 19-year-old edupunk you’ll meet in Part C. She decided to design her own alternative college semester to concentrate on DIY learning. Here’s the learning plan she wrote for herself, in the form of a syllabus.
Weezie’s Syllabus for Spring 2011
“Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” –Albert Einstein
Expectations
1. Create a Blog on
my alternative, self-designed semester.
2. Watch 1 TED talk
daily.
3. Read 1 book from the library every week.
4.
Read Good.is every
day. Blog about certain articles.
5. Subscribe to Fast
Company magazine,
read articles
6. Watch the news every other night
7. Meditate 3
times per week
8. Create art once a week
9. Go on a hike with
Zhuzha (my dog) once a week
10. Take the local community college
Astronomy course to meet my science requirement
11. Watch 1
documentary per week
12. Watch one fictional film per week
13.
Listen to NPR for an hour
each day
14. Read blogs of people I admire daily
15. Listen to
2 iTunes
U lectures
each week
Books to read (Amazon book suggestions was useful for making this list!):
● Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig)
●
The White Tiger (Adiga)
●
DIY U (Kamenetz)
●
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Gladwell)
●
The Tipping Point (Gladwell)
●
Outliers (Gladwell)
●
Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and
Development (Mueller)
●
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Larsson)
●
The Mesh (Lisa Gansky)
●
Whats Mine is Yours (Botsman and Rogers)
●
A New Culture of Learning (Thomas and Brown)
●
The ABC of XYZ (McCrindle)
●
Cognitive Surplus (Shirky)
●
Change By Design (Brown)
●
The Design of Business (Martin)
●
Small is Beautiful (Schumacher)
●
Citizen You (Tisch)
●
The Ten Faces of Innovation (Kelley)
●
The Art of Innovation (Kelley)
●
Half the Sky (Wudunn and Kristoff)
●
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They
Shape Our Lives (Christakis)
●
21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in our Times (Fadel)
●
College without High School (Boles)
●
The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900
●
Rework (Fried and Hansson)
●
360 Degrees Longitude (Higham)
●
Presence (Scharmer and others)
●
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan)
●
Linchpin (Godin)
●
What Technology Wants (Kelly)
●
Others suggested to me by Facebook friends (see pic!)
TED Talks (taken from this GOOD Magazine article)
● Mark
Roth, biochemist and cell biologist, on suspended
animation
● Sam
Harris, neuroscientist and philosopher, on fact-based
morality
● Dan
Barber, chef, on food
●
Christopher Poole, founder of 4Chan, on
anonymity and censorship
●
Jane McGonigal, game
designer, on how reality ought to be more like video games
●
Seth Berkeley, vaccine
researcher, on HIV vaccination
●
Nathan
Myhrvold, polymath, on shooting mosquitoes out of the sky
with lasers
● William
Li, cancer researcher, on how what we eat can save us from
cancer
● Nicholas
Christakis, physician and sociologist, on how social
networks affect our health and happiness
●
Cheryl
Hayashi, spider
silk scientist, on the tremendous strength of spider silk
●
Others I find on my own
Films and Documentaries
● Helectiva
●
Happy
●
Wisdom (http://www.wisdombook.org/)
●
Netflix Docs
●
Waiting for Superman
●
I
Am
●
Websites to check for local screenings:
○
http://roxie.com/index.cfm
○
http://www.cafilm.org/rfc/
○
http://www.cafilm.org/rfc/www.redvicmoviehouse.com
]
HowTo 3: Teach Yourself Online
There are plenty of open resources on the Internet to allow for college-level learning on almost any topic. But figuring out how to dive in can be daunting. If you want to read a textbook, answer the questions at the end of each chapter, and take a sample test, you can certainly simulate that kind of traditional classroom-based learning online, but there are many, many other possibilities.
Here’s a method, distilled from the stories of many different edupunks I talked to. You’ll find links, resources, and many more examples in section C.
1. Start with a question. “What does the Federal Reserve do, anyway?” “How does a wind turbine work?” You may turn first to video sites like YouTube or TED for an overview.
2. Zero in on unfamiliar words, phrases, symbols or expressions. “Bayesian analysis”, “Fourier transform”—Wikipedia, Scholarpedia (www.scholarpedia.org), or Wikiuniversity might be good places to start, but you’ll want to follow the links from there to source materials, papers, textbooks, book excerpts on Google, and others.
3. Do some serious reading. You may have several tabs open at this point. This phase can last hours or days.
4. Ask a question. Depending on what you’re studying, you may want to locate some experts on the topic (see Dan Diebolt’s interview for more). Or you can search forums or other online learning communities for help.
