The 12 Most Beautiful College Campuses Around the World

Landmark, Architecture, Bird

The 12 Most Beautiful College Campuses Around the World

berry college historic campus at twilight

There’s a lot of learning to be done not only in the classrooms of college campuses, but also outside. Universities and academic institutions from across the world play host to some of the most notable architectural masterpieces and astonishing landscapes.

There are very few places where traditional Palladian architecture lives next to modernist theaters or lush woodlands surround Gothic-style halls as seamlessly as college campuses. Each academic building and green space plays an integral role in educating its students and visitors on the history of the college and its region. More importantly, the hallowed grounds help to shape each student into who they are as individuals. While there are many factors that go into selecting the right college, the campus’s ability to inspire creativity and provide refuge should be taken into consideration.

We’ve searched throughout the world to discover the most beautiful college campuses with sprawling grounds that are just as highly regarded as their programs. From the base of Devil’s Peak in South Africa to the rolling hills of Georgia, each of these beautiful college campuses pays homage to its origins while making way for an even brighter future.

scott arboretum, swarthmore college, swarthmore, pennsylvania, usa

Swarthmore College’s campus boasts an eclectic collection of modern and Collegiate Gothic-style architecture, but there’s one breathtaking element that makes the college stand out: a 425-acre arboretum filled with magnolia trees, hiking trails, and an outdoor theater. Just outside Philadelphia, the college’s green oasis draws the attention of students, locals, and horticulturists from across the world. From the 200 varieties of roses making up the Dean Bond Rose Garden outside Parish Hall to the towering trees of Crum Woods, you’re greeted with a bountiful display around every turn and corner.

university of cape town campus

The University of Cape Town is not short on impeccable views with the ivy-covered buildings and dramatic mountains of Devil’s Peak in the background. At the center of campus, Sarah Baartman Hall stands as a sneak peek of the offerings found on the university’s campus.

flagler college st augustine, florida, usa

Nestled in the oldest city in the United States, Flagler College stands an a delightful example of the architectural vernacular associated with St. Augustine, Florida. The liberal arts school is housed in the former Ponce de León Hotel, which was built 1888 as a luxury resort under the direction of businessman Henry Flagler. Much of his original vision remains—including the ballroom, which now serves as a palatial dining hall with Tiffany stained glass windows.

kyung hee university, seoul, korea

Over its three campuses across Seoul, Kyung Hee University’s classical architecture gives another layer of interest to the ever-evolving city. Fragrant cherry blossom trees guide incoming students toward the regal admissions hall with its Corinthian-style columns and a bubbling fountain. The main campus also houses the Natural History Museum and Hye-Jung Museum.

berry college historic campus at twilight

Walking the campus of this quaint liberal arts college in rural Mount Berry, Georgia feels like you’re visiting the set of a fairytale movie. There’s no short of natural splendor at Berry College, thanks to the more than 27,000 acres of forests, meadows, and lakes surrounding the campus. English Gothic-style academic buildings and serene reflecting pools add to the fantastical quality.

university of coimbra against cloudy sky

Established in 1290 by King D. Dinis, the “General Study” was first established in Lisbon as a university for the arts, law, common law, and medicine. It moved to Coimbra in 1308, but it did not settle into its permanent residence at a palace overlooking the Mondego River until 1537. Today, the UNESCO World Heritage site’s sun-bleached walls, botanical gardens, and Joanina Library give insight into the country’s academic history.

40 of the Most Beautiful College Campuses in the World

Building, Estate, Property, Green, Mansion, Stately home, House, Château, Architecture, Manor house,

We have a love-hate relationship with school, but a couple clicks through these jaw-dropping campuses and we’re packing our bags and stocking up on XL twin sheets. Read on to learn which universities and college campuses across the globe made our most-gorgeous list.

Building, Mansion, Property, Estate, Architecture, Tree, Palm tree, Hacienda, House, Home,

Building, Architecture, Library, Symmetry, Arcade, Basilica, Aisle, Church, Arch, City,

Modeled after the grand collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Trinity College was founded in 1592 and is one of the seven ancient universities of Britain and Ireland. The college features 25 different schools, so it makes sense that The Library of Trinity College holds more than 6.2 million printed volumes of manuscripts, maps and music.

Building, Holy places, Architecture, Aisle, Arch, Place of worship, Cathedral, Church, Vault, Chapel,

This private, residential liberal arts college is owned by 28 southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, hence the grandiose All Saints’ Chapel. The university sits on atop sweeping 13,000 acres on the scenic Cumberland Plateau.

Landmark, Building, Sky, Architecture, Stately home, Estate, Palace, Medieval architecture, College, Historic site,

This university looks more like a palace fit for Irish royalty than a school for young 20-somethings. The Lanyon Building is noted as one of the most recognizable landmarks at Queen’s University; however, the campus houses more than 250 buildings that resemble this gorgeous Gothic and Medieval style.

Building, Property, Landmark, Estate, Architecture, Stately home, Tree, Medieval architecture, Manor house, Château,

Do colleges get better with age? It seems like that’s the case with Princeton. The prestigious Ivy League university was founded in 1746 and is the fourth oldest higher-education institution in the U.S. The main campus sits on approximately 500 acres and incorporates a variety of architectural styles, ranging from High Victorian Gothic to Romanesque Revival.

Medieval architecture, Landmark, Architecture, Building, Place of worship, Cathedral, Gothic architecture, Church, Spire, Historic site,

Founded in 1134, the school is the oldest university in Spain and the third oldest university in the world. The historic town is located west of Spain, between Castilla and León. Although modern renovations have occurred since, the majority of structures still mirror the 2,000-year-old style of Salmantica.

Sky, Nature, Horizon, Natural landscape, Light, Cloud, Panorama, Photography, Evening, Morning,

Andrew Dickson White of Syracuse and Ezra Cornell of Ithaca met in the New York State Senate in January 1864 and established Cornell a year later — now that’s what we call networking. The main campus covers 745 acres overlooking the town of Itaca and Cayuga Lake. If city life is more your style, don’t fret — they have a campus in NYC and even a medical campus in Education City, Qatar.

Sky, Aerial photography, Cloud, Urban area, City, Town, Tree, Human settlement, Leaf, Architecture,

Dartmouth College’s 269-acre campus is located in the heart of Hanover, in the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River. Although there are ongoing construction projects, the majority of the area is designed with the conservative Georgian style in mind. We recommend visiting this school in autumn, because a college campus might just be the best place to study fall foliage!

