The Case for Dropping Out of High School: An underconsidered option for bright, self-starter teens.

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I make the case that more students should consider the seemingly absurd option of dropping out of high school.

Learner-Directed Tutoring: An under-considered way to learn

When deciding to learn something, most people take a course, get a certificate or degree, study on their own. They often overlook tutoring and its potent variant: learner-directed tutoring.  My PsychologyToday.com article today describes how it works and its advantages and drawbacks.

Learning Tips for Smart Adults

Perhaps you’re preparing for a new career. Or you’re wanting to build skills in your current one. Or you’re trying to skill-up in some avocation.

Some people find the traditional method—courses—time-ineffective: The pacing is too slow and/or the content too obvious. If that sounds like you, my PsychologyToday.com article today offers alternatives.

Two Workovers: Should I Get a Graduate Degree? Should I Start a Business?

Here are edited transcripts of two calls to my radio show. One is deciding whether she should go back for a graduate degree. The other is thinking of starting a business making key chains. Here's what I said to them.

Shortcuts to Getting Competent: Time-effective ways of learning without a back-to-school stint

Many people have gone back to school trying to boost their career.

Alas, looking back, many people feel it wasn't a good use of their money and time. Sure that diploma or certificate, afforded some career boost but often not enough. And many have graduated with a worse case of the imposter syndrome than before they went back to school: "Now, I'm expected to know a lot but I still feel pretty clueless." 

That's not surprising because most university courses are taught by theoretically and research-oriented PhDs, not the best folks at providing practical career training.
Rarely does a solution exist that's faster, better, and cheaper. But in the case of career preparation, there often is: Replacing State U, let alone Private U, with what I call You U: a self-designed combination of articles, book-skimming, videos, webinars, bootcamps, online discussion groups, online and in-person short courses, and tutoring, perhaps guided by a mentor.

Of course, the first objection is, "But employers like seeing the piece of paper, or even require it." True, but a paragraph in your job application letter such as the following can often make clear that you're at least as worthy of consideration as someone with that degree:

You may be tempted to toss my application because I don't have the required degree. But so many people say their degree wasn't that practically useful, let alone worth the time and money, I decided to be a self-starter and craft a degree's worth of learning that would be far more likely to make me a better employee. Please see the attached listing of of articles, books., videos, webinars, bootcamps, online discussion groups, tutoring, online and in-person short courses that I have completed over the last year.

I have chosen to emphasize substance over form but now we get to the moment of truth: Will you interview me?

If you were an employer reading that, mightn't you interview that candidate, even if s/he didn't have that degree?

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a tip or two on how to make the most of each of those learning methods that can be used to comprise a You U education.

An Alternative to Going Back to School

Are you thinking about going back to school but wonder if it will be worth the time and money? Especially when there is such an oversupply of degree holders? Might the time and money be better spent other ways?

 In my USNews.com piece today, I propose an alternative: forgoing State U, let alone Private U, in favor of You U. And I detail the specifics---including how to get an employer to hire you, a You U "graduate" over a traditional graduate.

You U: A Fast Way to Learn a New Profession

I have acquired professional-level skills in career counseling, journalism, rose hybridizing, screenplay writing, plus strong amateur-level skills as an actor and play director without ever having taken a course (let alone a degree) in any of the above.

I simply:

1. Google the topic to read key articles in the field.

2. Use Amazon to find the best books on the subject.

3. While reading those books, immediately start applying what I've learned: career counseling someone (for free while I was still a neophyte), writing columns and articles, breeding roses, writing a screenplay, auditioning for acting and directing roles.

4. I then solicit feedback from everyone from just-plain folks to world-class experts. For example, I discussed my rose hybridizing efforts with the world's leading hybridizers and visited their facilities. I sent drafts of my articles and screenplays to respected friends and to leading writers for review. I had top career counselors watch me do sessions and I watched them. In preparation for an audition, I took an acting lesson or two.

The results:

-- Over the past 20 years, I've had 2,800 career coaching clients and enjoy a 96% client satisfaction rate. The San Francisco Bay Guardian, on its cover, called me "The Bay Area's Best Career Coach."

-- For six years, I was career columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, for three years at the Los Angeles Times, and now in my third year as Contributing Editor at U.S. News & World Report and columnist for Kiplinger.com.

-- Three of my rose varieties are in commerce, distributed by Bailey's Nurseries, one of the world's premier distributors of no-spraying-required roses.

-- In the last four years, I have had four starring roles in plays. And in my directing debut, I won the Bay Area "Roar of the Crowd" award for the Bay Area's #1 audience-favorite entertainment of the week and "Best Director" award at Chanticleers Theatre.

-- Lew Hunter, Professor and Chair Emeritus of the preeminent UCLA screenwriting program called my screenplay, The Ugly Club, "a uniquely pleasurable experience that will make a wonderful film." Two significant Hollywood film studios are currently considering it.

Of course, you do have to be a self-starter and an apt learner for this learning strategy to work, but if you are, in a surprisingly large array of pursuits, you may be able to forgo State U, let alone Private U, in favor of You U.