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Basic Steps in Preparing for CollegeMaybe you or your child or just someone you know is still in high school or even in middle school. It is never too early to prepare to receive and higher education to further your success in life. Have a better education usually means a higher salary and studies have proven that those with a college degree earn more than those with just a high school diploma or a G.E.D. So now that we are clear that more education means more money down the road in life, what do you need to make that happen? First off we need to make sure we clear up some misunderstandings. Not all colleges are the same, each and every college or university is the same. Each one has their own strengths that they excel in, so before you decide where to attend you first need to decide on what you wish to major in. Once you've decided on what you want to be in your future then you can decide on which campus you wish to attend. And don't limit yourself to just 1 school. Try to pick a variety of places that you might want to attend because the more you try to shoot for, the more chance you will have into being accepted into some college or university. As mentioned before, not all colleges and universities are the same. This also applies for how much attending a certain university or college charges a student to attend their classes. Some places like community colleges charge a very low amount for their classes and private universities charge extremely high priced amount for just a quarter. But don't get discouraged, there are still ways to pay for them. By applying for scholarships, student aid programs or getting student loans, you can pay for an education that you could have only dreamed of. So now that you've decided on what you wish to learn about, which campus to attend and how to pay for that education, what's left? Everything else. Before you can even go and get that Bachelor's you first need to quality before your application is to be even reviewed by the committee. And that means your high school education. High school is usually where the acceptance committee will usually start looking at. From your academics to your extra curricular activities they will account into everything that you may have done during your high school year to see if you are even eligible to attend their most prestigious place of learning. Academics usually mean your grades that you received in your high school classes. From math to English, you first need to learn the basics before you can try and learn the higher forms of these subjects. Academics also include the tests that just about most universities require like the SATs and ACTs. There are after-school programs for students to attend to learn and how to analyze these tests so they can score higher for these exams. Colleges and universities also pay attention on what activities you may have been involved in during your high school year. From school clubs to after-school community service programs that you may have volunteered for, they will take into account on what kind of activities you participate in to have a much better understanding of you. So now that you understand the gist of what needs to be accomplished, get out there and jump start your brain of yours so that you can make a better person of yourself. Related
And here is another random article you might be interested in... The Seven Essential Elements To Successful Business CommunicationThe seven essentials of business communication There are seven essential elements to successful business communication:
If you are going to communicate effectively in business it is essential that you have a solid grasp of these seven elements. So let's look at each in turn... Structure How you structure your communication is fundamental to how easily it is absorbed and understood by your audience. Every good communication should have these three structural elements: an opening, a body, and a close. The Opening allows your communication's audience to quickly understand what the communication is about. Short, sharp and to the point, a good opening lets your audience quickly reach a decision of whether or not to pay attention to your message. The Body is where you get to the 'heart' of your message. It is in the body of the message that you communicate all of your facts and figures relative to the action you want your communication's audience to take after attending to your message. There's a key to rapid uptake of your message -- KISS. Pitch your presentation's graphics at a grade seven child. If THEY can follow and understand them, chances are good that your audience will too. The Close is where you sum up your communication, remind your audience of your key points, and leave them with a clear understanding of what you want them to do next. The more powerfully you can end your communication, the more easily remembered it will be by your audience. This structural rule holds true no matter what your communication is -- a memo, a phone call, a voice mail message, a personal presentation, a speech, an email, a webpage, or a multi-media presentation. Remember - your communication's audience can be just one person, a small team, an auditorium full of people or a national, even global, group of millions. In this instance size doesn't matter -- the rules remain the same. Clarity Be clear about the messaqe you want to deliver, as giving a confused message to your audience only ends up with them being confused and your message being ignored. If you are giving a message about, say, overtime payments don't then add in messages about detailed budget issues or the upcoming staff picnic -- UNLESS they ABSOLUTELY fit in with your original message. It's far better and clearer for your audience if you create a separate communication about these ancilliary issues. Consistency Nothing more upsets a regular reader of, say, your