Research_Strategy

Research Strategy Heidi Christian GEN/200 September 20, 2010 Felecia Pettway Research Strategy I decided to return to school and finish what I had started, my degree. Since, I graduated high school; I have wanted my college degree. There aren’t any courses in high school to help navigate through the process of college. There is the question of finance, how to apply for scholarships, how to get grants, what are the different student loans available, and can you pay as you go' These are questions that many first time college students face. High school counselors tell a student that “there are many forms of financial aid available to qualified students.” That is all fine and good, but high school students need more specific guidelines. It became so very frustrating that I began to believe that, I was not one of the “qualified students”. So, I went to work instead at a dead end job, still dreaming of the day I could go to college and get my degree. Fast forward twenty-five years, and I started my quest again. This time, I was older, more tolerant of the college process, and hopefully wiser. My first goal was to research all of my options. I started calling college counselors, to see what needed to be done for me to get into college, I wasn’t sure if I could even get in after all the years I had been away from school. College counselors are not as bad as high school counselors, but take on the assumption that everyone knows about testing to get into college. I felt so stupid the first few counselors I spoke to. I finally figured out, if I passed a certain type of college entrance exam and placement tests, the financial burden would be substantially less. The first information I had to gather was on college entrance exams, without that information, the financial aspect would not come into play. I found through Tomball Community College that I could take the entrance exam there to determine what classes I could begin taking. I had to begin with the basics of general education, English Composition, Introduction to Computers, and Math 209, a non-credit course. I was also informed that I could take class on line, as well as, at the campus. The second step to the college degree was to get a rough projection of the financial cost associated with the classes I wanted to attend. A two year degree would be considerably less than a four year, but at the same time, a four year degree would take me further in the future. If I took some of the course credits at a community college, instead of a four year university, I could get as many as possible, of my pre-requisites that would transfer to a four year university, at a lower tuition cost. I spoke with the financial aid department at Tomball Community College to map out a financial plan that I could not only live with, but afford. I paid for my courses I took at Tomball Community College in cash. The tuition was reasonable to get my general education credits. The third part of my degree quest, was to now find a four year college to get my bachelor’s in business administration. I spoke with people that I worked with to find out where they had acquired their degrees; most had gone to a brick and mortar school, which was really not an option for me. I began my four year college search by going to Google on the internet and searching for colleges that offered online courses. I had to weed out the colleges that did not offer my degree program that I was interested in and the ones that had a business management degree with no option to concentrate in accounting. I could either get a business management degree or a degree in accounting but a business management degree with a concentration in accounting took longer to find than originally anticipated. I settled for a degree in accounting, since accounting is what I want to do. I began class at Colorado Technical University, (CTU), based out of Colorado. I paid for my first course in cash and the rest was paid for by my company through tuition reimbursement. The most recent road that I have begun is to attend the University of Phoenix (UoP). I found that CTU did not challenge me in my courses nor did it offer the degree that I truly wanted, bachelors in business management with a concentration in accounting. I found UoP by driving by one of the campuses in my city. I stopped into the university and spoke with one of the advisors, I found that although, the tuition was a more than CTU, more of my credits for my previous colleges would transfer over to UoP and that instead of having only an associates at the end of the two years, I would have my bachelor’s in the same amount of time. My company pays a portion of the tuition, but the rest will be paid for by student loans. I believe that the research I did in order to start college, the contacting the colleges, finding out what degree programs were available , speaking to the financial aid counselors and figuring out if online or brick and mortar was the way to go, at each of the colleges has helped me in my realizing my dream of having my college degree.