Mountainous landforms, Mountain, Mountain range, Mountain village, Winter, Snow, Hill station, Alps, Natural landscape, Massif,

Sewanee, The University of the South

Sewanee is an Episcopal liberal arts college in Sewanee, Tenn. Its 13,000 acres atop the Cumberland Plateau boasts views of forested mountains. The Gothic Revival architecture and the college’s natural surroundings consistently place Sewanee on lists of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.

McCarthy Hall on campus student housing at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California, USA

This Jesuit and Marymount university in Los Angeles can be found on the top of Del Rey Hills Bluffs. There are incredible vistas of the Los Angeles Basin, Marina del Rey, Playa Vista, Playa del Rey and the Pacific Ocean. The architecture of the Loyola Marymount University campus blends Spanish colonial influences with modern design, and the campus lawns are artfully manicured and dotted with palm trees.

Source:

https://www.veranda.com/travel/g39946275/most-beautiful-college-campuses/
https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/g4637/most-beautiful-college-campuses-worldwide/
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/the-15-most-beautiful-college-campuses-in-the-usa/

How to overcome anxiety at work

how to clear your mind using meditation

How to overcome anxiety at work

Do you want to be happy? Do you want to feel at peace with yourself and the world? Of course, you do. Finding fulfillment is the ultimate human goal – the thing that all our actions try to move us toward, whether we know it or not.

In today’s busy world, it can seem impossible to get a quiet minute – but you must prioritize it. Learning how to clear your mind decreases stress, improves your concentration and is vital to your mental health.

1. Unplug

How to clear your mind

Wondering how to clear your mind ? The first step is to unplug. You won’t be able to focus if you have text messages or email notifications setting your phone off. And if you’re constantly scrolling through social media, you’re seeing a lot of information that can clutter up your thoughts – and even be bad for you . Taking some time to consider your thoughts can make it easier to let them go. Go for a walk or a hike for an added benefit, as connecting with nature has tons of benefits, including reduced stress.

2. Exercise

Going for a walk is a time-tested technique for a clear mind . But if you want to be consistently relaxed and content, you need to make lasting changes to your brain. Aerobic exercise is the way to do it. Studies suggest that exercise is associated with control over your thoughts – the prefrontal cortex, which controls thinking, is larger in people who exercise. Exercise can also help you sleep, so it’s an essential step if you’re wondering how to clear your mind to help with insomnia.

How to clear your mind

3. Write about it

How to clear your mind

Sometimes a clear mind is hiding behind an experience or emotion that needs to come out. Writing is a common therapy for easing stress and trauma. It organizes your thoughts and naturally leads to solutions. Coming up with actionable goals is key to progress – and as Tony says, “Progress equals happiness.” Don’t know what’s bothering you? Just put your pen to paper and see what comes out. Expressing yourself on paper can help you break free from worry and anxiety by giving meaning to your experiences.

4. Discover the power of pause

We’ve talked about how to clear your mind with activities. But what about simply practicing mindfulness? Implementing a brief 2 – 3 minute moment of silence and focused breathing into your day can drastically clear your mind and increase your overall productivity . It’s easy – you can do it anywhere, anytime:

how to alleviate stress at work

how to clear your mind by breathing

While breathing, make sure you concentrate on your airflow and express gratitude for each breath. Acknowledge and appreciate your body. This is similar to meditation – it clears the mind and gives you a moment to reflect. This moment of pause allows you to work through your thoughts and eases any tension in your body, which relieves stress and contributes to your mental and physical well-being.

We often tell ourselves we don’t have time to pause, but this exercise will make you more productive and more creative in the long run. Just 2–3 minutes a day can improve your effective reasoning, cognitive thinking and ability to form new ideas. So take a minute. Slow down. Be grateful. It can instantly clear your mind.

5. Practice priming

Tony Robbins’ priming exercise takes the power of pause to the next level. While the first five steps are similar in nature, the next steps in the priming exercise allow you to transfer that clear mind into your everyday life.

  • Visualize : Whether in business, health or with family or other relationships, priming pushes you to clear your mind and visualize the life you desire . Be as creative or simple as you like, but don’t limit your mind. Through visualization, nothing is impossible for you to obtain.
  • Share: Take your positive energy to your workplace and loved ones. Share with them how you cleared your mind and help others find clarity.
  • Focus and celebrate: Your vision is achievable. Focus your energy on what you visualize and celebrate your work as if it’s already done. Start your day victorious and ready to conquer all that you set out to do.
  • Conquer the day: The day is yours! It’s your chance to take massive action and move in the direction of your goals and dreams. With priming, you have cultivated a state from which you are ready to conquer your day, regardless of the challenges that may arise.

5 Neuroscience Based Ways to Clear Your Mind

Photo by Christopher Bergland

As an ultra-endurance athlete, I’ve competed in the Badwater Ultramarathon a few times. Some call Badwater the “world’s toughest footrace” because it’s a 135-mile non-stop run from the bottom of Death Valley to Mt. Whitney—in the middle of July, when temperatures can reach 130 degrees.

The physical discomfort of running five marathons back-to-back through Death Valley in the middle of July requires more psychological finesse than it does aerobic endurance. Succeeding in sports is always going to rely on mastering your mindset and explanatory styles. As Yogi Berra said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.”

One of the most important skills I’ve learned as an ultra-endurance athlete is how to clear my mind of unwanted thoughts. When your feet are covered in blisters, the pavement is hot enough to fry an egg, and you still have three marathons to run, you learn quickly how to pull any tricks from your psychological toolbox that will help you reach the finish line.

When every alarm in your body and brain is sounding a red alert telling you to stop, how does someone push through and keep on going? When it comes to clearing your mind of unwanted thoughts, taking a multi-pronged approach that gives the situation what it needs has always worked for me in sports, and I think it will work for you, too, in sport and in life.

For this post, I’ve compiled a top-five list of mental tricks I learned as an athlete to clear my mind of pain, negative thinking, anxiety, rumination, and self-sabotage. I’ve paired the lessons I learned through life experience with the latest neuroscientific evidence. I also included some images that capture the essence of each point, as a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Pixabay/Free Image

American editor and publisher Elbert Hubbard once said, “Life without absorbing occupation is hell—joy consists in forgetting life.” Neuroscientists at Brown University recently confirmed that the key to “optimal inattention” lies in occupying your mind with something else through distraction.

The mind can only really think of one thing at a time. When you concentrate your attention on one thing, you inevitably engage in the parallel act of purposefully ignoring other things. In a 2015 study, “Attention Drives Synchronization of Alpha and Beta Rhythms between Right Inferior Frontal and Primary Sensory Neocortex,” published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers at Brown were able to identify how the brain achieves “optimal inattention” by changing the synchronization of brainwaves between different brain regions. The researchers hope that by harnessing the “power to ignore,” people with chronic pain will have new cognitive tools for reducing their pain.

