Untraditional students and careers - Essay Example

Running Head: Untraditional & Careers Untraditional & Careers [Institute’s Untraditional & Careers People in the world find their true callings in life through several different ways. They have thousands of different careers to choose from and plenty of life decisions to make. In addition, while no one can make these choices for them, they can acquire quite a few tools to help them. These tools include advice, research, experience, and most importantly education. This is a tool, which never loses its relevance for a person, no matter what age they are and no matter which stage of life they are living.

Several people are able to acquire an education in the starting years of their lives, while they are young and free to explore the world of education. There are a few, however, who are not able to utilize this period of their life for education, due to other commitments. This does not, however, mean that these people cannot continue their education at a later stage of their lives. In fact, with the support that the modern college facilities give them, they afford to pursue further education well within their lifestyles.

Students who are joining college after a gap of several years from their high school education will no doubt be unsure about the course of this education. They should first of all remember that this lack of surety is common amongst students, especially those who are adult women with families and several additional responsibilities, which many traditional college students may not have. These women offer have to figure out class schedules which do not interfere with their parenting duties, jobs and other responsibilities.

Also, they have to ensure that the majors they choose and the career paths they are looking to pursue are not in any way conflicting with their already existing goals of being mothers, wives or other roles. A common case amongst such students is those women who got married after high school and raised a family before they returned to gain further education. Such students are apprehensive about how they will manage their existing lifestyles and at the same time take up this additional role of being a college student.

Such students should remember that the tool, which will be most helpful to them in such a situation, will be their own determination to gain further education. Due to the existing college system, they receive a great deal of facilitation from the college in terms of timings, class schedules, weekend classes, personal instructors and tutors and career counseling. Thus, if they have the willingness to utilize these services to their advantage, their prior commitments and responsibilities will not stand in the way of these students gaining a solid further education.

One factor these students will particularly be confused about is choosing their majors and career paths. For this reason, the college offers basic introductory level courses in a variety of different fields and subjects. They also offer predictive indices for free. All these are extremely helpful for all unsure students, as they provide them with the opportunity to sample all the different choices available to them and make a conscious choice between them, after having experienced them all and having tested how much each of these suits them (Andrews, 2006).

These courses range from science, literature, humanities and mathematics, and give the student to fully test not only their preference for each subject but also to test their proficiency in each field. Some universities even make it compulsory for their new students to spend at least one semester taking such introductory courses, in order to introduce them to fields which may appeal to them. Thus, these students should take maximum advantage of these introductory courses, as they offer a full introduction to each field.

Apart from this, the untraditional student may also have to take their existing lifestyles into consideration when choosing a career. For women with families, this would mean that they would not want to choose a career which requires late nights at the office or several long trips away from home. Thus, before choosing a major, they might want to consider the career to which that major will lead to. Furthermore, these students will also have to consider their existing lifestyles when trying to choose class schedules and sync the timings appropriately with their existing schedules.

For their facilitation, the college has weekend classes which are held especially for those students who may be full-time employees or have other commitments during the week (Stock, 2008). This can often be the case with these adult women, who have several other duties and responsibilities that prevent them from giving their studies as much time as a traditional student would be able to. All these facilities have been added to the current college system especially for such untraditional students whom the previous traditional system did not suit.

Thus, such students should look forward to pursuing further education and careers without any apprehension about their lifestyles differing from those of the traditional students. The college system recognizes the needs of these individuals and is eager to facilitate them in any way possible. Thus these students should work on achieving their ambitions without any fear of delays or difficulties, since they have the support of the college system with them. References Ahmad, K. E. L. (2008). Recognizing student needs, facilitating student learning: Teaching and learning for generation 1.

5 students. ProQuest. Andrews, L. (2006). How to choose a college major. McGraw-Hill Professional. Stock, L. A. H. (2008). Exploring the development of information literacy concepts among community college students. ProQuest.