A Guerrilla Manual for the Adult College Student

Self-Improvement & Motivation

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A Guerrilla Manual

for the Adult College Student

How to Go to College (Almost) Full Time

in Your Spare Time...and Still Have Time

to Hold Down a Job, Raise a Family,

Pay the Bills, and Have Some Fun!

By: Mike Doolin

The Author Tells You How This Book Will Help You

In the very many years it took me to go from high school dropout to college graduate, I've memorized the physical layouts of nearly a dozen campuses in seven states, from Hawaii to New York. I've been a Psych major, an English major, a Sociology major, a General Business major, a Marketing major, and, finally, an Advertising major. I've dropped nearly as many classes as I ultimately finished and received credit for. I've taken a number of classes again, and again, and again, and yet again, because I kept changing colleges (and states and accreditation organizations) and the credits never transferred. And I've quite literally spent more time in classrooms than most people with PhDs.

By anyone's standards that's a lot of mistakes, a lot of backtracking. But in that very long trip through a college education I've learned more about the college system than in it. You can get a degree when you're over 30 (or 40 or 50), married, working full-time, raising kids, paying mortgages, etc. etc.

This is a "how to" book. It's intentionally short on theory, long on practice. It's full of the mistakes I made and some advice on how to avoid making them yourself. And it includes the experiences, advice and mistakes of a number of other adult college students too. It'll show you the strategies that work...and the ones that don't. It tells you the things you need to do and say, and the people to say and do them to. It shows you the pitfalls and traps to watch out for and how to avoid the most common problems. And it'll help make your trip to that degree faster and more painless than it could be.

And, perhaps most important of all, it'll help you develop the personal organization you absolutely must have to get a college education while your life is full of a lot of other responsibilities.

Right this minute, 7 million people over the age of 25 are working on a college degree. This is about half of all college students in the country. And every year, tens of thousands of these adults - who are raising kids and working and trying to maintain a relationship and busy with hundreds of other details of life - manage to get a college degree. You can too. It certainly won't be as much fun as having mom and dad pay the freight when you were 18. And you probably won't be able to hang around dorms, drink a lot and party more.

But it can be done. And you're one of the ones who can do it.

CONTENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - Should You Even Go to College?

CHAPTER 2 - Some Good Reasons to Go to College

CHAPTER 3 - Conquering Your Fears

CHAPTER 4 - Getting Yourself Organized and Finding the Support You Need

CHAPTER 5 - How Fast Can You Actually Get A Degree?

CHAPTER 6 - What Kind of a Degree Do You Really Need?

CHAPTER 7 - Who's Paying for All This? How to Find the $$$!

CHAPTER 8 - Save a Ton of Money - Start at Your Local Community College

CHAPTER 9 - How to Save Even More Money

CHAPTER 10 - Budgeting

CHAPTER 11 - Time Management

CHAPTER 12 - Make Sure You Know What You Have to Take Beforehand

CHAPTER 13 - How Adults Learn

CHAPTER 14 - Getting to Know Your Learning Style

CHAPTER 15 - Start Slow, Start Smart

CHAPTER 16 - Chopping that 120 Credit Hour Goal Down to Manageable Size: Not All of Your Credits Have to Come from the Classroom

CHAPTER 17 - What About those Classes that I Absolutely Have to Take but Aren't Offered When and How I Need Them?

CHAPTER 18 - Work Ahead

CHAPTER 19 - Get To Know Your Teachers

CHAPTER 20 - Dealing With the Bureaucracy

CHAPTER 21 - Campus Resources

CHAPTER 22 - Grades, Grading and Grade Point Averages

CHAPTER 23 - Recheck Your Records Every Semester

CHAPTER 24 - The Importance of Having a Private Place to Study

CHAPTER 25 - Studying and Note-Taking

CHAPTER 26 - Writing

CHAPTER 27 - Taking and Passing Tests

CHAPTER 28 - Personal Computer, Yes or No?

CHAPTER 29 - Day Care

CHAPTER 30 - Do You Have Time for a Social Life?

CHAPTER 31 - What Are You Waiting For?

REFERENCE

Other Sources of Information

Books on Being an Adult Student

Time Management

Financial Aid Information

How Adults Learn

Selecting a Major and a School

Reference Books

Study Guides

On-Line Resources

Finding a Community College

Financial Aid Information

Advanced Placement Tests

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Education

Libraries

Books

Typical search keywords

Using the Internet for School

Organizations

Credit by Examination

Credit for Life Experience

Credit for Work Training

Credit for Military Training

Credit for Volunteer Work and Homemaker Skills

Evaluation of Previously Earned Credit

Getting A Degree in an Other-Than Classroom Setting

Veteran's Information

For Alleged Violations of the Family Rights and Privacy Act

A Guerrilla Manual for the Adult College Student by Mike Doolin: 296 pages; Softcover; ISBN 978-1-55270-048-8: Published in 2000; Canadian $34.95

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