For this study, participants were told that they would feel a brief tap on the left middle finger or the left big toe. In some cases, they were then told to report only stimuli felt on the foot and to disregard what they might feel on their hand. In other cases, they were told to attend to or report sensations only in the hand and to ignore those in the foot.

The researchers found significant patterns of synchrony between various regions which showed that the mind could direct attention to either the hand or the foot, but not both at the same time.

If you ever find yourself obsessing or ruminating about a thought, remember that distraction is a highly effective way to shift the synchronization of your brainwaves and gives you the “power to ignore” on demand.

Pixabay/Free Image

The Brown study’s co-senior author, Catherine Kerr, is an assistant professor of family medicine in the Alpert Medical School. Her team has also found that people can learn how to manipulate their alpha rhythms in the somatosensory cortex as they switch their attentional focus through mindfulness training.

The results of their latest research expand our understanding of how mindfulness might possibly operate using the mechanism of redirecting attention via control of alpha rhythms in the brain, which can help people ignore depressive thoughts. In a press release, she said:

This is part of a really cool effort . to see if you can take pretty high-level cognitive questions, find the relevant areas in the brain, and then figure out how to put that in a context with the underlying neurophysiology, at the level of computational models and animal models. We’re linking different ways of looking at the brain that don’t usually come into dialogue with one another.

Resource:

https://www.tonyrobbins.com/how-to-focus/how-to-clear-your-mind/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201504/5-neuroscience-based-ways-clear-your-mind
https://mindessential.com/how-to-clear-your-mind-for-meditation/

8 Amazing Benefits of Homeschool vs Public School

Home-schooling for Kids

The Academic and Social Benefits of Homeschooling

Homeschooling works. The roughly 2 million children who currently learn at home join a millennia-old practice supported by many government officials, scholars, college officials, and employers.

While mainstream America has embraced homeschooling as a viable and positive educational option—and as 55 million K-12 students and their parents have been thrust into “crisis-teaching at home”—the angst of some academics over homeschooling has abruptly emerged.

Professors Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard University and James Dwyer of William and Mary School of Law organized a summer meeting to “focus on problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight.” In a highly controversial article in Harvard Magazine, Erin O’Donnell advanced Bartholet’s arguments in favor of a homeschooling ban.

Yet, what does the evidence tell us about homeschool educational and social outcomes? Is there any sound corpus of evidence that homeschooled children are actually educationally deprived or maltreated? And what worldview drives anti-homeschoolers such as Bartholet and Dwyer?

Joseph Murphy and Brian Ray provide quite optimistic reviews, while other appraisals present positive, albeit more tentative, conclusions. A one-of-its-kind review of only peer-reviewed research by Ray revealed that 11 of the 14 peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement found that homeschool students significantly outperformed conventionally schooled children. Both of the publicly available state-provided data sets showed higher-than-average test scores for homeschooled children.

The clear majority of peer-reviewed studies show that homeschoolers often have better parent-child relationships and friendships than conventionally schooled children. Homeschoolers are happy, satisfied, and civically engaged.

A growing body of research indicates that graduates of home-based education excel. Eleven of the 16 peer-reviewed studies on success into adulthood (including college) showed that homeschoolers had better results for political tolerance, college GPA, and college retention than students in conventional schools. After reviewing the relevant literature, Gloeckner and Jones concluded that the “comparative results of the studies reported in this review, combined with the data collected from college admission officers provide evidence that homeschooling is an effective alternative path to college for the children of many families.”

Homeschoolers are not being educationally deprived, maltreated, or abused. On the contrary, the research literature suggests that rates of abuse (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect) are lower among homeschoolers than institutionally schooled children.

Although there are certainly cases when homeschoolers are abused (and such cases should be prosecuted), banning homeschooling is not the answer, nor will it improve education or make children safer.

As a society we do not, for example, close public schools when a child is abused there. When scholars like Bartholet, Fineman and Worthington, and Dwyer and Peters advocate for a total or presumptive ban on homeschooling, they do so without solid support from the empirical literature. When Bartholet and others advocate for forcing children to enter the public school system, they are ignoring evidence that only approximately 40 percent of conventionally schooled students are at, or above, proficiency in reading and mathematics.

Certainly, many public educators are engaged in terrific efforts to provide high-quality education, but it is also clear that the public school system has significant limitations.

Why, then, do some academics want more government control and restrictions on homeschooling? We think it is not hard to perceive: They do not approve of the values and beliefs of the parents who choose to homeschool.

One of us partially addressed the answer in a scholarly journal some years ago. Ray identified four classes of negativity toward parent-led home-based education. Some scholars make theoretical arguments that government schools are the gold standard of education that advances the common good, while private schooling is bad for society. A second group argues that homeschooling is an attempt to “cocoon” one’s children from ideas and people that the parents disdain. Another category holds that homeschooling harms children philosophically, psychologically, religiously, physically, and educationally. And the fourth group goes against homeschooling by theorizing why the state should have more domination over children and their parents.

In the end, however, all of those categories of opposition are founded on different values, beliefs, and presuppositions than those at the core of parent-led homeschooling. Dwyer and Peters, for example, presuppose that “[t]he state must have the ultimate authority to determine what children’s interests are” and that the state is the entity that shall decide over what aspects of a child’s life his parents have authority.

Source:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/05/the-academic-and-social-benefits-of-homeschooling/
https://www.spanish.academy/blog/8-amazing-benefits-of-homeschool-vs-public-schools/
https://learnobots.com/benefits-and-disadvantages-of-home-schooling-for-kids/

Stock Trading for Beginners 2022 | How to Buy Stocks

Start small, reinvest, and you will soon see your total ISK grow very quickly. When you start working with billions of ISK you can trade higher priced items, which, in turn, can increase your margins and also price out some of the competition!

USDJPY: USDJPY Is Going Down! Sell!

Trading

The market is essentially an automated list of item exchange contracts: buy orders and sell orders. Since orders can be partially filled and searched easily, it tends to be a lot more convenient than trading through contracts, although the basic principle is the same. Another advantage of the market is that it’s easy to see the price and quantity that items are actually selling for, using the market details tab.

  • Easy to get started: You can start trading right away on a character with no skills, and the amount of skill training needed compared to other professions is fairly low. The only skill you really need to start with is Trade , without which you’ll probably feel a little limited in the number of orders you can have open.
  • Easy to do during war: With a small investment in skills (Marketing, Procurement and Daytrading to level 2) you can easily station trade in one system while docked up in another, or use an alt to trade in other ways.
  • Time-flexible: A lot of trading happens while docked up, and it’s easy to go AFK with no real danger most of the time. While this isn’t true during hauling, good hauls tend to be fairly short and you can always dock up halfway through.
  • Scalable. With more money you can invest in more items making you more money.

