What do I REALLY want to do?

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You've all probably heard the saying - it's not a mistake when you learn from it.
Or how about this one: be yourself - do what YOU want to do.

I have been wondering. What do I really WANT to do with the rest of my life? And is going back to school part of my plan?

These are really good questions, I think. People who get scholarships to college or trade school can sometimes change their minds about what they want to do with their education later. It's okay to do this - especially since happiness day to day can mean so much in a career.

But how do you really know what you want? Some lucky people just automatically know what they want to do, and have known since childhood. Others just don't. I was one that didn't know. I knew what I was GOOD at, but sometimes following what you are just GOOD at doesn't work out.

And I know personally that sometimes you can want to do more than one thing. For instance, I enjoy writing, AND art, plus I like to work with websites. And I always wanted to be a teacher and see what it was like. I took teaching and also English and art. Later, I taught in a Kentucky high school. I was faced with students that were way below class level in reading, and some with undiagnosed disabilities of many kinds. I didn't have much help, and it was really hard for a first-time teacher like me.

So now do I want to be a Special Ed teacher instead? I don't think so. I have already seen what that could be like. And now I have a choice - do I go for my Master's and have even more student loan payments, then find out I don't like it?

This can be a quandry for others, too, I just know it.

So what to do? I guess researching what you like to do could help me and others.

Here are some interesting sites that can help you (and me!) decide.

Talk it up - work it out - your future
The Edison Mental Fitness test - would you have made his team?
Career test (free) from Fun Education (watch out for ads)
Free Career Tests Everyone Should Take - from the Accredited Online Colleges site
More free career tests (includes Canada, and the UK)
The Dalai Lama's list of important things to do

-Betsyanne
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Why Fastweb is a great site - by starREVIEWS

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I have recommended FastWeb as a scholarship search site for years.

There is a great review by starREVIEWS 2010 about the site. Here is the link:
http://www.starreviews.com/fastweb.aspx

Some of the things that starREVIEWS like about FastWeb are:
1. You can opt out of advertising by clicking on a link while you are signing up,
2. Even though advertising appears on the site, it still only takes about 15 minutes to sign up.
3. The site is free to use
4. You get a personalized profile and a place to store it when you come back to use it again, and
5. Support on the site was fast (email, one day, and phone just 2 minutes.)

Although ideally it would be great if starREVIEWS only reviewed scholarships, (it looks a bit commercial) I was glad to find this review today.

Find out more:
Go to the FastWeb site
The starREVIEWS site
starREVIEWS reviews four other scholarship sites too

Berea College - better than a scholarship!

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Berea College - Uniqueness with a Difference

Have you heard about Berea College? It's a unique place where promising low-income students can work to attend. No tuition is charged. It is located in Kentucky's Bluegrass region, south of Lexington, Kentucky.

Their website: http://www.berea.edu/

Learn more about what Berea College is all about:
See a YouTube video about Berea College

Grow your potential, not your debt:
http://www.berea.edu/prospectivestudents/financialaid/

Find out more:
Berea on Facebook
A New York Times article:
With no Frills or Tuition, a College draws Notice

Photo by kfjmiller@morguefile.com, karen@kfjmiller.co.uk,

Page URL:

http://mrg.bz/2BuXix

Five Twitter Postings for March 5th

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FIVE TWITTER POSTINGS
for March 5th, 2010

Twitter is a lot of fun, and can help you find information you need, too.

Here are some recent Twitter postings I have found that I liked. I have re-tweeted them (thus the RT before the quotation). I twit at @ScholarsGrants about scholarships and grants, motivation, quotations, college, and more.

As those of you know who are already on Twitter, the site is a great place to find neat sayings, websites, and blogs. It is also a great place to meet people who have your same hobbies, jobs, thoughts, etc.

I hope you enjoy these twitters.

RT @SirkRialb Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value -Albert Einstein

RT @2cor9 RT @dahara: More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin. ~ Unknown

When a mouse laughs at the cat, there is always a hole nearby - Nigerian Proverb @debbie_wood

RT @Noetical “The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.”~Jules Renard #QUOTE #CatQuotes  

I just read part of this Squidoo lens of the Day: lovely! The Daffodil Principle: http://www.squidoo.com/daffodil 

To subscribe to my Tweets on Twitter as ScholarsGrants, just go to Twitter.com, sign up, and then follow @ScholarsGrants. See you on Twitter!