5. Test and demonstrate your knowledge. MIT Open Courseware, Khan Academy, and other sites may have sample problems. Or you can go onto a forum and answer someone else’s question. Or blog about your discoveries!
“Most frequently I will start with a Google search,” says Phillip Gulley, a Trade School student (see section C.5). “This usually produces a series of writings that are on the topic but don’t necessarily inform me in the way that I would hope to be informed. For example, I wanted to know how FM transmitters were built. Google led me to a series of technical schematics and descriptions. I then turned to YouTube where I found the same information coupled with an individual showing me the materials and interacting with the subject matter. Watching a person build a simple transmitter was far more informative than reading about the process. Once I had watched a couple YouTube videos I felt much more comfortable with the vernacular being used. I then returned to Google where I then read over some of the more complicated pages to try to further build on my preliminary knowledge.” Of course, the process wouldn’t be complete until he tried to do it himself
HowTo 4: Build Your Personal Learning Network
Learning online can be a solitary activity at times. But in the long run, no one learns alone. You need people to bounce ideas off, answer questions, and help you when you get stuck, and to give you ideas about where to go next in your learning. Your “Personal Learning Network” or PLN is the group of people who feed your learning head. In a true PLN, you’re a contributor, not just a consumer. Meaningful participation in a PLN should be part of your Personal Learning Plan (see above). Over the course of your learning plan, your PLN will begin to overlap with the professional network of practitioners in your field, where you’ll need to demonstrate value in order to connect with opportunities (see howto 6: Demonstrate Value to a Community).
To visualize your PLN, draw a diagram that looks like a dandelion head. You, the learner, are at the center. The seeds around you are the people in your life who contribute to your learning. Here’s some places to find them.
+Family and friends
+Real-life classmates, past and present
+Real-life teachers, past and present
+Google Reader, http://www.google.com/reader/view/, Delicious, http://www.delicious.com/, Digg, http://digg.com/, Diigo diigo.com, or Reddit,http://www.reddit.com/ or another “social bookmarking” service. You can “follow” people on these sites as they share links of interest from their daily reading on the web. Because the whole site is designed around sharing links, a free flow of ideas generally follows. I follow about 50 people in Google Reader with expertise and interest in journalism/media, open education, green tech, and more. They alert me to interesting and relevant news in those areas. We leave comments on each others’ shares, sometimes starting serious discussions.
+Facebook. Most of your Facebook friends probably don’t belong in your personal learning network, but you may have a few who consistently post links that connect with your interests, or start interesting intellectual debates. That’s who we’re talking about here.
+Blogs & YouTube channels. Some blogs have active communities of people in the comments.
+Conferences, meetups, bookstore events, or talks.
+Special interest online forums like StackOverflow (http://www.stackoverflow.com), for programmers, Vimeo for filmmakers, and many more.
+Professors or other experts whose classes you watch on open courseware sites, whose books you read, or whose ideas you connect with in another way.
+Participants in study groups or book groups, online or offline.
Once you get going you might be able to list hundreds of people who belong in your personal learning network. Some may be close friends, and others you’ll never meet. If you’re following a personal learning plan and living the life of an edupunk, it’s a good idea to create a dedicated online place where your personal learning network can live. I use both Google Reader and Twitter. In both places, I share and comment on links daily, and I follow people who share my interests in the future of education, green technology, and other topics.
Amanda Agnello, a student in an online master’s in teaching program, used a combination of school, Twitter and conferences to build her PLN. @psuklinkie is her Twitter handle.
Basics on Twitter: : It’s free to start a Twitter account. People use Twitter to share links to interesting news or blog posts, ask questions, have arguments, and make observations—it’s far more than a place to say what you had for breakfast. Twitter becomes valuable because of the people you follow and those who follow you. Most people on Twitter are not celebrities and have only a few dozen to a few hundred followers, which makes using it more like a conversation. You can start with “suggested followers” and build up your list over time. You can use the @ symbol to tag someone in a tweet so they see that you’re asking them a question. People use a # (hashtag) to designate the topic of what they’re talking about. You can search hashtags like #edu (for education) or #physics to follow conversations on those topics.
Check http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Twitter for a Twitter tutorial.
“I got active on Twitter and that changed my whole experience,” says Amanda. “I started following the hashtag #ntchat (New Teacher Chat). In my [online] program I felt isolated and a little bit up a tree, but my Twitter PLN [ Personal Learning Network] really gave me a lot of support. I was able to bounce ideas off them and get a lot of intellectual recognition—‘That’s such a great idea! wow!’ I kept telling my classmates: get on Twitter and it will change your life!”
