Education Database Online

The types of jobs available for people holding labor relations degrees

The labor relations degree track is relatively new to colleges but the job it prepares students for has been around for a long time. Since the middle ages when traders guilds started, people ranging from factory managers to merchants to kings have needed to interact with their labor forces and negotiate. Labor relations itself, as a part of human resources in general helps prepare you for the following jobs: Employment and recruiting specialist, Compensations manager, Employee assistance manager, and director of industrial relations.

As an employment and recruiting specialist you will be in charge of finding and placing new employees for your company, or possibly for a recruiting firm. You will get to read resumes do interviews and evaluate potential applicants. This can be done both with your existing employees or brand new applicants depending on the position.

If you get a job as a compensation manager you can expect you will be expected to create or evaluate the company pay system and be responsible for making sure employees are paid fairly. You will also get opportunities to develop other non-pay reward systems for the firm’s employees. Similar to a compensation manager you could become a benefits manager and be responsible for the health insurance, pensions, and other benefits that the company provides to its employees.

If you become an employee assistance manager you will get to develop and implement programs designed to promote healthy living, workplace safety, and career counseling for employees. IN addition you will also get to help ensure that employees get their physical fitness and medical fitness evaluated properly and fairly.

If you succeed in your career you may even get an opportunity to become the director of industrial relations. IN many cases a person will have experience already in human resources or working at that company and go back to school to get to their labor relations degree to help them be competitive for this position. As the director of labor relations you will negotiate with unions, resolve disputes, and implement grievance policies company wide.

Is marketing as glamorous as it seems to be on the television show Mad Men?

With the rise in popularity of the AMC television show Mad Men, many people are interested in what an actual marketing career will look like. Specifically, is it as glamorous and free-spirited as the employees of “Sterling Cooper” make it look? Can you still make tons of cash, live the high life, all the while shaping the American mind with your clever ads and marketing campaigns? There of course is no easy answer to this question. Marketing still has a very large impact on the American psyche and with the advent of the internet, mobile devices, smart phones, and almost non-stop advertising there is very little chance that this will change any time soon. However, the nature of American life has changed quite a bit from the time period when the show is based.

It probably goes without saying, but there are many things that have changed since the 1960’s that will no longer be true of a marketing professional. First, the abundance of smoking and drinking on the job has most certainly stopped. While you may be able to drink alcohol in limited quantities depending on your employer’s preference, it most certainly will not be at your personal leisure and drunkenness will most certainly not be tolerated. Smoking of course has been largely outlawed indoors in most states and it is probably not a wise health decision. Interoffice relationships have also changed drastically. No longer is the sexism, racism and flagrant disregard for proper professional relationships tolerated. In fact, most companies have long held that two co-workers and especially supervisor and employee romantic relationships are forbidden.

That being said, there is still a lot of room for those who wish to create marketing campaigns for companies small or large. Due to the large amount of companies in our country and the world there will always be a need for marketing.

Those who become successful in marketing will probably not be a specialist in one particular area. Instead they will be a student of everything around them: culture, art, language, people, and psychology. These things all play a role in marketing. If this sounds interesting to you consider pursuing a bachelors of marketing through one of the variety of online degree programs.

The differences and similarities between Paralegals and Legal Assistants

To start off, the terms paralegal and legal assistant actually mean different things depending on what part of the country you live in. But from a legal standpoint the courts view them as synonymous. Interestingly enough the same is not true of NALA (The National Association of Legal Assistants) they offer separate certifications and credentialing programs for paralegals and legal assistants respectively. According to the June 2006 issue of Legal Assistant Today 94% of those surveys preferred the title paralegal because it sounded more professional.

Practically, paralegals often assist lawyers when it comes to preparing court filings, researching cases, and even drafting some documents under the lawyer’s supervision. In many cases a paralegal will have some kind of legal background already. A legal assistant can legally do all of the same things a paralegal can, however, many have come out of secretarial or clerical backgrounds and unless they have been working in law they don’t have the knowledge to do much legal work independently. As both gain experience working and assisting lawyers practically, the difference begins to make less and less of a difference. And if someone has the legal aptitude the lawyers are well within their legal rights to have legal assistants and paralegals help on many facets of various cases.

