Adult Education Is A Way Of Life

In today's rapidly-changing world, we're all finding more and more that in order to remain competitive, we have to continually train and retrain ourselves. Sometimes I feel like Alice through the Looking Glass, when she's running in place with the Red Queen. "What are we doing?" she asks the queen. "Running!" the queen answers. "But why?" "Because," replied the Queen, "here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." The modern world is through the looking glass sometimes, and we need to run as fast as possible just to stay put. Continuing Education Most professional positions require continuing education units, or CEUs, in order to maintain professional credentials. You can get them at community colleges, at universities and conferences, and often you can get them online. This is a very specialized form of adult education. Online Education Most adults today are finding the value of educating themselves online. You can find more information today sitting on your rump at home than you could find twenty years ago at university libraries. If you want to access recipes online, they're there. If you need to know what's wrong with your car, why your baby won't stop crying, what's wrong with your dog that he won't leave the petunias alone, or how to speak Welsh Gaelic, it's all online and accessible, usually for free. The problem with online education is that most of it is self-guided, ungraded, and requires you to have the motivation to get up and learn the lessons. It's easy to say you're going to do it; it's easy to make out a schedule and buy books to work toward it. It's much harder to actually motivate yourself. But there's help for you. Many adult online education portals provide you not only with knowledge, but also with teachers, online texts, and even a community of other learning adults, all accessible for free or for a modest sum. For instance, Barnes and Noble runs Barnes and Noble University, which contains a rotating schedule of classes guided by teachers who are often the authors of the books they run the course around. You can learn when to plant your flowers, how to figure out your astronomical charts, or what the heck a wormhole is by taking advantage of these month-long classes. Barnes and Noble doesn't charge you anything; they profit from running these classes by being able to advertise to you and by offering a quick and easy way for you to purchase your class books. Distance Learning in Adult Education Another option many adults are taking advantage of is true distance learning. The first, best, and most well-known of the distance learning universities is the University of Phoenix Online. UP offers a multitude of degree courses and you can get everything from an associate's degree to your MBA by using their programs. Getting a degree online through an accredited university is especially useful to adults who have their own lives and don't have time to participate in the college experience, and to people like military members and truck drivers, who don't stay put long enough to finish a degree.

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