To get started on Twitter, she said, “I just started following educators. I did #followfriday and “noteworthy Tuesday.” (#ff is a tag people post on Fridays, when they suggest other people to follow with shared interests.
Then I went to an edcamp [an informal conference for educators modeled on Barcamp, which is the same thing for computer programmers]. That got me much more involved with Twitter.”
A lot of people, like Amanda, click with Twitter when they start using it during a conference or similar gathering. For me, it was South By Southwest, the big technology conference in Austin, in 2009. Most such events these days have a hashtag (like #educonf2011) where you can follow updates. Tracking the hashtag is a way to keep track of which sessions or parties are most fun. You can follow people whose updates or presentations you like or who you actually meet at the conference. It’s a way to continue the experience of a real-life community.
“Meeting the people I was following gave a personal connection to it—I’m working with people that I met in person,” says Amanda. “Twitter’s a door opener.” PLNs in general are door openers. They will pull you into the world of lifelong learning.
Catherine Grau, the Trade School student, says: “I have a good experience with mailing lists! I use hashtags in Twitter to follow topics. I like to RT these people, to read articles, and to follow other people on Twitter to get information. If I find someone I am interested in, I look at their blogroll, and begin to follow them on their social media sites - - blogs, Twitter.
And I see a shift in Facebook – my community there is really making it the medium to share, exchange and self-organize education.”
Phillip Gulley, the Trade School student, agrees: “Facebook specifically has served as a sort of bridge for me, often shifting educational relationships into professional relationships, or to personal relationships.”
Michael McCarthy, a student at College Unbound, has built his personal learning network in part through Peer 2 Peer University, a nonprofit learning experiment described in section C.TK. P2PU has a website that allows people to form different kinds of study groups. Mike joined an online book group that is reading Ivan Illich’s classic of alternative education, Deschooling Society.
“All of the active participants are older, wiser, and involved professionally in education. Rather than having a broken-down, structured reading that would have turned me away, the participants threw out some amazing observations rather early, and that had me wanting to read through the text in a more deliberate and thoughtful way. However, some learning groups might develop a tendency to become ‘dead threads,’ as in online forums. I’ll see how this one follows through (or doesn’t.)”
HowTo 5: Find a Mentor
Every edupunk needs a mentor. A mentor takes a personal interest in your success at learning and achieving your goals, and they’re in a position to help you do it by encouraging you and connecting you with ideas, resources, people, and opportunities. Here’s how to find one.
1. Look for real chemistry. Prominent people get lots of attempts to contact them, but you may not actually have that much in common with Oprah. You’d be better off finding someone who does what you want to be doing, whether worm compost or natural hairstyles. Use research tools like Slideshare (slideshare.net) YouTube, and blog searches to find the perfect person.
2. Reach out respectfully. The Internet age makes it easy to connect with people but that also means that people get many, many attempts to connect with them. I’ve found that the best way to connect with someone online is to ask a genuine question about his or her work.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask. Once you’ve exchanged a few emails or a phone call and established a real conversation with someone, you can ask them for a favor: to take a look at your portfolio, to let you know about summer internships in that field, or even more broadly, to stay in touch and answer your questions. People like to feel helpful.
4. Mentoring is a two-way street. Don’t forget that as a younger person with enthusiasm and energy, you have something to offer your mentor as well. Maybe it’s research help, or help with a project. Maybe it’s just a younger person’s insight into a situation. Offering to help will let your mentor know that you appreciate them.
5. Go long and short. Classic mentorships will last for years, but you should also be alert to the opportunity to gain wisdom, good advice, and valuable connections in just one conversation.
Michael McCarthy is one of the people I mentor. The first time I visited his college, he happened to be giving a midterm presentation on do-it-yourself education. He had created an incredible video, partly inspired by my book, DIY U. He didn’t know I was going to be there—it was a wonderful coincidence. After that, we kept in touch. He came to New York to see me speak. On my recommendation, we worked together on a series of videos for FastCompany.com, which allowed him to get paid for his video work for the first time. I introduced him to a community of people working on open-source video, and he helped me coordinate the focus group for the Edupunks’ Guide with his fellow students at College Unbound. Mike emails me sometimes with questions, and I help him out however I can.
HowTo 6: How to Earn a Credential
There’s lots of different flavors of credentials out there. Here’s a mini-guide to what you need to earn each one.
