Family Business

If you've been following the blog comments on this new endeavor of mine, you may remember that my father suggested I go into accounting because he thought I might be good at it. After all he's a retired CPA. I joked with him saying that I doubted accounting is genetic. Relating this story to my sister, Karma, (currently a CPA) revealed that my sister, Sheri, had also considered going into accounting, but didn't due to various reasons. Okay. So there is an interesting trend, but it couldn't possibly mean much. At least, that's what I thought before we had dinner at my dad's house and I brought the topic up. Here I discovered that another of my sisters, Sandy, had also considered accounting. While Dad had tried to talk Karma out of it and failed, he had succeeded in talking Sandy out of it which is why she is a physical therapist instead. So that's 4 out of 5 girls and 4 out of 6 kids in one family that have a confirmed interest in accounting. Maybe there's something to this "family business" concept that's lasted throughout the years.

My University Daruma

Here it is for you to see. I'll also be printing it out for personal display.

Thank you TSOTE for the image link :)

One down...

... Thirteen to go!

Weeks that is. I'm not sure why I was so nervous. The classes themselves, while not easy, don't seem like they will be overly difficult either. Then again I've only attended one week so we'll have to see. I've decided that I cannot afford to purchase a daruma doll so I'll be downloading a picture and posting it here sometime soon. (If you're confused read alittle more about it here.)

I spoke with an Academic Advisor today and we figured out that if I stick with my two classes a term schedule and go every term between now and graduation I should be done after the Fall term of 2011. Of course, I can always accelerate that, but at least I have a finish line up now :).

Well. I'm off, but I thought I'd give you all an update (not that there's much to say).

First Day!

I am so nervous. Yesterday, in church, I was asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. A few minutes before I was supposed to speak I started getting really fluttery in my stomach. It actually made me think of the scene in The Cutting Edge when Doug says he's nervous, but he should be fine about 10 minutes after getting onto the ice and Kate stares at him saying the program was only 2 minutes long. I didn't actually throw up though. Yeah.... It's a feeling I haven't had since being on stage in high school. Well.... one day later and it's fluttering again. Class doesn't start for another 10 1/2 hours! I have to wonder if I'm making this out to be more than it will be. Of course, the class isn't the only thing I'm nervous about. My dad, who will normally be watching the kids, is out of town until tomorrow afternoon so I've asked a friend to watch the kids. I'm not worried about Gabriel, but Valerie has a tendency to take it personally when I disappear and leave her with people she sort of knows. And it's going to be for 3 1/2 to 4 hours! I just hope she doesn't freak out too bad. She's been doing much better in Nursery on Sundays. And the friend who is watching them has a son in her Nursery class so maybe she'll think it's like Nursery.... One can hope.

The Adventure Begins

After the comments and help you all gave me, as well as talking to people in the field, I finally came to the decision to work on an Accounting degree. I'm going to start out at CNM since I attended it's previous incarnation (TVI) several years ago and my credits are still good. They only offer an AAS Degree, but it's transferable should I want to continue on to get a BS. I'm admitted, and registered. The classes actually started this past Monday (12th), but registration was available until the 20th and the next semester wouldn't start until May so I jumped on it. I decided to heed my friend's warning and take two classes. One of them is on-campus and the other one is via distance learning. The advantage is that the distance learning is a "blended" course in which most of it is online, but there is an on-campus session that goes along with it. Now I just need to pay for the classes and figure out what books I need. It's so weird being back in school. I used to know this stuff backwards when I was just out of high school and now I have no clue. Wish me luck :P

Education is a Good Thing.... Right?

Then why is it so hard to figure out the right school!

Okay, let me back up and start at the beginning. I've received an offer that I simply will not refuse. My father has offered to pay for schooling in any educational path I want (provided it can help me find some way to suppliment our income and possibly even take top spot should Dan's health require it of me). Knowing my time and resources in regards to child care, something that I can study at home and eventually turn into a career from home is best. A couple of ideas include medical billing and transcription work, accounting/bookkeeping, and computer or web related fields. Yes, I know there are others, but the reason I'm looking at these have to do with my interests and abilities (I'd love to learn culinary arts and possibly go into catering, but I'm not so good in the kitchen right now and it's definately not something I could study at home on my own :P).

So where do I start? Do I start by picking a career field and then a school? or do I pick a school first? Obviously not all schools have all career fields available which would suggest that career field would be the first choice, but just browsing through some of the education assistance sites (the ones that list all the different online and local schools (University of Pheonix, American Intercontinental University, etc)), it appears that they all offer similar study programs. Then there are the truly local schools CNM (Central New Mexico Community College) offers many courses via "distance learning" but the highest degree available is associate. This isn't a really bad thing and UNM (University of New Mexico) will transfer some degrees into their bachelor programs. I just don't know if I want to go for certificates, associate's, or bachelor's degrees. There are so many choices that I think my brain is going to explode!

So this is what I need to do (and any advice/help would be wonderful) in no particular order.

1. Decide on a career path.
- Computers
- Business
- Health services
2. Determine a course of study.
- Computers: Web design, networking, data entry
- Business: Accounting, bookkeeping, management
- Health services: Medical billing, coding, transcriptioning, assistance, nursing
3. Determine level of education.
- Certificate
- Associate Degree
- Bachelor Degree
4. Decide on a school.
- Accredidation
- Career placement help
- Distance learning available
- Tuition (taken care of, but I want to minimize costs to my father where possible)
- Length of program

Is that everything? I don't know! HELP!