1. You should not worry about your life before it unfolds.

Few people work with one and the same company for many years. You should not stress yourself unjustifiably by attempting to know what to do with your life. A better question to require yourself is, what should your do first.

2. You should not ignore the campus career center.

Nearly all universities and colleges own career centers that are staffed by the counselors as well as filled with the career-exploration materials. Do you tap into the career center? If not, you should take into account the fact your tuition money goes towards a resource that you are not utilizing.

3. You should not consider less-than-intelligent people as career professionals.

Students take career recommendations from uninformed people — friends, roommates, family members as well as other relatives. You must be sure to critically assess every source of career info you employ so you make the career decisions grounded on verifiable data, but not ignorant opinions.

4. You should not let gain experience options pass you by.

In case you graduate without any field-specific experience, you will have some difficulty contesting with candidates having some. Keep in mind: By itself, the degree is just an essential credential for entry-level positions. In many cases, employers require more.

5. You should neglect the opportunity to converse with the people in your selected area.

It is one thing to know about a particular career online or in books. But you will not get a real feel for what your career is about until you talk to a person working in that area or at the firm in that you are interested.

Thus, it is significant to not consolidate private and federal loans together. You can consolidate all the federal student loans, and then separately consolidate the private loans. In case you were to combine the private and public loans you would need to take out one private loan, which loses all the advantages of the federal student loans. Also, you should keep government loan consolidation isolated from the private loan consolidation.

Roughly 50% of recent graduates took out loans, with a common borrowed about $10,000. In the past 3 years, the rates have fallen low. Consolidation rates of interest can be lower, though it comes with specific requirements – such as good repayment history.

Similar to any debt, loans can affect your credit and future decisions. The students that borrowed a substantial sum for college are less likely to follow higher education. Besides, student loan debt exceeding 8% of the income may be seen negatively while your credit becomes assessed for the future loans.

You are eligible for consolidating federal student loans while:

1.You are no more enrolled in college.
2.You should be in a “grace period” or be actively paying your loan back.
3.A lot of consolidation firms require a minimal loan amount, actually, $10,000 is typical.

Federal student loans provide benefits over private loans. For instance, interest on your loan can be tax deductable, the student loan can be forgiven for particular kinds of service, plus you can postpone payments on your federal loan in case you return to college.

Private loans do not have these benefits – they are loans secured or unsecured, plus you need to repay like any other student loan.

3. Do much of research – In fact, research plays an integral role in selecting the proper career path. Many people decide on wrong career as they do not know numerous career options in their interested area. Thus, you should require others about different kinds of careers.

4. Gain experience – Just put, in each organization, there is a demand of experience. Thus, you need to gain some experience in place of getting high salary package. Also, you can join several internship programs provided by numerous organizations. It is useful for you and a prospective employer too.

Career planning is necessary for defining the proper career path. In fact, everybody has various priorities for their career that may take in wealth, power, contentment, status, and challenge. Thus, you should always choose your career as per your priorities as well as other criteria such as educational qualifications, work environment, temperament, future prospects, training, and others.

1. Set the goals – In case you really wish to make a great future, you need to set your goals. Besides, you ought to know what is significant for you? Would you like to be a team member? Are you in want of flexible hours to work or not? The questions are basic to ask yourself for long- and short-term happiness.

2. Study your own strengths and weaknesses – The good clue to success is the complete use of your own strengths. So, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses. After knowing it, you should attempt to increase and use your strengths.

Cons of online education:

1. Studying alone provides its drawbacks, as the classmates and professor are not immediately accessible to put questions and share thoughts.
2. It is more problematic to learn via group work as well as collaborative projects, due to time and distance.
3. Not every degree program is available on the Internet, although extra degree programs become available daily.
4. When a question comes up to your mind in the heat of the night and there is nobody available to answer, you should e-mail your  professor and then wait for his/her response.
5. You should have perfect computer skills to have access to discussion boards, interactive websites, virtual worlds, and capability to search the Web for accessible resources.

You can go to college in your pajamas and complete your course work anywhere you want.

Pros of distance learning:

1. Courses online are less destructive on family, as you complete your course work around your family events.
2. You’re in charge of the course as well as homework completion, when you meet the course demands.
3. You may never be absent or tardy, as you complete the work at your own convenience.
4. Online degrees obtained from a trustworthy institution equal attending customary courses at the same college or university.
5. Progress in technology based virtual and interactive worlds make it easier to finish course demands in science and engineering programs.
6. You can go to college in your pajamas and complete your course work anywhere you want.
7. Prior school work is credit usually receives far more favorable approval from college programs online.

ignificance of study

Upon completion of this study the research may lay out clear causes of academic failure thus facilitating change in school environments. The research may assist teachers in formulating strategies to deal with attitudinal and contextual problems. Additionally, the research will transform traditional ways of thinking about education. It might remove stereotypical notions or ideas held by stakeholders in education. The research may also encourage greater investment in the psychological development of the student because it will review some of the pre-existing psychological attitudes that could be hindering academic excellence.

Methodology

The research is based on the latter mentioned literature. Consequently, the purpose of the research is to affirm pre-existing theory on factors that affect academic success. Because of the nature of this investigation, it will be necessary to perform a qualitative rather than a quantitative study.

This study will entail the use of two types of methodology. The first will be through primary research while the second will be through secondary research. In the primary research, data will be obtained through face to face interviews. Students, teachers and administrators will be asked about the aspects of students’ attitudes that affect academic achievement. Additionally, the latter groups will also be asked about the role of school context in academic achievement. Thereafter, they will be required to give their opinions about the most influential factors among the two in their respective schools.

