Guest Author - Sanita Salter

What does the beginning of tax season have to do with distance learning? A lot! Every year the FAFSA can be filed or renewed beginning with January 1 and every year, your goal should be to file the FAFSA as early as possible. Each state and school has their own deadlines for financial aid and that includes online schools. Tax information is requested on the FAFSA however, there are options to state that you have filed your taxes, you will file your taxes, or you will not file your taxes.

To get your FAFSA filed a good choice might be to mark that you will file and that way you are submitting a corrected FAFSA instead of just having filed the FAFSA after your taxes have been filed. The IRS begins accepting e filed tax returns on January 15th and everyone should have their W-2’s by the end of January.

In a search for more information on distance learning, I discovered and registered for authorstream.com. Authorstream.com is a new way to turn MP3 players, IPhone’s, YouTube, and IPods’ into learning tools. Lectures, lecture notes, video recorded lectures, labs, and presentations, can all be downloaded onto these devices to attend class wherever you are. PowerPoint presentations can be turned into video and downloaded on to anyone of these devices to view at your leisure.

What this says is that the distance learner can now be a campus-based student if this format is offered on their campus. It also says that the idea of distance learning is ever expanding and evolving. When I attended the University of Washington it would have been great to have lectures video recorded for further review, or lecture notes available online so that my tired hands and knuckles could have rested. Back then I recorded my lectures but found transcribing the tapes tedious and sometimes undecipherable.

A free career test online using jobdiagnosis.com is a great idea for direction when choosing what type of online program to enroll in. Would your interests be better suited to a business degree or a computer/ IT degree? What type of career field would be best suited to your interests. One good way to find out is to take an interest survey such as the one found on jobdiagnosis.com.

After completing a 5 minute questionnaire, jobdiagnosis.com suggested I look for positions such as Management Consultancy* for a (n) Senior organizational level”. The site also offered information on the educational requirements, employment outlook using statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to include earning potential, job descriptions, and directions for employment.

Starting any new pursuits can be taxing on your organizational skills as well as your other responsibilities. The joy of distance learning even when you are highly interested in your studies sometimes comes with procrastination, as well as distractions however the key is to keep going and to get back on track. Find the weak spot and fix it or at least patch it until you are done with your program.