Want to Go Back To School? Now May Be a Good Time
Posted on 10. Aug, 2011 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
If you’re thinking of going back to school, now may be a good time. More colleges and universities are trying to lure the older student, including working moms, and offering novel programs to do it.
Nontraditional students age 25 and up now make up 38 percent of postsecondary enrollment, compared with 28 percent in 1970, according to US Department of Education estimates. On many campuses, they have become the majority. So you’ll have company.
Here are some of the programs available.
Overwhelmed By The Cost of College? Tools for Comparing Colleges
Posted on 20. Jul, 2011 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
If you’re worried about what the cost of college will do to your family’sfinances, there are now tools and federal requirements to help you search colleges by cost, job placement rate, average student debt, on-time graduation rate and return on tuition investment. There are even online calculators to help you figure out the cost of college years from now. Click to see some of these tools.
Wisdom from Stephen Colbert’s Commencement Speech
Posted on 29. Jun, 2011 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
A few weeks ago, comedian Stephen Colbert gave the commencement address at Northwestern University’s graduation. Always one to enjoy a good laugh, the first thing I did was scan the web for his notorious one-liners. He did not disappoint. But when I heard later from a Northwestern friend the gist of his speech, I had to read it. He gives good counsel. Here is an excerpt. His full address is posted on Northwestern Newscenter.
King’s Speech Inspired by Writer’s Own Stuttering
Posted on 27. Feb, 2011 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
“To stutterers around the world, we have a voice; we have been heard, ” said David Seidler in accepting his Oscar for best screenwriter for The King’s Speech, the inspiring story of George VI, a stutterer.
As a 16-year-old stutterer, Seidler was inspired by George VI not only in trying to overcome his own stuttering but in vowing to write the story of George VI’s struggle. Here is an excerpt of an article on Seidler’s journey by David Germain plus videos of interviews with David Seidler and communications disorders professor, Karen Czarnik.
Think It’s Too Late to Go Back to School?
Posted on 11. Oct, 2010 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
Thinking about going back to school but feel it’s too late? Check out the following:
Akasease Kofi Boakye
Ninety-nine-year-old Akasease Kofi Boakye Yiadom graduated this year from Presbyterian University College’s Business School in Ghana. ”Education has no end,” he told CNN. “As far as your brain can work alright, your eyes can see alright, and your ears can hear alright, if you go to school, you can learn.”
Ninety-eight-year-old Nola Ochs received her master’s degree in liberal
On Time’s List of 100 Most Influential People, PhD, World Expert and Autistic
Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
Diagnosed autistic as a child, her parents were told to institutionalize her.
Instead they nurtured her and together with a few farsighted teachers helped unlock her talents.
Temple Grandin, who once described her condition as making her “like an animal with no instincts to guide me,” used that perspective to become one of the world’s most respected advocates for the humane treatment of livestock.
She earned her Ph.D. and became an author, writing books about animals (Animals in Translation, Animals Make Us Human) and about autism. Her designs are now used to handle half the cattle in the U.S., and she has been hired as a consultant to firms like Burger King, Swift and McDonald’s.
This year she was selected for Time’s Top 100 Most Influential People and in February, HBO featured a full-length movie on her starring Claire Danes. Here is a link to Temple Grandin’s website and below is a video of an interview with Claire Danes and other cast members about Temple Grandin.
Source: Time, templegrandin.com/
Two Lives, Two Similar Circumstances, Two Very Different Outcomes
Posted on 10. May, 2010 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
Both grew up with single moms in an unforgiving, gang-infested Baltimore neighborhood, both in trouble with the police, and both kicked out of school. However, one became a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Rhodes scholar at Oxford, White House fellow, decorated veteran, and youth advocate; the other, a convicted criminal serving a felony life sentence for killing a police officer. Both named Wes Moore.
In 2000, about to leave for Oxford, the first Wes Moore read about the police manhunt for another Wes Moore – similar age and from the same neighborhood. He followed the search, trial and conviction in the Baltimore Sun and ultimately wrote to Wes in prison trying to determine what happened to their lives. “His history could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his,” says Wes.
He realized that in their stories was a much larger story about personal responsibility, education and community. He tells this story in a book out this month entitled The Other Wes Moore, One Name Two Fates. “A powerful and poignant reminder that we have a moral obligation to remain our brothers keeper…” said Bill Cohen, former U.S. Senator and Secretary of Defense. Here is Wes Moore’s website and more information about his book: http://theotherwesmoore.com/.
From Homeless to Harvard
Posted on 28. Apr, 2010 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
Liz Murray
Homeless at 15, after her drug-addicted mother died of aids and her father moved to a homeless shelter, Liz Murray found something in her shifting.
“I connected the lifestyles that I had witnessed every day with how my mother ended up,” she said. Click here to read Liz Murray’s amazing story of beginning and finishing high school while homeless, and ultimately graduating from Harvard.
Listen to Liz tell her story in the video below.
(Courtesy: AdultStudent.com)
Alan Alda’s Inspirational Commencement Address
Posted on 14. Apr, 2010 by Pat in Inspiring Graduations
Deep in our hearts we know that the best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart. Doorways, it seems, are where the truth is told…. (Alan Alda)
Some commencement speeches are timeless. Addressing his own daughter’s graduating class a few years ago, Alan Alda “delivered a speech to the entire graduating class as if it was directed solely to his daughter, Eve. The advice is loving, empowering, and exactly what makes a great commencement speech inspirational.” Click here to read Alan Alda’s speech. (Courtesy of OnlineCollegeDegrees.com)
