Granite State College recently hosted a Career Information Workshop at the Portsmouth campus. It was a big success and attendees received valuable tips on job searching and career possibilities. There was a panel of faculty members who work in various professions in addition to teaching college evening classes. They are dedicated to facilitating the students taking adult college classes to excel in their coursework as well as explore potential new careers once they graduate.
Here are some brief tips they recommended when starting the job search process:
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Self-evaluation: Who are you? What are your interests? If you could have any job what would that be and where? What are your best skills? What skills need work? What would your current coworkers say about you if asked these same questions? This exercise may take you beyond your comfort zone but is invaluable in highlighting the path you take after college.
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Resume with Impact: The panel all agreed that crafting a powerful resume is very important. Employers receive a multitude of resumes every day so yours needs to set you apart in the first 30 seconds of being viewed. As you pursue your undergraduate education you may not be able to list a degree you have completed. Instead add specific courses to your resume: Communications, Critical Thinking, a Health Care Management course, a Leadership course in Management,or a Human Resource class. All of these show vital skills that can be put to use in a work environment. Highlight your skill set early in the resume and in a way that will show your distinction above other applicants.
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Informational Interview: Are you unsure if a particular job or company is right for you? Are you exploring career options and are undecided which direction to go? Set up an informational interview with a potential employer to gain insight into the type of careers they would offer. In this format, you are the interviewer asking the questions rather than the other way around. It not only gives you information but it may help get yourself recognized should you apply for a job at a later date.
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Internships: Do you need an elective in your major? Are you interested in earning college course credit for exploring career options? Do you want to learn more about a job and how your classroom learning can apply? Set up an internship during one of the terms and gain valuable experience as well as credits towards your degree. Talk with your Academic Coach about the details of this option.
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What all companies need: Business Management gives you broad professional capabilities. All areas of business need managers, whether Health Care, sales or marketing, government or public services. Every company and organization has a Human Resource department. Every department in a company or organization has a manager. At your informational interview, find out what that company needs.
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Job Fairs: Once you have a polished resume attend job fairs, dressing as though you were going to an interview. A job fair gives you the opportunity to distribute your resume, explore the companies that anticipate growth and therefore new jobs, network with others in your field, and practice communication skills. It also will help you to educate yourself on specific companies that you may have considered applying to. Knowing as much as possible about a potential employer before your interview if vital.
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Top industries with expected growth: Health Care is a growing industry and one that will remain vital to all communities. Management, marketing, human resources, social work, and case management were also discussed as occupations on the rise. Education related careers are prevelent. Find out what is available for someone with your degree and determine what areas interest you the most.
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Be open to all possibilities and to further education: As an adult college student you may think completing your bachelor's degree is the ultimate goal. You may also think that landing the perfect job is an important goal. However, in the job market today you must be open to all possibilities and even decide if continuing your education is going to be beneficial to obtaining that perfect job.
There is so much more on this topic and I encourage you to research, network, ask questions and get the help you need to make your job search successful.
"Hello world!" is what my new granddaughter may have said as she was born on the evening of October 28th. What a beautiful little girl and being that the kids wanted to be surprised, just made it so much nicer. Surprises are nice as I mentioned before. They were both thrilled and I just got back from Virgina visiting them, meeting my new granddaughter and helping with all the daily routines that occur when a new baby arrives. I babysat while my son and his wife went out on a Date Night. They had fun going out and I enjoyed the grandchildren. There is nothing as wonderful as rocking two little ones to sleep and watching them drift off for the night. I was flying home to Michigan and said to myself at some point, "how in the world did I raise four by myself?" The answer is, I did and I feel I must have had the one above help guide me through it all.
I felt the same way when I went back to school to get my degree from Granite State College. I got through it also and have great memories of both accomplishments. Life is too short to wonder how, why, should I or can I even achieve a goal that looks so hard or so far from reach. I am a firm believer that if you want to do something bad enough, you can do it. It will have challenges but with faith, hope and the college's resources it is all possible.
I could not believe that the college was offering a Bachelors in Health Care Administration or BS in Health Care Management. These are two fields that are highly sought out employment opportunities with great potential for placement. So if you are sitting, reading my blog and wondering too how I did it? I did and you can too.
