RIGHT-SIZING YOUR EDUCATION

In recent years we have all come to know the cliché “right-sizing”. Sometimes we feel its sting through the loss of employment, and other times we may use it in jest to refer to wardrobes and such. So, how do you “right-size” an education?

After 10 years as a graphic designer and management consultant specializing in web-based training (the former with my own company and the latter with PricewaterhouseCoopers) I decided to leave it all and go back to school for a degree in Architecture. My biggest challenge (aside from the opportunity cost of my income) was to get my mind wrapped around the school mindset once again.

I had attended college before, but at the time I was much more interested in the experience of being at school as opposed to the learning itself. This time it was different. I would be transforming myself from that 90-pound academic weakling to the likes of a Charles Atlas academic Adonis in a scant 5 years. The question was, what would be the most effective way of doing it?

While looking at my options I instinctively went to the University of Arizona. After all, if you want a higher education, you should go to a higher education facility right? Well, not so much. One is quick to ignore the university’s seemingly lesser little brother, the community college.

Since I had been out of the academic education loop for almost 11 years I began to think about how to best manage this change in my lifestyle. University classes are notorious for being large and impersonal. In addition, University is more expensive than community college. Given the fact that I had just “right-sized” my income, cost was definitely an issue. The transition from the workforce to academia was also something I would have to deal with. Suddenly community college did not look so bad.

Once I did more research, I realized that not only was community college cheaper, but classes were also smaller and they had a transfer program to the university into the Architecture program. Suddenly college seemed like the more obvious choice. Since I was in a transfer program, all the classes I would be taking at Pima Community College would transfer directly into my university degree at the university of Arizona. I was sold.

Pima Community College has allowed me to get a good quality education while allowing me to transition from a work mindset to a study one. Not only that, but it has allowed me to do that at approximately half the price for credits that I now don’t have to pay for at the university. I highly recommend community college as a transitioning step from workforce to a new career path. The smaller classes are more hands-on, which allows me to get more of the attention I need as I become a student.

In short, I have a newfound respect for community colleges. What I once thought of as high school with ATMs and a bigger parking lot, has now become an extremely viable way to re-enter a frame of mind that most of us may have had a tendency to enter only once in our lives.


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DISCLAIMER: This blog is intended to house my opinions and observations on the world as I see it. Although my arguments may come from the more emotional realm I do try to apply as much fact as I have available to me at the time of writing. I am not writing an encyclopedia here, I am writing opinions. Av
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