Skills

  • Marketing ( 3x , 3.5M ISK ) – allows to setup sell orders remotely.
  • Procurement ( 3x , 1.5M ISK ) – allows to setup buy orders remotely. The range of these buy orders are controlled by Visibility skill. E.g. with level 5 Procurement skill orders can be set up anywhere in the region, but with level 0 of Visibility they will be limited to a station where they are set.
  • Daytrading ( 1x , 15M ISK ) – allows to managing orders remotely.
  • Visibility ( 3x , 7.5M ISK ) – increases maximum range of remote buy orders, so sellers can fill such orders from any station with this range of the remote buy order. Every buy order can have own effective range limited to this skill.
  • level 0: limited to current station
  • level 1: anywhere within current solar system
  • level 2: 5 jumps
  • level 3: 10 jumps
  • level 4: 20 jumps
  • level 5: entire region

A station trader with zero standings will pay between 5.1% (at max skills) and 11% of the order price as fees/taxes. This is important to take into account when calculating your profit, but of course the standings can change that further. With max skills and max standings a station trader will pay 4.6% of the order price as fees/taxes.

Broker’s fee

Broker’s fee is paid every time a sell or buy order with duration other than "immediate" is created. The broker’s fee is a percentage value of the total value of the created market order. The broker’s fee is paid immediately when the order is created. If the order is taken down the fee is not paid back. The minimum broker’s fee is 100 ISK.

In player owned Upwell structure markets the broker’s fee is set by the structure owner and is not affected by any skills. The owner may set different fee for different standing levels. half of the paid broker’s fee goes to the wallet of the corporation that owns the structure. The minimum broker’s fee in player owned structure is 1%.

Relist fee

You have a sell order for 13000x tritanium at 6.00 ISK each.
You have already sold 3000x tritanium so there are 10000x tritanium left in the order. This is total of 60000 ISK.
You increase the price to 7.00 ISK each. The new total is 70000 ISK.
Your broker’s fee after skills and standing is 1.88%. Your Advanced broker relations level is 4 so your relist fee is
(0.5 – 0.06 × 4) × 0.0188 × 70000 + 0.0188 × ( 70000 ISK – 60000 ISK ) = 530.16 ISK

You are trading in a structure with 1% broker’s fee. Your advanced broker relations level is 0. You have a buy order for 1000x item A for 1k ISK each.
you update the order to 10k ISK each.
You will need to pay 140k isk taxes ( 0.01 × 9000000 + 0.5 × 0.1 × 10000000 = 140000 ).
If you just create new order you need to pay 100k ISK taxes ( 0.01 × 10000000 = 100000 ).

Sales tax

Why start investing

Investing is the opposite of spending money in the present; it saves money for the future in the expectation that it will grow over time, but equally important, it also carries the risk of losing money which is why it’s important to utilize all of the tools at your disposal when you invest.

One such investment vehicle is buying stocks. Ideally, through buying stocks, you will be able to increase your money and outperform inflation over time. As you move closer to your financial objective, you can gradually reduce your stock holdings and increase your bond holdings, which are typically more secure.

The easiest and most common approach for beginning investors to get exposure to stocks is through the stock market. Investing in stocks is simply purchasing small shares of ownership in a publicly-traded company.

By investing in these modest shares, you’re hoping that the firm will grow and prosper in the long run, which is the aim. As a result of the company’s growth, in the future, other investors may be willing to pay more for your shares, and if you decide to sell them, you’ll be able to make a healthy return.

Important: If you’re interested in learning more about putting your money to work be sure to check our two essential guides on best investment books and stock trading books of all time. Alternatively, read our guide explaining what is investing to know where to start.

Commons mistakes by novice investors

An inexperienced investor is prone to making costly errors due to overconfidence, impatience, or even naiveté. However, these blunders may be quite expensive; therefore, learning how to avoid them is highly recommended.

Before you begin investing, it is essential to obtain some knowledge in order to maximize your profits and minimize your losses. After reading this guide, you’ll have a better sense of the mindset you’ll need, the expectations you may have, and the techniques that will be most effective. Here’re the most common mistakes made by novice stock traders:

  • Buying Penny Stocks: Traders may purchase Penny Stocks for as little as $5, with many of them trading for as little as 800. For new traders, the appeal is that you can get a lot of shares for not much money. However, it is common for these stocks to sink to zero, and just a handful soar. It’s also worth noting that unprofitable businesses may easily be manipulated by scammers hype up online “pump-and-dump” in schemes.
  • Not diversifying: Not diversifying enough is another common investing mistake. Owning ten energy companies and ten electric vehicle (EV) companies is not diversification. A drop in the price of oil or gas could change the fortunes of half your portfolio, as could chip shortage that could put factory production on hold. By investing in a range of industries and a range of countries, you can mitigate the risk.
  • FOMO and buying stocks at all-time highs: Purchasing shares at a downturn in the market may result in significant gains in the future. It is better to avoid succumbing to the fear of missing out (FOMO) and buying shares at all-time highs. At times, exercising restraint and patience is the most sensible course of action. However, this does not imply that if the value of a certain stock falls, you should buy more. Do some research before purchasing any further shares.
  • Not paying attention to investments: Even if you want to be a buy-and-hold investor, you shouldn’t ignore companies you’ve already bought. Keep up with them if you want to get the most returns on your investments. Most recommend doing so at least once a quarter. Look at their quarterly financial reports to see how the business is performing and what the management says about it.

Forex

EURUSD: EUR/USD: step-by-step breakdown, multiple targets. Where next?

As it can be clearly illustrated from the graph, the price is ranging in a sideways moving rectangular box. After some consolidations, we would normally expect some serious impulsive moves. Zooming out and analysing the higher timeframe charts (Daily, Weekly, Monthly), we can observe that the price is rejecting and forming a top at the previous Lower Low levels.

GBPNZD: GBPNZD 4Hrs (TP1/UP +160 Pips) Expecting More

Pair Name : GBPNZD TimeFrame : 4Hrs Direction : Long Type : Swing Target Range : 300 Pips (TP1/UP +160 Pips) Expecting More ————————————————————————- Neat and clean chart with clear setup, no junk on chart. ————————————————————————- If you like this idea, then smash.