I recently attended the Business NH Health Care Summit in Manchester - an event and topic that interests me greatly, thanks to my role as program director of the Granite State College Bachelors degree in Health Care Management. The New England Director of the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, Christi Hager, delivered the keynote where she discussed what has transpired since Health Care Reform was introduced and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Many businesses and agencies were represented at the conference and all are grappling with the high cost of health care benefits. Small companies tend to pay 18% more in premiums than larger corporations resulting in them being a third less likely to offer insurance. The State Based Insurance Exchange will make coverage more affordable for small businesses and is slated to be available in 2014.
We learned that New Hampshire has one of the highest quality health care delivery systems in the country and has the highest rate of private insurance coverage at 72%.
A panel consisting of HR representatives from a large corporation and a small business, a physician, the president of NH Hospital Association, a representative from AARP, and someone from Harvard Pilgrim N.E. answered questions and discussed emerging trends. Health care costs have lead to a trend in companies and insurance agencies to promote wellness among their employees. These initiatives range from discounts on health club memberships, sport teams, onsite health professionals, onsite fitness centers, regular safety assessments, smoke-free workplaces, walking clubs, and preventative care, to free health coach consultations from insurance providers. The bottom line is that to control health care costs, companies need to embrace wellness programs.
How do you get started?
- Get connected with your HR department
- Form a wellness committee
- Connect with other business – find out what they’ve done and set benchmarks
- Create the infrastructure to support the initiative and promote cultural transformation
- Develop an action plan – get data- build collaboration
- Get to know your co-workers/employees
- Investigate what support your insurer may provide
- Develop partnership with local pharmacist to assist with education in the workplace
- Go to: http://healthaffairs.org/
For the past several months I have been touring New Hampshire with a colleague promoting Granite State College’s new Bachelor of Science in Health Care Management. This degree program offers courses in health care administration, policy, emerging trends, fiscal management, and health information systems.
The specialized skills you will acquire from this degree will prepare you to coordinate technology, people and resources. Job opportunities exist in a number of health related settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, health care agencies, non-profits, non-governmental agencies such as the Red Cross, and medical practices. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, ten of the 20 fastest growing occupations are health care related. Health care will also generate 3.2 million new wage and salary jobs before 2018, more than any other industry, largely in response to rapid growth in the elderly population. http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs035.htm
We have visited Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Catholic Medical Center, New London Hospital, The VT/NH annual conferences for Physical Therapists, Respiratory Therapists and Occupational Therapists and several of the NH Community Colleges. It’s great to be able to go where potential students are and answer their questions, provide materials, and arrange appointments. In addition, at every event, we’ve had GSC alumni stop by to say hello and let us know how their degree has impacted their lives and career opportunities.
If you already have college credit, let us evaluate your transcripts as you may qualify for the “Fast Track” degree completion option and earn your bachelor’s degree online in as little as 18 months! Visit us online at www.granite.edu or call us toll free at 1-888-228-3000 for more information or to get started today!
The Concord Monitor recently ran a story entitled "Changing the way we Educate" that profiled Granite State College and the unique ways in which we serve undergraduate and graduate students. The focus of the article was largely on how Granite State College balances business and academics, and how we are addressing a 48% cut in state appropriations (the largest cut ever made to the USNH appropriations). While the cut certainly impacts us, Granite State College has been very innovative this past year, launching a new BS in Health Care Management and developing our first masters degree (an MS in Project Management). We also streamlined our admissions processes, eliminated some fees, and adopted a "student-centered" approach that led to schedule improvements and the creation of student success teams.
Granite State College's innovations are leading to record enrollment levels for the college in spite of budgetary cuts. It is our ability to be responsive to student and employer needs that is becoming the college's hallmark. GSC has long been a leader in online education and today every degree the College offers is available entirely online, including our new MS in Project Management. For GSC, having our degrees available online is not enough, we have gone beyond that by building a top instructional design team that includes a media-rich specialist and adding greater support for online students through services such as online tutoring. We also provide our faculty with more tools than just the learning management system, one of the latest tools available to faculty allows them to create animated simulations.
Even with this expansion of online offerings and support, GSC has also continued to invest in technology and innovation at our state-wide campus centers. Our recent campus centers in Rochester, Manchester, and Littleton all offer an array of classroom technology, including wireless connectivity. More importantly, our innovations around curriculum are making higher education more accessible to adults and working professionals. We are launching fast-track programs this year that offer an accelerated and streamlined path to completing a bachelor degree.