1) High School Diploma or Equivalent
Different states have different requirements for earning a high school diploma. If you’re over 18, or if you’re just impatient, you can earn the equivalent: a General Educational Development test or GED. The tests cover reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. GED tests are administered at 3400 testing centers in all 50 states, for free or for a small fee. It’s important to note that you CANNOT take the real GED online, although there are misleading websites that suggest otherwise. The best resource for information on where and how to take the test is the American Council on Education (ACE) website:
The website includes links to online practice tests and other sources of information to help you prepare.
2) Certificate
Certifications are privately organized by nonprofit industry administrations to qualify people for specific jobs. The website http://www.certificationguide.com/v2/ lists
2,852 national certifications in 21 categories from health to sales: “Certified Travel Associate” or “Certified Substance Abuse Counselor” for example, and provides guidelines on quality. Some certifications require advanced degrees or lots of on-the-job experience. But you can earn others with just a short course and exam; Microsoft and LEED certifications are two examples (see section A.3 for more). Some one-year courses at community colleges also are designed to prepare you for certificates.
3) License
Licensing exams are administered and regulated by the state. Licensed occupations include things like practical nurses, massage therapists, or even bartenders. Some require other degrees, while others just require you to pass an exam. Go to http://www.careerinfonet.org/licensedoccupations/lois_keyword.asp?nodeid=16&by=keyword for a comprehensive state-by-state guide to licensed occupations, with the requirements for each.
4) Associate’s Degree
An associate’s is typically a two-year degree offered by a community college. In California, the country’s largest community college system, associate’s degrees require 60 units, or around 20 courses; 18 must be in your major. Associate’s of Arts or Associate’s of Science degrees are designed for transfer to a four-year college, while an Associate’s in business, “Occupational Studies” “Industrial Technology” or “Applied Science” is designed to lead directly to a job (perhaps with the addition of a license or certification, as above). In general, the more liberal arts courses you take, like Literature, History, math and science, the easier it will be to transfer your credits to a four-year college. After liberal arts, nursing is the most popular associate’s degree.
You don’t have to earn your associate’s all in one place; you can transfer credits from one college to another or apply freestanding credits (see Boxes: 7 Ways to Earn College Credit Without Taking A College Class
5) Bachelor’s Degree
A Bachelor’s degree is the most common undergraduate degree in the US. It’s typically a four-year degree offered by a public or private college or university. To apply for a bachelor’s program, you typically need to take a standardized test, either the SAThttp://sat.collegeboard.org/home or ACT. http://www.act.org/
To get a bachelor’s, you usually have to satisfy liberal arts requirements in a range of disciplines including the humanities (writing, literature, history) and the sciences (math, physics, biology). At the same time, you need to choose a major, or concentration, and take a specific number of courses around one particular discipline. The most popular undergraduate major in the US is business, and the highest-paying are in engineering and computer science. The State University of New York requires 120-130 credits to graduate, of which 30 must be general ed credits in 7 of 10 different subject areas (the liberal arts requirement) while 30 must be in your major.
You don’t have to earn your associate’s all in one place; you can transfer credits from one college to another, transfer an associate’s degree, or apply freestanding credits (see Boxes: 7 Ways to Earn College Credit Without Taking A College Class
6) Master’s Degree
A Master’s Degree is typically a 1 or 2-year graduate degree offered after the bachelor’s degree. To apply for a master’s degree, you need to take a test called the Graduate Record Exam or GRE http://www.ets.org/gre/ or for MBA programs, the GMAT: http://www.mba.com/ Master’s degrees can mean higher earnings for teachers, businesspeople, mental health counselors, or other professionals. Master’s candidates are the most likely to pay out of pocket for their degrees, using loans instead of grants. For this reason, it makes sense to look at the expected salary from your degree, which you can find on sites like http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-1152-Salaries-Promotions-Bachelors-vs-Masters-How-Does-Your-Salary-Stack-Up/.
7) Professional Degree
Professional degrees include law school (3 years), medical school (7 years, including the training period called residency), dental school (4 years) and divinity school (3 years or more). Professional schools require a bachelor’s degree to enter. They also have their own entrance exams: The LSAT for law school http://www.lsac.org/ and the MCAT for medical school. https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/
And they have their own exit exams for state licensing (the bar exam for lawyers is the most famous example). People with professional degrees, except for divinity graduates, earn more than any other educational category, but they also have the highest debt: upwards of $100,000 on average.
8) PhD
Doctorates typically take at least 7 years to earn. They are awarded in the humanities, the sciences, and in education (the Ed.D). To complete a doctorate you must publish some original research in the form of a dissertation; for English PhDs that means writing 100 pages of literary criticism, for biology, it means a lab experiment. Doctoral programs are open to people with BAs or MAs. They usually offer students a small stipend, which may increase if you agree to work as a teaching or research assistant; but many PhD students take on loans as well for their living expenses. PhD candidates usually look for jobs in the academic world after graduation; in many disciplines, these jobs are very hard to find, so do your research carefully before picking a program.