EURAUD: ✅EUR_AUD WILL GO UP|LONG🚀

✅EUR_AUD broke the key structure level While trading in an local uptrend Which makes me bullish And as the retest of the level is complete Bullish continuation will follow LONG🚀 ✅Like and subscribe to never miss a new idea!✅

AUDUSD: AUDUSD May Keep Falling! Here is Why: 🇦🇺🇺🇸

AUDUSD formed a head and shoulders pattern on a 4H time frame after a test of a horizontal key level. Then the price broke its neckline to the downside. Now we see its retest. I believe that soon the pair will drop lower. Next support – 0.705 ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️

USDCHF: USD-CHF Will Fall! Sell!

Hello,Traders! USD-CHF is trading in a bearish wedge And the pair is also overbought So I am locally bearish And I think that after the breakout We will see the pair go down Sell! Like, comment and subscribe to boost your trading! See other ideas below too!

GBPAUD: GBPAUD: Pullback From Key Level 🇬🇧🇦🇺

GBPAUD is retracing from a strong supply area. The price formed a cute double top formation on that and broke a neckline on 1H time frame. I believe that now the pair may drop at least to a rising trend line on 1H. ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️

EURUSD: EUR/USD BULLS ARE STRONG HERE|LONG

Hello, Friends! I was watching EUR/USD for a while Waiting for this moment And now the price action On the lower timeframes Has given me what I was expecting to see Making me bullish on EUR/USD mid-term! BUY! ✅LIKE AND COMMENT MY IDEAS✅

USDCAD: TS ❕ USDCAD: resistance level

USDCAD has reached the resistance level and has already stopped. I expect a bounce down . SELL scenario: short to 1.26284. —————————————————————————- Remember, there is no place for luck in trading – only strategy! Thanks for the likes and comments.

DXY: DXY Is Bullish! Buy!

Hello,Friends! Based on the technical analysis And the recent minor fundamental news DXY looks bullish to me overall I think market-makers will be pushing the pair up That is why we are going long! Like and subscribe and comment my ideas if you enjoy them!

GBPUSD: GBPUSD: Short Trading Opportunity

GBPUSD – Classic bearish pattern – Our team expects retracement SUGGESTED TRADE: Swing Trade Sell GBPUSD Entry Point – 1.24938 Stop Loss – 1.27030 Take Profit – 1.21796 Our Risk – 1% Start protection of your profits from higher levels Please, leave a comment and support us with like. ❤️ Please, support our work with like & comment! ❤️

AUDNZD: ✅AUD_NZD WILL KEEP GROWING|LONG🚀

✅AUD_NZD will be retesting a support level soon From where I am expecting a bullish reaction With the price going up but we need To wait for a reversal pattern to form Before entering the trade, so that we Get a higher success probability of the trade LONG🚀 ✅Like and subscribe to never miss a new idea!✅

GBPUSD: GBPUSD Will Go Lower! Sell!

Hello,Friends! Indecision in the market is changing Towards a well defined bearish sentiment And the price action on the lower timeframes Is clearly supporting this narratve Therefore, I think it is a goodidea to go short! Like and subscribe and comment my ideas if you enjoy them!

Sources:

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Trading
https://finbold.com/guide/stock-trading/
https://www.tradingview.com/ideas/forex/

Career management

Use your career plan to begin your job search. Identify specific roles and companies you’re interested in applying to, and compare those preferences and requirements to your career plan. See if there are steps you still need to take or if you’re qualified to apply.

Career Management

The 6-Step Career-Planning Process

The career-planning process allows you to identify your strengths and interests so you can discover professional opportunities you’re likely to enjoy and excel in. This process includes a series of simple steps and can be reused throughout your career path to ensure you’re working toward goals that still satisfy you. In this article, we explore common stages involved in the career-planning process and how to complete each stage.

Career planning is the process of discovering educational, training and professional opportunities that suit your interests, passions and goals. Before searching for jobs, you should set achievable long-term goals that identify what you want to be doing along your career path at five, 10, 15, 20 years and so on. Then, you can set short-term goals between each stage to ensure you have clear, actionable steps you can take to reach your long-term goals. Career planning allows you to outline your goals and reevaluate them as you progress.

Objectives of Career Management

  1. Assisting employees to improve their performance: Career management programmes strive to involve employees in setting their own goals and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. It assists employees with the identification and facilitation of training needs and opportunities. This is mainly achieved by building a process of feedback and discussion into the performance management systems of institutions.
  2. Clarifying available career options: Through career management programmes employees are informed of career options available within the institution. It assists employees with the identification of skills and other qualities required for current and future jobs. Most career management programmes seek to focus employees career plans upon the institution, thereby enhancing their commitment to the institution. In doing this, career paths are developed that indicate mobility in different directions in the institution for employees.
  3. Aligning the aspiration of employees with organizational objectives: Many organizations attempt to assist employees in their career planning through career management programmes. Career management programmes furthermore seek to improve the matching of jobs with the right employees. An assessment of the skills and competencies of employees could assist in accommodating them in positions that suit them better. Through the application of practices such as transfers and rotation, an institution’s operational effectiveness can be improved. Career management programmes can also result in a reduction in the need to recruit externally as employees with the required capabilities are revealed through their career planning
    activities.
  • Staffing inventories: Effective career management ensure a continuous supply of professional, technical and managerial talent for the fulfillment of organisational goal.
  • Staffing from within: Most organisations like to promote employees from within for available positions because of the many potential advantages. In order to recruit from within, it requires a strong career management programme that ensures effective performance of employees in their new jobs.
  • Solving staffing problems: Effective career management may serve as a remedy for certain staffing problems. Rate of employee turnover can be slashed because of the feeling that there is existence of opportunity within the organisation. It may be easier to go for new recruitment as the company develops its employees and provides better career opportunities.
  • Satisfying employee needs: The current generation of employees are very different from those of past generation in terms of their set of needs. Again higher levels of education have raised their career expectations and many of the employees hold their employers directly responsible in providing better opportunities for realization of their career expectations.
  • Enhanced motivation: Since, progression along the career path is directly related to job performance, an employee is likely to be motivated and perform at peak levels to accomplish career goals.
  • Employment equity: Effective career management demand fair and equitable recruitment, selection and placement and try to eliminate discriminatory practices concerning promotions and career mobility. Such type of affirmative programmes contains formal provisions that become helpful for enhancement of the career mobility of women and other minorities groups emphasizing employment equity.

Key ingredients of career management

Career management process

This is the first step in the career management system and provides self-introspection. What are your interests, what is essential for you, what are the things you value, what are the things you like, what are your unique skills etc. are some questions that need to be answered in this phase for discovering specific things about yourself.