-Betsyanne

You can also follow me on Twitter at @betsyanne and @nontrads. See you there!

Why fill out a FAFSA? Here are tips.

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Filling out your FAFSA form

The FAFSA is the free application for Federal student aid. It not only gives you the estimated amount that you will receive when you fill it out, it also sends your application to the school of your choice and also applies you to other scholarships and grants that you qualify for.

Some sites just pretend to be the "real" FAFSA site, and will do your application for you or help you for a price. Never use those if you can help it. The REAL FAFSA site is totally free.

Here is the link to go there:
http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Tips to help!
Save your form often: Fill out this form and save it often, so you don't lose any of your information. At the end of the application, you will receive your very own password and PIN number. Keep this information totally private. You will find out what awards and loans you qualify for in a few days or a week after that usually. (Read the page at the end to find out how long you will be waiting.)

Print out the ending page with your personal information on it and keep it in a safe place, marking on your calendar when to check back.


See what YOU qualify for by filling out this form for yourself. And good luck!

Have what you need out when you fill out the FAFSA: (watch this video):


More information:
Scholarships, page one on the Nontrads site
Start Here: How to fill out the FAFSA form (official)
FAFSA Tips and Common Misstakes to Avoid When Applying for Student Aid (from the NASFAA.org site)
The Five-Minute FAFSA (above)

I hope this is helpful to you!

Betsyanne


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The Top Five Scholarship Links and Leads

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Have you already tried to get scholarships and never did? OR maybe you have not started to do work towards getting scholarships.

I think one major reason people don't try to get grants or scholarships is that they don't think it will do any good to try; that others may have more qualifications, or that it will be just a waste of time. But don't give up. There are plenty of people who HAVE gotten scholarships and grants from some sites.

Lately, I have noticed a lot of sites that put themselves out there as being "official" sites or actually offer scholarships themselves. I think this might be a good way to get traffic to your site, but you never actually KNOW that some of the sites are legitimate. I think sticking to the tried and true sites doesn't hurt, and is probably the wise course to take.

Below I have listed my Top 5 links and sites for you to try. They are also listed at the Scholarship Pages at my other site, The Nontraditional Student website.  I have more links and sites listed there too, and you can check those pages here: Scholarships Page One, and Scholarships Page Two.

Here are my Top Five sites:

#1: The Official FAFSA site - register here if you are serious about going back to school and already have your GED. http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ Filling out the application automatically puts you in competition for many grants and scholarships across the country. Plus, it is a totally free site. Filling out the form does NOT mean you have to go back to school. It only give you options. An affiliated page here is Student Aid on the Web.

#2.  Fastweb Scholarship Search pages. http://www.fastweb.com/ This site has a LOT of scholarships listed. You register at the site and they find what scholarships match your profile. Here is their description from the site: "There's a reason Fastweb is recommended by more than 16,000 high schools across the country. Last year, one out of three college-bound high school seniors used Fastweb to find money for school. You won't find more scholarships anywhere else." The site authors also say that this site is the "largest private sector scholarship database in the world."

#3. Fastaid (Fastap) Scholarship Free Search. http://www.fastaid.com/ This site is also really good. Check out the comments that people who have used their site have given. Their link here explains how the FAFSA works, and also give tips to international students and has 10 questions you can ask your Financial Aid Administrator.

#4. The Fresch Aid Pages - http://www.freschinfo.com/index.php (From the site) "FreSch! has a database of over 5,000 organizations and foundations that offer scholarships, representing approximately 450,000 awards." You can search this site for free without registering. This link tells about how this site was started, and how it grew. On the Fresch site, they also have pages on different kinds of loans, Success Stories, Tips on finding Scholarships, and tips on filling out scholarship applications, too.

#5. There are several sites that are tied for fifth place, so I will list them all here. Here they are: Career One Stop Scholarship Search, the Dr. Torres Database, Fed Money.org, College Net, and the Broke Scholar pages.