HowTo 7: Demonstrate Value to a Network
A diploma is the final step in a traditional education. In the DIY world, credit comes from the reputation you build by doing good work and demonstrating it to others in a community. The rules of this world are informal and evolving, but demonstrating value to a network is not optional for success in the 21st century.
1) Pick your path. The community you want to be a part of should reflect your passion. If you don’t see it among the ones listed in section C.tk, search until you find it, or form your own by expanding out from your personal learning network.
2) Show up. Your profile on a network must include samples of your work, whether it’s writing, photographs, video, audio, or code, or at least written descriptions with photos of projects you’ve done. The more time you spend in presenting yourself and sharing stuff, the more you’ll show up.
3) Help others. Good citizenship in a reputation-based network means being helpful in any way you can: pitching in on another’s project, offering feedback, publicity, support, or just answering questions from newcomers. The golden rule rules.
4) Meet up. Whether it’s a local mixer at a bar, panel discussion, workshop, or a big national or international conference, shared-interest communities like to meet up in person. This is the way to solidify your connections and find new opportunities. Go.
5) Keep an ear out for opportunities. Some networks have job boards, others just have informal connections.
Dale J. Stephens is a 19 year old entrepreneur and a brilliant networker. After being homeschooled, he was dissatisfied with his college experience. He started a website called Uncollege to express his ideas and plans for creating an alternative approach to education. Then he started Tweeting and reaching out to philanthropists, bloggers, entrepreneurs, and others in the educational innovation field. He talked on the phone, went for coffee, dinner, and meetings, flew to the South by Southwest technology conference in Austin to go to parties and meet with more people who could help him. In the spring of 2011, he was awarded a $100,000 fellowship by entrepreneur Peter Thiel.
• • •
A: Get Ready
You’re looking at further education for the first time. You’re not sure what you want to study or what type of degree you want to go for. You want to explore your educational options, both what to study and how to study.
Rather than a four-year bachelor’s degree right now, you may want a faster route to a job: a certificate, license, apprenticeship or associate’s degree. Or maybe you’re in high school and you’re considering an unusual educational path.
The first step in your process is to figure out a little bit about what you might want to do. Then you’ll want to search the educational landscape for a place to study.
A.1 What Do You Like? What Do You Want to Be? Where Do You Want to Go?
Scanning the horizon for an educational direction? You might want to start by looking within. The more you know about yourself, the more likely you are to find a path where you’ll be successful.
*Do what successful CEOs do: a “360 degree review.” Talk to friends, family, teachers, and other mentors whose opinions you respect. Ask them: What do you think are my strengths? My weaknesses? What types of fields do you think would interest me? When you hear the same thing from your lab partner, your soccer coach, and the neighbor you babysit for, it has more resonance than when you hear it just once.
*Start a notebook, collage journal, or Tumblr blog where you write or put up pictures of ideas that interest you. Do this for a few months and some themes might start to emerge.
Personality Tests and Quizzes
Use these tests to learn a little more about yourself and how your interests and traits might match up with careers.
Career
Key
http://www.careerkey.org/
Psychologist Lawrence Jones has developed the Career Key Test, a personality test that correlates your traits with suitable careers, college majors, and training programs. The test costs $9.95 and takes about fifteen minutes. You can find a similar free personality test at http://www.careertest.net/.
What Do You
Like?
http://www.bls.gov/k12/
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a Web site geared for high school students that asks the simple question of “What Do You Like?” (reading, helping people, music and art, sports) to point users in the direction of information on careers that might be interesting.
ASVAB Career
Exploration Program
http://www.asvabprogram.com/
Thinking about a career in the military? The Department of Defense sponsors this site to encourage students to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a test you must pay to take, that correlates skills in various academic areas to specific careers. (Be aware that getting in touch with them may lead military recruiters to take an interest in you.)
Career Search Sites
Occupational Outlook
Handbook
http://www.bls.gov/oco/
The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the BLS, is the Wikipedia of careers. They track job trends and publish statistics on every career under the sun: average salaries, required education. Some professions currently at the top of the list for both projected growth and salary are registered nurses ($62,000 average salary) network systems analysts ($71,100), financial examiners ($70,930), physicians’ assistants ($81,230), and accountants ($59,430).
CareerOneStop
http://careeronestop.org/
The US Department of Labor maintains Career One Stop to give people information on good jobs and connect them with training. You can browse fast-growing jobs, look specifically at green careers, or take their Skills Profiler test to match your skills with jobs you’d like to have and vice versa.