Which is best for you? There really isn’t a best option, and with current statistics available the average income for both is about the same; somewhere between $30-50k a year. If your goal is to become lawyer in the future you may want to go to school first to become a paralegal because generally it will mean that you get to start working on legal writing which will no doubt help you in law school. In any case getting a certification is highly beneficial for both legal assistants and paralegals.

Many nurses are considering going back to school to become doctors. Is it worth it?

This question is asked more and more in today’s medical scene and our current economic climate. More and more nurses are wondering why they didn’t spend the extra years in medical school to become a doctor and be able to do everything that a doctor does. The question comes into play when nurses consider the pay difference between a doctor and a nurse. The average salary of a general doctor can be estimated at around $150,000 per year compared to the salary of an average Registered Nurse is approximately $65,000. As you can see the average doctor makes about twice as much as the average nurse. With the difficulty of the job at hand, many nurses are wishing that they would have gone to medical school instead. However, before nurses decide to go back to medical school they should consider a few factors.

First, the process required to become a doctor is significantly longer than the average nursing program. From start to finish the process to receive a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing takes approximately five years and this includes your time in a hospital setting receiving training. It takes much longer to become a doctor. Doctors are required to spend four years in undergraduate university, approximately four to five years in medical school, followed by several years in internship and residency. On average this entire process takes most students twelve years to complete. If the average student enters college at 18 years of age they would become a doctor around the age of 30, compared to a nurse who could begin practicing around the age of 23. The time investment is much greater to become a doctor and is not recommended for everyone.

Lastly, nurses and doctors do very different jobs. While nurses spend their time holistically treating patients: working at their bedside, tending to their needs, and spend a great deal of time “hands on” with patients, doctors are primarily there to treat and diagnose disease. Many people become nurses to help people and enjoy the experience of the hands-on approach to medicine. If they were to become a doctor this would no longer be the case.

Before reflecting back on your time in school and regretting becoming a nurse, make sure to accurately consider the decision. Why did you want to become a nurse in the first place? Would the large amount of extra time really be worth the pay increase? Would the amount of time spent diagnosing really be as satisfying work as treating patients hands on? If you still want to go back to medical school there are lots of options that will allow you to start the process online. Be sure to check out the myriad options.

The best undergraduate degrees for future lawyers

The title of this post can be a bit misleading because the truth is that a wide variety of majors are beneficial for perspective law students. Historically speaking political science has been a favorite pre-law degree bit it is by no means a necessity. Some of the work you do as a political science major will help you in law school especially thing like: writing persuasive papers, studying the legal system, learning the theories behind law and order in society, etc. However many good law schools actually are looking for some diversity in their applicants. Because law influences almost every area of our society it is a benefit to share perspectives that are developed from intense study in almost any academic discipline.

In a more practical sense the area of study you choose for your undergraduate education may be very helpful depending on the kind of law your want to practice. If you want to work in intellectual property having a computer science or engineering background will be a tremendous benefit. If you want to become a defense trail lawyer you may want get a speech or communications degree. If your aim is become a law professor or researcher you may want to study history or psychology and sociology. Ultimately the background you have in any area of study will be taken with you during law school and afterwards when you are seeking employment. For instance, if you wanted to be legal counsel to a medical devices manufacturer it would be beneficial to understand both business and medicine. Both will help, though neither will be strictly necessary.

Finally, if you hope is to get into a competitive law program you may want to choose a degree plays to your strengths. If you don’t like mathematics, it would do you any good to get a major that contains a lot of quantitative classes that may drive down your GPA an hurt your application to law school. Conversely if you want to stand out on your application you may want to get a harder more competitive undergraduate degree to demonstrate your competence and fitness to succeed in law school.