Please leave a comment and list YOUR favorite Scholarship and Grant search spots.

-Betsyanne

The Nontraditional Student Scholarship Pages
Join Scholarships and Grants on Twitter

You don't need a scholarship to attend these classes!

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Take a FREE class... then you don't even NEED a scholarship.


There are schools now that are offering free classes on the internet. These are taught by great professors. It's like having a scholarship for free to attend because there is NO cost involved, unless you want to count time, maybe a book, or paper to write notes with. S

ome free classes offered are Astronomy, History of Art, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Women's Novels, How to Develop "Breakthrough" Products and Services, and much more.

Here are the links for you to check out:
MIT's Open Courseware Pages
Open Yale University Courses
and
Free Classes at About.U
More Free Classes (from Examiner.com)

Know any more FREE classes online? Let me know! Thanks.

And leave me a comment here if you like this post and find it interesting.

Some neat Twitter links - Scholarships and Internships

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Scholarships and Internship twitters

I found these twitters about scholarships and internships today on Twitter. I have a Scholarships and Grants page there. The address is http://www.twitter.com/scholarsgrants.

Here they are:

miklan3 Attention Moms! Register Now For Your Chance To Win $10K In Scholarships. Hurry Before Deadline! ad http://tinyurl.com/yd2pxc5

ScholarMentor Subscribers have received their free January 2010 list of #scholarships, have you? http://scholarshipmentor.com/Newsletter.htm

Bandawerner Attention Moms! Register Now For Your Chance To Win $10K In Scholarships. Hurry Before Deadline! promo http://tinyurl.com/y85k7po

oceandata RT @NASA: U.S. #undergrad #students: looking for a summer #internship? Consider ours. But hurry! Deadline Jan. 22 http://bit.ly/3ohaSd

LewGedansky PMI Educational Foundation awarded 29 academic scholarships in 2009; application now open for 2010 - http://tiny.cc/dkEsJ

montessoristuff Childhood Cancer Survivor Scholarships http://bit.ly/4ug7oW #education

F1GMAT University of Maryland - The Smith MBA Scholarships http://bit.ly/8Q4CdS

mikegechter_rss Business Incubation Internship: Organization: AIDGLocation: Cap-Haitien, USAIDG Overview:The Appropriate Infras.. http://bit.ly/4tBHao

chris_ledu African American Women Scholarships 2009 | ArticlesBase.com http://tinyurl.com/ygkptp6

brozman Diverse students looking for a great internship opps this summer check this out... http://bit.ly/5dn7wS

MichaelaKocon RT @MSRuntheUS: Attn all graduating PR college students: AMAZING OPPORTUNITY - 2 month summer PR internship with MSRuntheUS is now... ht ...

HRSINC Postdoctoral Fellowship Position http://yesim.in/z9

xitusmaster Are you interested in learning about available scholarships? Enter your email to get started. http://www.twivert.com/o/ZDGc

avongirl1 Scholarships For Single Moms - Even Supermom Can Use a Little Help! | ArticlesBase.com: Wow, sometimes single moms... http://bit.ly/6sie7U

u_scholarships @AmorNicole scholarships are available for CMU students on Uloop at http://bit.ly/11NOKS - #cmich

ThetaFoundation Did you hear the Fdn has three new scholarships? Last year, we awarded more than 200! Are you applying for our 2010 scholarships due Feb 1?

Posts from Twitter about Scholarships and Grants

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Great Twitter Postings #1

I recently went on Twitter as @scholarsgrants.

Here are some postings that you may find interesting:

How to avoid Scholarship Scams! (by the Collegeview site) http://bit.ly/7fa1Xv

How to find scholarships and grants for school: http://bit.ly/5WHaOT

Grad student? Try the Grad Cafe discussion boards http://forum.thegradcafe.com/

Add @nontrads if you are an older student going back to school.

Check out the Scholarships page at the Nontrads site: http://www.nontradstudents.com/scholarships.html

The Financial Aid News (for college financial aid) also has a podcast: http://www.financialaidnews.com/

I will be listing these here often. Check back again later for more!