  • Career values – It is essential to integrate work values with overall life values to know what is necessary for you in life. It is the work values that acts as a guiding force and helps to focus on the essential things. An individual who is happy and satisfied in personal life will quickly achieve better productivity. Remember, work values keep on changing at intervals, and it becomes essential to keep on reassessing them regularly for overall job success.
  • Work preferences – Work preferences play a significant role in career development planning. It is a personal choice, and it is quite natural for two people to have different work preferences in life. Dig deeper to assess and identify work preferences and, if necessary, take the help of assessment tools for your purpose.
  • Strengths – Understand your strengths if you are interested in career exploration/career development planning. Look for positive qualities like hard-working, detail-oriented, excellent communication skills, and also specific traits like good at decision making, soft skills, etc. to develop your full potential. The more specific your abilities and qualities are, the more you will be successful in the job interviews.
  • Weakness – Just like strengths, it is also essential to identify your weakness if you are interested in career exploration/career development planning. Hiring managers pay special attention to the weakness of the applicants, and often one of the job interview questions is what do you consider your weakness. An honest understanding of your weakness will help you in overcoming them in time so that you are not embarrassed by it at any moment. Do not be overly self-critical as this step is designed so that a person can call attention to perceived weaknesses and take matters in hand to eliminate them.

Technology is reigning supreme in all the spheres of our life. All the technical devices like tablets, phones, and computers have become necessary in the workplace and often determine how we are managing our work life.

One of the most critical aspects of career exploration/career development planning is effective networking. It is an essential asset that can take your career a step further. Develop and hone your ability to connect and interact with important people.

Objectives

  1. The objective of the career management process is to help in improving the performances of the employees. It involves them in identifying strengths and weaknesses for setting desired goals. It also encourages employees to recognize the need for training and to provide ample opportunities for its achievement if necessary.
  2. The objective of the career management process is to integrate and align the goals of the employees with those of the organization. It helps to find the right fit in the organization by matching the right person with the right job profile. It encourages several practices like rotation and transfers to different departments within the organization to boostefficiency and productivity. It improves the capabilities of its existing employees so that there is very little need to hire employees from outside.
  3. The objective of the career management process is to inform the employees about the available career options in the organization. It also helps the employees to identify the skills and know-how needed for jobs in the present scenario and the future. Career management helps to develop and enhance the career path of the employees.
  4. The objective of the career management process from the employer’s viewpoint is that it ensures the availability of a pool of skilled and competent employees in the organization.

Advantages of career management

  1. The career management program ensures a regular supply of professional talent to fulfill the goals and objectives of a company. Staffing inventories is one of its significant advantages
  2. The advantage of implementing a career management program in an organization is that it encourages staffing from within the company.
  3. One of the essential advantages of the career management process is that it helps an employee to set realistic goals
  4. An effective career management program is a remedy to solve staffing issues.
  5. The advantage of implementing a career management program in an organization is that it minimizes the rate of employee turnover and boosts employee retention.
  6. The career management process provides better opportunities for career growth to the employees in an organization.
  7. Career management is a step in the right direction as it improves employee engagement and employee satisfaction in an organization. This leads to enhanced employee motivation.
  8. The advantage of implementing a career management program in an organization is that it encourages employment equity through appropriate placement and selection during the recruitment process. It abolishes discriminatory practices related to promotions and raise.

Career management is an ongoing and continuous program that puts its onus on the employees and their wellbeing. It ensures personal development and growth by developing competencies so that it can lead to the professional rise and career growth.

Sources:

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/career-planning-process
https://www.mbaknol.com/human-resource-management/career-management-definition-and-meaning/
https://www.marketing91.com/career-management/
Career management

A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is an important part of the recruitment process. If you don’t have a suitable CV use the CV Builder tool to construct your CV or if it is a while since you have updated your CV use the CV360 tool to check your CV and get instant feedback.

multicoloured arrows pointing forwards

Career Management

Whatever your motivation for wanting to manage your career this site aims to provide the inspiration, tools and structure to explore the opportunities open to you. The site provides step-by-step guidance, practical tools and advice that will help you to manage your career.

You will be guided through a three-step process to help you break down your career planning into manageable stages. Below this you’ll find a set of accompanying case studies where colleagues describe the steps they took to develop their careers, followed by some of their top tips for career development.

If you are visiting these pages as a result of applying for Voluntary Severance this can be the catalyst for something new. Whilst new opportunities to consider your working life are exciting, they can also be daunting. These webpages are designed to help you assess where you are now and provide resources to support you to move forward in your career. You may be applying for different jobs, considering a career change, thinking about education and training or fulfilling your dream to start your own business. Whatever your next move these resources are here to help you.

Accessing Resources

Some of these links go to a Careers Portal, Abintegro, which hosts hundreds of resources and activities to support you. Relevant resources are linked via the Careers Management Toolkit. Prior to accessing the resources, firstly you must:

image showing classroom tools

Career Development: Meaning, Need, Significance, Steps, System, Benefits, Problems and Challenges

According to Edwin Flippo, “A career is sequence of separate but related work activities that provide continuity, order and meaning to a person’s life.” It is not merely a series of work-related experiences, but consists of a series of properly sequenced role experiences leading to an increasing level of responsibility, status, power and rewards. It represents an organised path taken by an individual across time and space.

In the case of an employee, career planning provides an answer to his question as to where he will be in the organisation after five years or ten years or what the prospects of advancing or growth are in the organisation. Career planning is not an event or an end in itself, but a process of development of human resources. In short, it is an essential aspect of effective management of people at work.

A career path is the sequential pattern of jobs that forms a career. Career goals are the future positions one strives to reach as part of a career. Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to these goals.

Career development involves those personal improvements that a person undertakes to achieve a personal career plan. Career management is the process of designing and implementing goals, plans and strategies to enable the organisation, to satisfy employee needs while allowing individuals to achieve their career goals.

The career development involves the process of conversion of personal career plan into action in order to achieve career goals. There are three key heroes who share responsibility for an employee’s career development- the employee, the organisation, and the manager.

The basic and fundamental responsibility of career development lies with the employees only few vital support can be provided by managers and organisation. Generally there are six major mistakes which would come in the way of employee during career development programmes as identified by E. D. Betaf.

Career development is indispensable for implementing career plans. It consists of activities undertaken by the individual employees and the organisation to meet career aspirations and job requirements. An important requirement of career development is that every employee must accept his/her responsibility for development as all development is self-development.

Career Development Model depicts that organisational career planning and individual career planning need to be integrated to design mutually acceptable career paths and formulate appropriate developmental strategies.

It is based on needs of human resource and skill and potential require by the man to perform on various jobs. The one of the important aspect of career development is that every employee must accept his or her responsibility for development.

Many organization spend good amount of money on education and training of the employees and get the required talents and potential from within the organization only and there is no necessity to search such personnel outside the organization. The following are the career development actions.

2. Employee exposure- The employees interrupting in their career groups should expose it by their skills, knowledge qualification, achievement outstanding performance etc. to the staff members to take the decision about the career development elsewhere.