US News & World
Report – 50 Best Careers
http://money.usnews.com/money/careers
The magazine yearly profiles the 50 “best” careers based on how fast opportunities are growing, salary, benefits, and job satisfaction (all of their information comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but they present it in an easier-to-read format). They list the best jobs in various categories, so you can consider your options—not just health care, business, and technology, but arts and social services as well.
Now that you have some idea of what you might like to do, it’s time to explore your learning options. The rest of this section contains information on professional licenses, certificate programs and apprenticeship programs as well as finding a college, and profiles of some unique programs that offer DIY-style learning for students at a pre-college or vocational training level.
A.2 How to Find a College
Search Sites
These are the traditional online databases—not too different from going to a bookstore and browsing the college guides, which you should also do.
NCES College
Navigator
http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
This is a free, unbiased, comprehensive source of information from the government. It allows you to search for schools by tuition, how hard they are to get into, location, and whether they offer distance learning, among many other options.
Peterson’s
http://www.petersons.com/
This is one of the best-known commercial sources for college information. They have a separate guide for distance learning programs. http://www.petersons.com/college-search/distance-education.aspx
Unigo is a way to find out about colleges from students themselves. You can read reviews and ratings from real students: “The students at UC Davis are active and getting ready to take the world head on,” writes one senior. You can log into the site using Facebook to build a profile and take quizzes that will help you match with colleges based on your price range and how well you did in high school. It’s all free.
Social Sites
These sites are a bit more interactive. Not only can you find colleges, but they can find you if you build a profile.
Connect!
http://www.connectedu.net/
Craig Powell grew up in a lower-middle-class family in Missouri. Sports landed him on scholarship at a private high school, and, he says, “my jaw dropped” at the resources and guidance available to the students there to help them connect with colleges—everything from planning accelerated courses to finding targeted scholarships. He ended up at Brown University, “a college I’d never heard of, and an absolute gamechanger for me.” Eventually, he got to work trying to level the playing field for students like him using technology.
Connect! is a Facebook-like platform that works like a virtual guidance counselor. It suggests high school courses and prep courses for standardized tests based on your interests and past performance. It stores your information so you can streamline the college application process. And based on the information in your profile, colleges can come to you. “I put my accomplishments—computer programming awards I’ve won—my goals, my GPA, my grades, the classes and AP courses that I’ve taken,” says Adely Calixte, a 17-year-old junior at Edison High School in Miami, FL. “Colleges can actually see what you’re all about, and you can connect to the colleges and see what they offer and see what scholarships you’re eligible for.”
Adely’s school district, the Miami-Dade Public School District, is using Connect! in all 89 high schools to try to improve college enrollment while saving time and money. Besides Florida, Connect! is currently available to students in Texas, Detroit, and Massachusetts, and a consumer version—available to every student, everywhere—will be out in July.
Schools App
Another option for connecting with certain colleges online is the Schools App for Facebook. (This is different from individual colleges’ Facebook pages.) A range of colleges are using it, from Maricopa Community Colleges, a huge public district in Arizona, to Columbia College, a private school in Chicago. The idea is to help you connect with other students, faculty and alumni over common interests.
“You are more than your test scores,” says Zinch CEO Anne Dwayne. On Zinch you can make a nice-looking professional profile with all your accomplishments, whether sports team videos or band concerts. Indicate your interests and colleges will contact you, with your permission. You can exchange messages with college admissions officers, who also have profiles on the site, and be matched with scholarships. There are about 850 colleges using the site, many of which are very prestigious.
BOX: Online vs. For-Profit Colleges
Finding a quality online college program can be tricky. Many, though not all, online colleges are operated by for-profit companies. If you’re searching on Google for online college programs, most of the results will be from for-profit companies because they spend so much money on marketing. Some of the largest and most well known are the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, Capella University, and DeVry University.
There are many satisfied graduates of these colleges. And two of the colleges profiled in this book, Straighterline and Ivy Bridge, are for-profit as well. But the Edupunks’ Guide can’t recommend you attend any of the large for-profits without doing extensive background research on your own. Too many for-profit colleges, especially the big players named above, have gotten in trouble repeatedly over the years for misleading recruitment practices, financial fraud, and other problems. Besides, for-profits cost an average of over $14,000 a year, far more expensive than either the public community colleges that offer a similar quality of programs, or any of the programs profiled in this book.
Individual for-profit career colleges focused on vocational and technical fields may be a better bet than large chains, but you have to take them on a case-by-case basis. Read the tips for finding a good certification or licensing program in the next section. If the program you’re looking at does not lead to any kind of official license or certification, it may be lower quality.
