Making Your Education Work For You: A Proven System for Success in School and for Getting the Job of Your Dreams - Softcover

Green, Gordon W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765319535 ISBN 13: 9780765319531

Verlag: Forge Books, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

In today's challenging economy, students need every advantage to compete effectively. Making Your Education Work For You is a proven system, developed by Dr. Gordon Green, to help students realize their full academic potential and land the job of their dreams. Dr. Green's fool-proof system covers all of the essential skills needed for maximizing academic success and turning that success into a successful career. Making Your Education Work for You shows students how to:

*Work with parents for success
*Maximize the academic experience
*Earn top grades
*Find educational assistance
*Engage in effective job planning
*Secure career success

More than just a "how-to", Making Your Education Work For You contains valuable information on how a good education leads to a good life, the value of getting good grades, setting goals, establishing contacts, gaining work experience and career planning. The appendices include suggested reading lists and other educational resources, and Dr. Green's own Academic Transcript, which proves his "Straight-A" system really works.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gordon W. Green, Jr., Ph.D.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Making Your Education Work for You

A Proven System for Success in School and for Getting the Job of Your Dreams

By Gordon W. Green Jr.

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2010 Gordon W. Green, Jr., Ph.D.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7653-1953-1

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Starting the Journey, 
Introduction, 
Part 1 For Parents and Students The Importance of Education, 
1. How a Good Education and Good Job Translate into a Good Life (It's the only life you have, and you are the one who will have to live it), 
2. Others Who Have Had Difficulty in School Have Succeeded (Anything is possible if you put your mind to it), 
3. The Beauty of Knowledge (What you learn in school you will actually use later on), 
4. The Value of Getting Good Grades (They build confidence and self-esteem, and expand opportunities), 
5. How to Engage in Effective Job Planning (So students will be motivated to work hard in school), 
Part 2 For Students What You Will Have to Do, 
6. Mastering the Basic Skills (The right way to read a book, take a test, and write a term paper), 
7. A System for Getting Straight A's (A proven ten-point study system that will put you on the road to success), 
8. Making the System Work for You (Helpful study tips that will make your task easier and more enjoyable), 
It's a Wrap, 
Appendix A: Recommended Reading List, 
Appendix B: Key Words Used in Examinations, 
Appendix C: Educational Resources, 
Appendix D: Dr. Green's Academic Transcript for a Ph.D. in Economics, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

How a Good Education and Good Job Translate into a Good Life

(It's the only life you have, and you are the one who will have to live it)

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato said, "The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life." Truer words have never been spoken.

Students often have difficulty understanding the crucial importance of education in determining their future lives because they have not lived long enough to understand how the world really works. Reading books in various subjects in school is a good primer that increases understanding, but there is no substitute for living life and experiencing lessons personally, and this only comes with age. Parents already have been through many of the lessons in life, and they try to help their children get on the right track early and avoid many of the detours that lead in the wrong direction. In most cases, parents dispense their advice about the importance of education in an ongoing lecture, emphasizing different factors at different times on different occasions. All too often students are of the impression that they have heard this lecture before, and the advice is rarely heeded. A more useful approach is to have a thorough discussion about the importance of education at a single sitting, with additional reinforcement dispensed periodically to emphasize the validity of the lesson. One of my father's favorite sayings was, "You cannot put an old head on young shoulders," and that may very well be the case, but we are going to attempt to go a long way in that direction!

In this chapter I present a good, hard dose of reality about the importance of education in today's world that parents and students can discuss with each other. I start off by describing how life in the United States used to be, and then how it has changed through various demographic, social, and economic changes that have taken place during the past several decades. Next, I describe two possible scenarios, one that applies to people who do not obtain higher education and one that applies to people who do obtain it. Then I talk about the importance of where one lives, for both comfort and future success, and how a good education and good job provide the freedom that allows people to choose where they want to live. I present a strategy that parents can use to drive these points home to their students. Finally, I close with some statistics that show how earnings and wealth vary with different levels of education.

Changes that Have Occurred in the United States

The demographic, social, and economic changes in the United States that I will discuss encompass six areas: (1) changes in family structure, (2) changes in the age structure of the population, (3) changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the population, (4) changes in the return to education and skills, (5) changes in the structure of the economy, and (6) changes in the geographical location where goods and services are produced. As you will see, each of these changes has resulted in greater earnings and income inequality in the United States, and a more competitive world that students will face upon completing school.

Changes in Family Structure

When I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s, family types and living arrangements were quite standard. Most families were married couples with children, with a husband being the sole breadwinner and the wife staying home to take care of the home and family. Over the next couple of decades, many women entered the labor force and continued to work even with small children, dropping out of the workforce for only a short period of time to have their children. There were large increases in the incidence of divorce and separation, and the number of families headed by women and their children continued to grow. Many of these women had little prior work experience and thus were not able to command good salaries in the workforce. Many with young children and additional home responsibilities found it difficult to work at all and ended up in poverty.

At the same time, the families with a working husband and working wife now had two earners in the family, and their incomes grew significantly. These changes in family structure led to increased inequality of family income, with many families with working husbands and working wives clustering at the upper end of the income distribution, versus many female-headed families clustering at the lower end of the distribution.

Changes in the Age Structure of the Population

The basic demography of the population in terms of what is called the population profile began to change with the aging of the baby boom generation. The baby boomers are the roughly seventy-eight million people who were born in the United States during the two decades (1946 to 1964) following World War II, a phenomenon that took place in many other developed countries as well. The aging of the baby boomers has had an enormous influence on the job market and the types of goods demanded in our society. Just think about the adjustments that occurred as these people entered the labor market during the late 1960s through the early 1980s, demanded more housing and purchased more of the goods needed by children as they married and formed families during the latter quarter of the twentieth century, and what will happen during the twenty-first century as they age and demand more medical care and put a strain on retirement systems such as Social Security.

The relevant point for this discussion is the often-overlooked fact that inequality is higher among older generations than among younger ones, especially when wealth is taken into account, because the former have had a whole lifetime to practice behavior that leads to higher inequality. Some older person are barely scraping by on Social Security payments, while others have substantial income from pensions and sizeable asset holdings, such as a home that is fully owned. In...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Forge Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765319535
• ISBN 13: 9780765319531
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar