The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 helps American families that choose public service. It does several things to make college easier for American families;

1. It invests more than forty (40) billion dollars in college and going forward it will be adjusted to keep pace with inflation or cost of living

2. By 2017, the maximum PELL Awards may be raised to six thousand dollars ($6,000). These are grants and not loans, so they don’t add up to student debt for qualifying families

3. To qualify for student grants and low-interest student loans, fill out the FAFSA forms

What Is The Most Difficult Challenge Facing Your Career?

The Most Difficult Challenge Of My Career

Hello,

“What is the most difficult challenge facing your career right now”?

Your most difficult challenge may be about how to get a job or how to improve your skills or how to get promoted on the job

Perhaps your most difficult challenge is about how to transition out of or into a business analyst or computer programming or database developer career.

Whatever your challenge is, just go ahead and post it as a comment on this page and I will deal with it for you.

#3 Success Principle: When It Comes To Experience, Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

One of the bigger issues facing IT professionals is: “the challenge of building experience“.

This challenge exists because employers still require experience for hiring, even when you need their jobs to build experience!

It’s the classic Catch-22: “chicken or egg which came first challenge” that may be solved through internships or full-time jobs.

However, internships are getting increasingly competitive (Read More …) and employers are still insisting on handson experience before making job offers.

Why Internships Are Hard To Get

For a while, internships helped provide the missing handson experience to IT professionals learning new skills or transitioning careers.

College Graduates Paying for Unpaid Internships!

It is generally accepted that hands-on experience is one of the more important qualifications for getting a job and that you may get handson experience through paid or unpaid internship programs.

So this article on NyTimes.com about how job seekers are paying thousands of dollars for internships is not surprising considering how competitive the job market has become.

What is surprising is that these are college graduates from prestigious colleges paying for nonpaying internship programs!

The article is titled “Unpaid Work, but They Pay for Privilege” and you can read it here:

Thinking of Changing Careers To Computer Programming?

One of my blog readers emailed me the question below about the feasibility of changing careers to computer programming in Malaysia.

Question:

Hi,

I am 34 years old, currently working as an electronic technician and am thinking of a career change and take up programming as a career.

I am interested to know if you have come across anyone like in my situation from Malaysia who has done your course and managed to get a job as a computer programmer?

Learn the Pros and Cons of Computer Programming First If You Aspire To a Career in Programming

Dear Mr. Tagbo

My name is Jose Perez. I am currently in the 12th grade of High School and I plan to be a programmer. I would like to hear from you since you have a blog on helping computer programmers.

I live in Miami, Florida and I’m planning on going to the University of Florida to get a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. I would like to know if being a programmer is a good idea.

I’ve researched upon the subject and I have found that as a programmer I would receive a good starting salary and workplace comfort.