College Choices for Adults http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org/ has the best information for online education programs. It’s easy to compare colleges by measures of student engagement, student demographics, and results of alumni surveys.
http://www.distance-education.org is another site that lists a large number of online programs, including those operated by public universities. In general, as a rule of thumb, the word “State” does not appear in the name of a for-profit university.
Being nonprofit, of course, is not a guarantee of quality. But it’s a good place to start. If you’re confused about whether a college is for-profit or non-profit, just ask the recruiter or admissions office.
A.3 Professional Licenses and Certification Programs
Shelly Alcorn doesn’t have a BA. It took her nine years to get her associate’s degree while working and raising children, one class at a time. But as the graduate of a vocational high school program that prepared her to be a certified dental assistant, she started her working life at a higher hourly wage than anyone she had gone to school with.
Today Shelly develops curricula herself for the world of nonprofit associations, whose professional license and certification programs offer an important alternative for those who may not fit the standard college mold. “Many of us working in associations are attempting to develop really innovative paths for people,” she says.
Almost six hundred nonprofit industry associations in the US offer a whopping 1663 licenses and certifications that can qualify you for specific careers, from state-licensed massage therapists to LEED-certified green building specialists. You can browse them at http://careeronestop.org/ and http://www.certificationguide.com/v2/. You can also find apprenticeships through the US Office of Apprenticeship at http://www.doleta.gov/oa/.
Licenses are state-regulated, while certifications are privately organized by industry. That means licensed professions are generally more likely to require an associate’s or even a bachelor’s degree as well as the test.
The country desperately needs people with specialized alternative postsecondary training.
Even in the worst of this most recent recession, the New York Times reported, employers had unfilled openings for welders, critical care nurses, electrical linemen, and respiratory therapists. In fact, according to a 2011 report by the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce, the economy needs to add far more people with postsecondary certification (4.7 million) than those with only an associate’s, bachelor’s, or graduate degree (3 million). Moreover, 43% of people who earn professional licenses or certifications out-earn those with associate’s degrees only, and 27% out-earn those with bachelor’s degrees. Not too shabby!
But before you sign up for that license or certification course, read on.
- This kind of training is generally narrower than what you’ll find in a regular college program. It should help you get a better job, but it may not expand your personal horizons. Think of the certification as one stop on your personal learning path. (See section C.2 for more tips on being a lifelong learner.)
- You don’t necessarily have to go to school to get certified! Some credentials do require an associate’s degree. But others are awarded based solely on standardized tests. You have the option of studying for these on your own, using manuals and the self-learning techniques explored in Section C. Or you can go through a training course or apprenticeship administered by a community college, a union, a nonprofit association, or a for-profit career college.
- Since the training is really specific, you need to be sure about the field you’re entering. Speak to people employed in it, or get a related job (working at the front desk in a gym is a good idea if you’re thinking about becoming a personal trainer, for example). Don’t enter into a certification course based only on the ads or what an enrollment counselor at a career college tells you—that can set you up for disappointment. Check out http://careeronestop.org/ to get the true story on employment trends and demand for particular careers. (See section C-6 for more tips on networking your way into a future career.
How do you pick a quality license or certification?
“Many of the medical and health care certification programs are very high quality,” says Mickie Rops, who advises industry associations on credentialing. “It may be because they’ve been around the longest.” She also tells certification shoppers to look for certifications that are accredited by the American National Standards Institute or the National Commission for Certifying Agencies.
ANSI accredited programs generally relate to medicine, construction, or computers. They are listed here and identified by a four-digit code. https://www.ansica.org/wwwversion2/outside/ALLdirectoryListing.asp?menuID=2&prgID=201&status=4
NCCA accredits mainly health-related professions, which include midwifery and personal training. A full list is found here.
http://www.credentialingexcellence.org/NCCAAccreditation/AccreditedCertificationPrograms/tabid/120/Default.
- If you’re going for a newer license/certification, or one in an area outside these fields, you have to do some detective work to find a worthwhile badge to shoot for. Good professional certifications work backwards from the workplace itself. “Every five years we do a national study to find out what pharmacy technicians are working on,” says Melissa Corrigan, CEO of the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board and president of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence. “You’re taking a snapshot of the practice or profession. We ask people what functions they perform and how often and how critical they are to the protection of the public. And even though we build a very comprehensive list of what we think is going on, we also have a trending list of what’s happening in the future—things like the effect of health care reform and medications that have been pulled from the market.” The organization that issues your license should be able to talk about the process by which they develop the test, so you can find out if it’s a test worth taking.