State appropriations are certainly key to our ability to offer the best higher education value possible, but equally important is our ability to innovate. While appropriations may be down, innovation at GSC has never been higher.
The inspiring story below is that of John, another ALA Scholarship Recpient for 2011. John is just one more example of the unique and diverse student population you will find within the classrooms or on the blackboards of
Granite State College.
My educational journey has encompassed self-learning for most of my life after high-school. My father passed away when I was in seventh-grade and I was a C+ student in a Catholic High School in Lawrence, MA. I began college in Maine intending to study Marine Biology but being a mediocre student I needed student loans to cover all of my expected expenses. I dropped out several weeks after the start for fear of mounting student loan debt. At eighteen I entered the workforce as a high-school graduate, married my wife in 1981 and began a family in 1983. As expected my job choices were very limited but I held a desire to enter the technology field. After much research I chose Sylvania Technical School and entered the Telecommunications Electronics program using student loans once again, but these were limited and controllable. Our first daughter, Bethany, was born with a heart defect and passed away after heart surgery at 7-days old. Our second daughter, Noelle, was born just over a year later in 1984 but was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy at 1-year. Her care was a significant part of our existence and it took a huge effort on my part to attend Sylvania Tech three days per week at night after my job to attend classes in addition to sacrificing that time away from my family, but it was for their benefit that I was educating myself to better position me for employment that provided a living wage and benefits that we so dearly needed for Noelle’s care. Just before I graduated in 1988 with a diploma I interviewed for an Information Technology position at Raytheon and because of the reputation of Sylvania Tech and my grades I was hired as a Data Communications Field Tech.
Wentworth Institute of Technology purchased Sylvania Technical School before I completed my program so my diploma bore the Wentworth name. Because of this relationship Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston offered graduates of Sylvania/Wentworth Tech advance standing entry into an A.A.S. in Electronic Technology degree program. Raytheon’s tuition reimbursement benefits were significant enough to allow me to attend one course per semester at their Boston campus and continue my career college training. It took me five years from 1992 till 1997 to complete my associate degree. Five years of time and travel into Boston and precious time away from my family. Nights and weekends I worked at our kitchen table on study and research while my family patiently gave me the time I needed for my studies. My wife supported my endeavor by taking on additional care responsibilities for our daughter. I wanted to complete my associate degree so that I could advance my career, become a better provider, and show my growing daughter that education is important and is a lifelong endeavor. Noelle passed away on the second-to-last day of a wish trip to Disney on May 19, 1996. My life was shaken for months after that event. I did not attend the spring or summer semesters that year but eventually wanted to complete that degree for my daughter. Two more semesters and I was finally able to dedicate my degree to Noelle during graduation on May 18, 1997, one day short of the first anniversary of her death.
Afterward I honestly didn’t have the drive to continue my education at Wentworth. Like many parents who have lost children I grieved by immersing myself in my work. I continued to attend annual technical training to hone my information technology skill-sets which made me a more valuable employee but every year that passed I still thought about completing my degree. After graduating Wentworth I worked with a recruiter from Boston in a job search. He informed me that he would not be able to even get me into some corporate doors for interviews without having at least a bachelor’s degree. Fortunately after interviewing at Lahey Clinic Medical Center they valued my technical skills more than my education and hired me as a Data Communications Engineer. Each year that followed I have given consideration to completing my adult college degree but talked myself out of it. Each year I thought, “if I had only begun last year I would almost be done”. Well after a close scrutiny and self-assessment a couple of years ago about my past, present, and future life and career I decided to take that first step to completing my B.S. I realized that as I grow older I am handicapped from further career growth without completing an adult college degree, B.S. After almost twenty-five years working in technical positions in the field of information technology I find myself desiring to move into a leadership/management position within my current field of healthcare IT.