The second part of the research will be done though an examination of student reports in a specific school. This will entail obtaining requests from the school administration to utilize their resources in the research. Academic achievement of the participating students will be analyzed for one year while comparing that to certain indicators of school attitude and school context. A relationship will then be established between these factors. (Powers, 2006)

Limitations

Qualitative interviews are generally more difficult to analyze because responses obtained are quite varied. However, answers will be clustered into similar groups to try and establish a relationship between the parameters. Additionally, student attitude and school context are both complex parameters i.e. they are denoted by other sub-factors. It will be difficult to determine which factors are most important and which ones are not.

Delimitations

Since the secondary aspect of the research will involve only one school, then it may be difficult to transfer results for the relationship between student attitude and respective student achievement to the entire student population. In relation to this, the issue of school context will also be a problem in secondary research owing to the fact that there will be no comparison with others schools.

Conclusion

The research’s major aim is to establishing a link between school context, student attitude and academic achievement. This might enable teachers/ administrators/ stakeholders to look for ways of enhancing academic achievement. The major limitations of the study revolve around data analysis and data collection while the delimitation will be brought by secondary research which be conducted in only one school.

References

Bowen, L. & Richman, M. (2000): middle schools student’s perceptions of the school environment, Journal of social work in education, 13, 22, 69-82

Broughton, A. (2003): The school success profile, Technology in Human services Journal, 21, 1, 11

Powers, J. (2006): Assessing the functioning of schools as learning organizations, Journal for schools and children, 13, 29, 208

Much research has been done in the field of academic achievement and many authors have given their suggestions about the factors that influence students within the school environment.  Two of these factors include student attitudes and school context. Against this theoretical background, it is necessary to look at how important these two factors are and exactly how those factors affect student outcomes. The aim of the research is to;

* Establish a relationship between students attitude and academic performance
* Establish a relationship between school context and academic performance
* Determine the most influential factor that affects academic success

Theory

Research has shown that a large number of students’ performances are affected by their attitudes towards specific subjects, education and academics in general. (Bowen & Richman, 2000) It has been suggested that when students demonstrate week commitment to their academics then they are bound to underperform. Additionally, some students with an unrealistic view of themselves may perform poorly too. For instance, those who tend to be overconfident or naïve about the requirements of their academics may register very poor performance. (Broughton, 2003)Conversely, when students do not believe in themselves or when they have low self confidence, then chances are that they will underachieve. (Powers, 2006) Sometimes some students may think of themselves as people who cannot control their own destiny. They imagine that they are victims of the system and this can lead to academic failure. In other scenarios some students may be too proud to ask for help when they encounter a problem in their studies. (Bowen & Richman, 2000) Also, some students find it difficult to grow or develop because they tend to resist change and this impedes their academic progress. In other situations, a student may not work well in groups yet this is a necessary part of the academic environment. Lastly, some students tend to avoid those areas where they perform poorly such as in science or mathematics. These and many more aspects of student’s attitudes can be causes of academic failure.

School context is depicted through certain avenues. These avenues can either lead to excellent performance or poor performance depending on how they are implemented. (Powers, 2006) In certain schools, the system may be too bureaucratic to the point that both teachers and students cannot do their jobs. This eventually leads to poor performance. (Bowen & Richman, 2000) In other situations, teachers lack the skills to impart knowledge and this may cause failures. Likewise, some teachers may be disengaged with their students and this brings about problems in the end. (Broughton, 2003)Additionally, there are certain school environments that are influenced by the external world to such a large extent that the students cannot concentrate on what they are meant to do. Such schools lack discipline. (Broughton, 2003) Some school environments may have certain levels of segregation and this impedes academic success. (Broughton, 2003)

Another way in which active learning can be incorporated in instructional technology is through digital story telling. In this kind of environment, students are supposed to create graphics with some text, narration music and sound. This makes the nature of their learning experience more active as they have the option of editing their material as they wish. Besides the latter, teachers can also incorporate active learning in instructional technology by supervising their trainee teachers virtually. Many students may be hindered from taking part in classroom activities because they tend to worry about the presence of an outsider in their classroom. By instituting virtual supervision, then students can still go on with normal classroom activities without any unwarranted interference.

Lastly, active learning can be enhanced by creating websites for interaction with different stakeholders in education. Teachers can create websites that assist them to interact with students. In such websites, students can get tips on what they need to do in order to succeed. It should be noted that today, students usually use the web to access assignment instructions, however, active learning can be incorporated in systematic instructional technology by creating interactive websites such as Yahoo.

How exploratory learning can be incorporated into systematic instructional learning

One of the ways in which teachers can incorporate exploratory learning in technological instructions is through provision of assignments which can be found in electronic database technologies such as Data Discman. This piece of equipment has the ability to store vast amounts of data through a compact disc player. By giving students assignments in such forms, teachers will be encouraging their students to find out for themselves information from the internet.

Besides the later, teachers can also include exploratory learning in technology through micro computer based laboratories. In this system, computers provide students with an environment conducive for exploration. Here students measure physical aspects like sound and light and these are then transmitted to the computer through special equipment. By doing this, students can develop inquisitive skills about their environments and also be encouraged to explore. Some of the disciplines where micro computer labs apply include

* Physics
* Biology
* Mathematics etc

Conclusion

The essay examine as practical ways in which instructional technology can be enhanced through active learning and exploratory learning. Examples here include virtual supervision of trainees in classroom, creation of interactive learning websites for students and teachers, creation of micro computer learning, encouraging students to write e-books, utilization of electronic databases fro assignments and also though digital story telling.