newsletter than inconsistency of your message. Taking a position on an issue one week, only to overturn it the next, then overturn THAT position the following week, only breeds distrust in your message. And distrust in you! People who distrust you are exceedingly unlikely to take the action you wish them to take. They are also highly unlikely to pay any attention to your future messages. As well as consistency amongst multiple messages, be aware that inconsistency within your message can be just as deadly to audience comprehension. At the risk of sounding like the Grouchy Grammarian, please make sure that your tenses remain the same, that your viewpoint doesn't wander between the 1st and 3rd person and back again (unless you deliberately want to create a linguistic or story-telling effect â€" be careful with this!) and that your overall 'theme' or message doesn't change. Medium If the only tool you have in your toolbag is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a nail. Similarly, if all you believe you have as a communications tool is PowerPointâ„¢ then pretty soon all you'll do is reduce very communications opportunity to a PowerPointâ„¢ presentation. And as any of us who have sat through one too many boring slideshows will attest, "seen one, seen 'em all" There are a myriad of was you can deliver your message â€" the trick is to use the right one. But which is the right one? The one that communicates your message:
Note: it must meet ALL of these criteria. There's absolutely no value in spending the least amount of money if the medium you choose doesn't deliver on any of the other criteria. Choosing the right medium or media is obviously critical. Get the media mix wrong and you could end up spending a whole lot of time and money on a very visually attractive business communication that delivers next-to-zero ROI. Relevancy It never ceases to amaze me that business managers still believe that everyone would be interested in their message â€" and then proceed to subject any and every person they can find to a horrendous PowerPoint slideshow put together by a well-meaning but aesthetically-challenged subordinate. Screen-after-screen of lengthy text, in a small barely legible font size (because a small font size is the only way to fit all of the words onto the slide), which the manager duly and dully reads verbatim. Ugh! The psychological reality is that unless a person is interested in the subject of the message they are highly unlikely to pay ANY attention. Which means that if you force them to attend to your message you will actually turn them against you and be even less likely to receive their attention in the future. Save your in-depth budget and performance analysis Excel- generated charts for those who genuinely care and need to know about such things. If your business communication needs to touch on several areas that might not be of interest to your entire audience, let them know of alternative resources that more fully address each of these additional areas. You can do this by, for example, providing them with an easily-remembered and written link to a webpage where a greater depth of information can be stored. Primacy/Recency It is essential to know that, one week later, a business communication is remembered by one or both of two things:
Psychologists call the effect of remembering the first few items presented as a 'Primacy Effect'. Similarly, they call the effect of remembering the last few items presented to you as a 'Recency Effect'. Since individuals differ in which Effect is the most dominant for them, it is best to 'cover your bases' and make an effort to have both a powerful and memorable opening and a powerful close. A powerful opening can be anything that captures the audience's attention:
Just make sure that your opening remains consistent with and relates to the subject of the communication. Equally, a powerful close that bears no resemblance to the main body of the communication would just confuse and disappoint an audience brought up to expect something more. And don't think that humour will save you. Business communication is a serious business and very few people have the skill to be able to deliver a humourous message that the audience will retain and act upon. As Granville Toogood says in his excellent book 'The Articulate Executive', humour is a very risky strategy. If you are determined to use humour in your presentation, then please follow Toogood's recommendation:
The opening and closing of your business communication are the two most easily remembered and therefore essential elements. Make sure you give your audience something to remember. The Psychological Rule of 7±2 (seven plus or minus two) Psychologists have long known that the human brain has a finite capacity to hold information in short-term or 'working' memory. The brain is also structured to retain information in 'clusters' or groups of items. These clusters average, across the whole of mankind, at seven items, plus or minus two. Which means that your audience is only able to hold on to between five and nine pieces of information at any one time. Now do you see the importance of clarity of message and of having a distinctive and memorable opening and close? If you want your key points to be remembered even five minutes later, it is essential that you limit your business communication to between just five and nine key points. Equally, if you want your key action points to be remembered five weeks later, ensure that your communication is amongst the five to nine most memorable messages your audience has attended to in the last five weeks. Conclusion There are seven essential elements to successful business communication:
If you are going to communicate effectively in business it is essential that you have a solid grasp of these seven elements. Other articles by this author »
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