5. Career guidance and counselling- It provides full information, proper advice and encouragement to move from one career to other better career in the same organization or in some other organization where better career opportunities are available.

Career Development – Need for Employees’ Career Development in an Organisation

i. Making Available Needed Talent:

Career development is a natural extension of strategic and employee training. Identifying staff requirements over the intermediate and long-term is necessary when a firm sets long-term goals and objectives. Career development will help organizations in putting the right people in the right job.

ii. Attracting and Retaining Talents:

There is always a scarcity for talented people and there is competition to secure their services. Talented people always prefer to work in organizations which care for their future concern and exhibit greater loyalty and commitment to organizations where there is career advancement. As career development is an important aspect of work life as well as personal life, people prefer to join firms which offer challenges, responsibility and opportunities for advancement.

iii. Reduced Employee Frustration:

Along with educational level and knowledge, the aspirational level of occupations is also increasing. When these levels are not met due to economic stagnation frustration sets in. When organizations downsize to cut costs, employee career paths, career tracks and career ladders tend to collapse resulting in aggravation of frustration. Career counseling comes a long way in reducing frustration.

iv. Enhancing Cultural Diversity:

Fast changing scenarios in globalization reflects a varied combination of workforce representing different types of races, nationalities, religious faiths, ages and values in the workplaces. Effective career development programmes provide access to all levels of employees.

v. Improving Organizational Goodwill:

It is quite natural that if employees think their organizations care about their long-term well-being through career development they are likely to respond in kind by projecting positive images about their organizations. Career development does help organization in impressing image and goodwill.

How Career Management Is Impacted By The People We Work With

It is important to realize that right up to the stage of getting employed, everyone around us including our parents, relatives, friends, schools, training institutions, and almost everyone else was a part of our career development and were interested in making it a success. Whereas once we start on the employment, we have to face competition with our colleagues, disliking, insults and slave driving by peers, and many other stumbling blocks all around us.

Learning to do away with the frustrations and adapting to the new environment and being adept at our job takes a lot and the real (and practical) career management starts at this stage. It would be prudent to realize that the problems we face are part and parcel of the work environment at almost every stage and all over. Learning to manage the work-life balance with gritted teeth and a feigned smile is a major part of career management. Irrespective of how much human psychology we study and career management courses we undertake, this part is like a labor pain – only known to and to be suffered solely by self. But we cannot throw the towel in and give it up because of any of these reasons.

In every workplace, we will find a couple of Mr. No Nos who are born with negative attitudes. They will tell you all about how bad the organization is, how dictatorial and monstrous the boss is, how painful and non-cooperative the HR department is, how lazy and unproductive other Departments are, and so on and so forth.

If we carefully try to study their attitude, we will learn a lot – if you ask them ‘Are you Mr. Nimmesh Shah?’ their reply would be ‘No, no, no, my Aadhar card says Nimes Shah without the last “h” and my passport says Nimmesh Shah with double “m”’’.

Rather than keeping it simple and answering in the affirmative, they choose to start their answer with a no and beat around the bush. But as there is a possibility that such people could be our colleagues, learning how to cope with them will also form a major part of our career management because it also affects our attitude towards our job and also the organization and the company at large.

Then we always will have a boss who believes you know nothing, according to him/her you are over smart, an upstart, slow in your work, lazy to the core and not very co-operative. And this is irrespective of the fact that you do everything in your capacity to please the boss at the speed of a racing car and with as much precision as a jeweler’s weighing scale.

The boss pushes all their work and responsibility on you so much that, you start wondering if you are doing all their work, what do they do and what are they getting paid for by the organization? Learning to bear it with a smile is a huge part of our career management and development.

On the other hand, we also need to accept that every person has some special ability and there is always scope for learning from each and every one of our colleagues and we should always make an effort to learn from them. Being amicable with our colleagues and spending time with them and learning from them is very important as it broadens our perspective and makes us more flexible and adaptable to changing work environments.

Irrespective of how rude, crude and dictatorial the bosses are, they are where they are, probably because of their knowledge, experience, and their abilities and it is in our interest to sit with them and absorb the good things that could benefit us. Learning as much as possible from them is a really important part of the course of career management.

Sources:

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff-development/career-management/
https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/human-resource-management/career-development-in-hrm/31801
https://iimskills.com/what-is-career-management-meaning-and-importance/
Career management

All this is occurring in a working environment where careers, jobs, and new opportunities are natural. If your organization does not grant impressive advancement opportunities for your workers, they might check out in place or leave.

Capterra Logo

Career Management & Development

Job changes are more frequent than ever before, and employees are seeking support in order to more effectively manage their own careers. Organizations that are ready to engage in career conversations and provide career coaching will have a competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent.

Stewart Leadership’s career development consultants partner with organizations to help their employees achieve their career goals. Using our Career Management Framework and process, employers will be able to help employees identify what they want to do next and how they’ll get there through self-reflection and discovery.

Organizations without succession plans ultimately face the cost of replacing key leaders and dealing with a constant turnover of talent. Our succession planning consultants partner with you to build a strategic workforce plan ensuring that the right people are doing the right jobs – for years to come.

The Employer’s Role in Career Management

Job changes are more frequent than ever before, and employees are seeking support in order to more effectively manage their own careers. Organizations that are ready to engage in career conversations and provide career coaching will have a competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent.

Stewart Leadership’s career development consultants partner with organizations to help their employees achieve their career goals. Using our Career Management Framework and process, employers will be able to help employees identify what they want to do next and how they’ll get there through self-reflection and discovery.

Organizations without succession plans ultimately face the cost of replacing key leaders and dealing with a constant turnover of talent. Our succession planning consultants partner with you to build a strategic workforce plan ensuring that the right people are doing the right jobs – for years to come.

Don’t Ignore Employee Growth

Paycor’s Career Management solution allows you to create better career strategies, facilitate internal movement and identify talent risks. Clearly define role responsibilities and set expectations to get an employee’s career path to the next level.

Paycor’s solution gives employees the support and opportunities they want for career development and future planning. When an organization invests in the future of its workforce, it becomes a tremendous motivator as employees feel valued and meet their achievement and recognition goals, improving employee retention overall.

With Paycor’s Career Management solution, we help you structure and execute your succession strategy that will drive employee engagement, remove the complexity from succession planning and improve overall business outcomes.

Corner of tablet showing Paycor employee profile against blue background

With action-oriented assessments, employees will know if they’re on track or if more work needs to be done to advance.

Corner of tablet showing Paycor employee profile against blue background

Standard templates and fillable check lists allow for easy implementation of your succession strategy.