Community colleges like Foothill are a good place to train for a state licensed or certified profession.
Foothill
College
http://www.foothill.edu/index.php
Hybrid
California
Being a dental hygienist requires an associate’s degree as well as a state license. Dental hygenists assist dentists by doing basic cleaning and patient education. This is the 14th-fastest-growing occupation in the US and also one of the highest-paying positions requiring just an associate’s degree, earning $67,400 a year on average.
At the dental hygienist program at Foothill Community College in Los Altos, California, close to the Silicon Valley headquarters of companies like Apple and Google, there’s a big room lined with over 20 dentist’s chairs. Students are kept busy during the week treating patients from the community, meaning plenty of hands-on experience—a big plus for any vocational program.
“I found it in a career book and I’m like, I think this sounds good, so I went to a vocational college for eight months and I got a certificate there,” says Dawn Breaux, 25, who started as a dental assistant before coming to Foothill. “It’s a new adventure with every patient! You have 50 year-old people with baby teeth still in their mouth, and sometimes teeth grow in weird places: on the roof of your mouth, the side of your neck, your nasal cavity…” Dawn never loved school, but being in a program that’s so closely tied to her future work helping people makes it easier to hit the books. “At first it’s very overwhelming. It’s a lot of information and you think you can’t learn it all, but everyone is very encouraging. Because you’re hands-on using it, you start to realize why you need to know things like how microbiology works, how the body functions with infections, how inflammation can cause different organs to do different things and why it’s so important to have a healthy mouth. It’s great when you can pass your knowledge on to your patients and they get it and start brushing their teeth.”
Besides classes, state exam prep, clinic hours seeing patients and Friday rotations with a local dentist’s office, there’s a technological component to the dental hygienist program at Foothill. The students fill out websites with information and evidence on their backgrounds, their interests, their research projects, community service, and patient education activities. These sites, called “e-portfolios,” are growing in popularity as a new style in assessment, one that’s more authentic, more well-rounded than a test, and that allows students to take an active role in understanding what they’ve learned. “Basically it helps us reflect on what we’ve learned, review and put it in writing,” says Dawn. Kanistha Shah, another student, adds, “It’s a great tool for us to show our employers. I know people who’ve made it public to their potential employers so they can see their fields of expertise.”
Check your local community college for degree programs leading to state license and accreditation.
A.4 Alternative Programs for Pre-College Learners
Do you need to get your GED? Are you a veteran? Are you still in high school? There are special programs that offer alternative paths to a degree.
Adult Basic Education:
LearnerWeb
http://www.learnerweb.org/
A website that provides structure and resources to users with specific educational goals, such as getting their GED, going to college, or preparing for a better job. Users are given plans that include use of community and online resources.
Stephen Reder, a linguistics professor at Portland State University, is one of the creators of this program, which is modeling how technology and self-learning can be used to help the learners who need it the most. “I was involved in a nearly 10-year-long study of 1000 high school dropouts,” he explains. “One of the things that really astounded me was that, contrary to many stereotypes people have about high school dropouts, they often have goals, but what they do lack are realistic plans to follow to get from where they are to where they want to go.”
That’s where LearnerWeb aims to help. Starting from a goal such as “learn English,” “get a GED” or “get a better job,” the site provides clear, detailed, multi-step learning plans to connect them to the resources and information they need.
While LearnerWeb provides an experience of self-accessed, self-directed, digitally enhanced learning, Reder is careful to point out that it’s not intended to be a standalone website. It’s a platform that’s meant to work in conjunction with an organization on the ground, like a community center, welfare agency, or even a public library, that has support staff to help people.
When you start an account on the site, you designate a person to be your tutor or teacher. They have access to your portfolio and can track your progress. “This is an attempt to blend human and online resources to help people become digitally literate and maybe eventually get to college,” says Reder. LearnerWeb is currently being used by community nonprofits and public agencies in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, St. Paul, MN, and Providence, RI, as well as Oregon where it started. You can look on the site under Current Partners http://www.learnerweb.org/infosite/currentPartners.html to find places where it’s available.
Melvin Doran, aged 64, is using Learner Web at the Hubbs Center, an adult basic education center run by the St. Paul Public School District in St. Paul, MN. He’s catching up on math classes, in hopes of returning to community college for a degree in repairing robotic manufacturing machinery. While Melvin prefers being in the classroom, where he can ask a question if he doesn’t understand something, he is getting used to learning math on the computer: “You have to really be awful patient. It’s hard to back up, so if you don’t catch it you have to start from the beginning.” And he says spending so much time online is having other benefits.
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