APU Business Careers Careers & Learning

Learning Without Wasting a Minute

ThinkstockPhotos-56902249By Dr. Randall Cuthbert
Associate Professor, Emergency & Disaster Management at American Public University

Our options for lifelong learning have changed tremendously and, I believe, for the better.

Consider, for example, the accommodations I had to make to achieve my bachelor’s degree back in the 70s and 80s. In order to achieve that degree, I had to:

  • Give up my (admittedly not very exciting) laborer job to move away to another city where there was a university.
  • Give up my (don’t laugh) $9,000/yr. job to live in poverty in a trailer court for five years, earning spending money by driving a school bus.
  • Take five years off from wealth building, saving, asset acquisition, and the other things one does to build a financial foundation for one’s life.

After graduation, I attained a career as an Air Force officer—living wage, supported housing, available career track, etc.—that made the investment worthwhile. But the point here is that I had to sacrifice five years of productivity to do that—and in this day and age, there’s a better way.

And one last important point about this model is that my contributions to society also had a five-year lag—there were things that I learned early in my college career that I wasn’t able to successfully employ to anyone’s benefit until years after I had learned them.

The better way, of course, is online learning. Compare this experience to how I earned my Ph.D. at a distance education institution in the mid-2000s:

  • I didn’t give up a job.
  • I didn’t move to another city.
  • I didn’t give up my home.
  • I continued with my financial plan.

And with regard to contribution lag—that didn’t happen. I began immediately utilizing what I had learned in my program. I was studying peace and conflict resolution—I brought that knowledge to bear immediately in my work with the Red Cross. Similarly, I was studying social transformation—that too informed my work in disaster circumstances in valuable ways.

[Related: Back to the Grind]

Students tell me their similar stories all the time—none more dramatic than an Army senior non-commissioned officer who told me he was taking the concepts from my crisis planning class into Iraq mission planning meetings and implementing the concepts in real time. That was an eye-opener for me as an instructor and it really reinforces the message I’m trying to convey here.

And that message is simple: If you choose online learning as your vehicle for attaining your education, then you won’t have to waste a minute waiting to put your learning to use—for yourself, your organization, and our society.

When you learn a concept, you can walk into whatever circumstance that you’ve chosen to make a difference and make that difference now. Right away. No time lags. No delays. I see this happen over and over again through the stories that students tell me and I have become convinced that it’s one of the most valuable capabilities that come with this method of education delivery.

So don’t wait. Use your online education opportunity to learn how to make a difference NOW, in the comfort of your home and the security of your occupation. Then go do it.

[Related: Where Did You Learn THAT?]

Onward and upward!

About the Author: Dr. Randall Cuthbert is an Associate Professor of Emergency & Disaster Management. He welcomes comments and suggestions for topics to explore in this forum. He can be reached at randall.cuthbert@mycampus.apus.edu.

 

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