I began the next iteration of my education journey in the spring of 2009 with Granite State College. I discovered that the program for Applied Studies: Allied Health Services was tailor made to my career. I have almost twenty-five years of technical experience but I needed to round out my business skills that are so valued in industry. This B.S. will give me the necessary business skills with a slant toward the healthcare field that I currently work in, providing a targeted learning environment for me. I began this degree program intending to provide myself and my wife “career insurance” to update and round out my skills, make me a more valuable employee and insure my future ability to provide a home and life for the both of us. That goal has morphed over the course of the past two years, sparking my interest in pursuing an advanced degree after I complete my B.S. this spring at GSC. Plymouth State offers a M.B.A. in Healthcare Administration, an ideal advanced degree for my career plans to remain in healthcare.
After spending over a decade caring for our daughter, Noelle, at home and in Boston Children’s Hospital I would never have imagined that I would be working in the healthcare field yet here I am. My education has been a struggle of work/life/family/financial balance yet we have accomplished much with the time we have had together. I dedicated my A.A.S. to my daughter, Noelle. I plan to dedicate my pending B.S. to my loving wife, Kathy, for her patient support during these past two years and God willing I will dedicate my future M.B.A. to everyone who has supported me and my family. We have a great deal of loving family and friends in our lives, some have been treated at Lahey Clinic, my employer, and at least one had his life saved at Lahey with a liver/kidney transplant. I am proud to dedicate my career to such an institution and hope that my continued education will allow me opportunities to serve in greater capacities. I plan to achieve my B.S. before I am fifty-years old. I still have between fifteen and twenty career years in front of me; I plan to contribute further to the success of Lahey Clinic’s service to our community, friends, and family. I may have started as a mediocre high-school student but I believe with time and continued commitment to the goals I set and achieve for my benefit and also for my wife I am gaining back the opportunities I missed in my youth. Two more semesters and I will have achieved this next goal while I plan yet further!Please visit
John's website to learn more about his personal accomplishments.
Granite State College is pleased to share the details of our most recent degree. Offered locally, conveniently, and in the manner that best suits the needs of adult students, our Bachelors degree in
Health Care Management can complement coursework already taken, and will prepare students for a field that we know is growing and in need of talented administrators.
For those wanting a running start this coming Winter Term, there is one course and Instructor in particular that I would like to highlight.
Kim Gibson will be teaching MGMT 518,
Human Resource Administration, on Monday evenings at the GSC-Rochester campus. As you can see from her online bio, Kim is very talented, and I also know she is incredibly energetic. Kim will provide an essential perspective for students who will eventually work in the field of health care.
Related. . .I found information on this
website fascinating. . .
So, here I am writing my first blog post. It's a little intimidating because I've never blogged before. But there's a first time for everything and I'm excited about this new endeavor. Of course the challenge will be finding the time, between working and classes and family responsibilities.
It helps that I am surrounded by other adult college students, many of whom can relate to my balancing act, because they are also working full-time while taking part time classes. In fact, many of my classmates are only able to afford their adult college classes because at GSC taking just one class a term means that they are eligible to apply for financial aid. Another huge incentive is that the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at GSC is only $15 per credit! Offering the lowest tuition of all four institutions in the University of New Hampshire System, GSC is a NH state college where my classmates and I can earn an affordable bachelor degree, associate degree or even teacher certification.
I suppose I sound like I'm going for a hard-sell. But that's only because I have such a positive impression of Granite State College. One of the best aspects of my job at GSC is being a point-of-contact for prospective and new students because I want so much to help people see their potential become reality. If a student calls our Claremont NH College, needing to know how to post a comment to the discussion board in Blackboard for their online class, I can walk them through it over the phone, because I've been in their shoes.
When a potential student calls or walks into our center for the first time, they are often worried about how they'll handle taking adult college courses on top of their work and family responsibilities, and I can relate. But it really is doable! For me, taking online classes is one way I have been able to manage to keep all the balls in the air, so to speak. Sure, my first online class was a little scary in the beginning, but my classmates were incredibly helpful - explaining where to find resources and how to submit assignments. It was a great feeling to learn some new technology along with the actual course material. That's just one of the perks of taking online classes for college!
Because I really enjoy the occasional human interaction, I also take face-to-face evening college classes, as well as weekend intensive classes. I find that I can fit these into my hectic schedule quite nicely. Currently, I'm taking Managing Diversity as a weekend intensive, and The Emerging U.S. Health Care System online. It's a splendid combination of formats and learning!
Well, I better get back to the books, because I want to make sure I get my assignment in before the deadline tomorrow.
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