Two coworkers shaking hands in bright office

Responsibilities can be assessed directly in a review, making for one simple workflow during the review cycle.

Corner of tablet showing Paycor people analytics reporting against blue background

Get dashboards and workforce insights so you can easily identify gaps or risks and put mitigation plans in place.

How to Ensure the Career Success of Startup Employees

It’s no secret that startups are often associated with fast-paced and high-energy work environments. While this may be an appealing environment for some, it’s not always conducive to employee growth and career success.

The startup environment and dynamics don’t always create a culture that supports employee long-term growth. The reason for this is that most startups are focused on their own survival rather than on developing their employees.

When employees feel that their careers are going nowhere or that their career growth is heavily tied to the success of the company, they are likely to go elsewhere. This can lead to a culture of job-hopping in which employees move from one startup to another in search of a better opportunity. While this may be good for the employees, it’s bad news for startups because they are potentially losing skilled individuals to their competitors.

Startups should be able to assure employees that careers will continue to follow an upward trajectory. This involves eliminating the “stair-step” path and putting an emphasis on continuous learning and improvement.

Twenty-first-century careers are evolving and many job functions are being automated using AI. While certain job roles will become obsolete, human social skills, problem-solving prowess, and cognitive abilities remain irreplaceable.

With that in mind, startups should create programs that will build skills for the future to keep employees competitive. Offering career management tools, such as self-directed learning and self-assessment tools, is a step in the right direction.

In their career management model, Besin puts forward the idea that employees can acquire and develop a wide range of skills by providing opportunities to work on different tasks, projects, or assignments. In startups, employees are mostly self-starters who can take on different roles. Having a job rotation will amplify the skills that they already have. This will also give them the time to discover hidden skills or affirm what they have already set out to do.

It’s not uncommon for startup employees to fill more than one job role. This is especially true for cash-strapped startups that are still in the early stages of the business and have no resources to hire employees for every job position.

For instance, a software engineer may not want to work in a sales position. It’s important for startups to recognize a mismatch in job functions and employees’ career aspirations. This mismatch can lead to frustration on the part of the employees, which can affect their motivation and productivity.

Mentored startups know that each employee’s skills and experience should match their desired career path. This information can be gathered through interviews or through an assessment process. From there, they can accurately assign employees to the right job role.

On the part of the employees, they need to change their career management mindset. There should be a shift away from the notion that career success is measured by how high they are in the management pyramid. Instead, employees must sync their career goals to the dynamics of the startup industry.

Why career management programs often fail

Towers Watson’s research has reviewed 49% of employers who report that they effectively offer traditional career advancement openings. In comparison, 38% say they offer non-traditional career development opportunities.

A recently published document by Renée Smith pulls on the survey findings to indicate that though it may seem easy to create jobs, establish competencies, implement career planning tools, and communicate opportunities, the reality of developing an effective career management program is more complex.

Very few employers make effective use of technology like corporate intranet platforms to offer career advancement programs. Yet, technology programs that offer modern career information and tools can actively empower employees to manage their careers.

Only a few organizations equip their managers with career management training and tools, in discussion guides or talking points. This explains why just a few employees rate their managers as effective in holding career management discussions.

Organizations must ensure that managers are trained to have effective career discussions with their employees. Unmindful of whether these discussions are formally placed at certain periods or occur informally at any moment within the year, managers need to be armed with information on the company’s career management plan and tools.

They can hardly be considered experienced in their own line of expertise, much less in developing and implementing a career management program for their employees. They simply don’t have the time and resources to do so. As a result, employees are left on their own to figure out their careers, a daunting task in a highly dynamic and unpredictable environment.

Sources:

https://stewartleadership.com/manage-talent/career-management/
https://www.paycor.com/hcm-software/career-management-software/
https://mentorcruise.com/blog/effective-career-management-101/

What Should I Major In? How to Choose a Major in 9 Steps

Consider taking a college major assessment test, which helps you decide how to choose a major by asking several dozen questions. For tests to see what major is right for you, check out the “What should I major in quiz” by Loyola or the “college major personality quiz” from ThoughtCo.

matching set of resume and cover letter

Identify Interests, Values, Passions, and Abilities

The very first step in choosing a major that is right for you is to discern for yourself the areas of study that are important to you. These can be divided into several general categories, which we’ll talk about one-by-one:

Pick a major based on abilities

Abilities are what you are able to do, generally speaking. Understanding what areas you have skills in and which areas could use work is a great way to start the elimination process when choosing a university major.

Pick a major based on values

Pick a major based on interests

Pick a major based on passions

At first glance, your passions seem just like interest areas, only stronger. But this is quite an understatement. Passions are areas of deep interest, sure, but they also incorporate your values and abilities into something that becomes a burning, lifelong desire.

Following your passions, whatever they may be, is one of the best ways to choose a major, and it generally has the least second-guessing later on. However, as with your interests, passions may be defined later on, even after university is over.

Your close friends – who knows you better? Get their input by telling them what you believe your interests, passions, abilities, and values are. They might agree, or they might think you’re crazy. But they might just help you decide what to major in.

Consider the Future

Will you still enjoy it years from now?

You have interests and passions and these ideas that you value. But what’s to stop you from switching positions or changing your mind? Who’s to say how you’ll feel even 10 years from now – not to mention 20 or 30 years from now?

Is it employable?

In other words, will you be able to easily and readily find employment in a related field after you earn the degree? Avoid the possible discouragement from employment rejection later on by considering a broader field of study rather than something super niche.

Will it be around later in life?

Will it pay?

Nobody wants to struggle later in life (or at all), financially. And if you’ll want to have a family later, it is important to keep compensation in mind. Also – you’re gonna have to pay back all these student loans!

6 Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Major

1. What Are Your Biggest Priorities?

Some students pursue certain majors primarily based upon salary potential and job demand. Alternatively, other students choose majors they’re passionate about and/or highly skilled in. Before you choose a major, think about which of these three factors — economic advantage, interest level, and ability — are most important and relevant to you and your future goals.

2. What Are You Interested In?

This popular assessment uses your habits and attitudes to generate one of 16 personality types, written as a combination of four letters. Examples include ISFJ (introverted, sensing, feeling, and judging) and ENTP (extroverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving).

3. What Are You Good At?

Understanding your natural skills and talents can go a long way in helping you make an informed and confident decision when choosing a major. It may be your parents’ dream for you to be an artist, but what if you skew more toward business or the sciences? Just because someone else has a degree path in mind doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

One way of determining which academic fields best suit you is to take a close look at your class grades in high school, as well as your ACT or SAT scores. Doing this can highlight your strengths in specific academic areas.

4. What Are the Highest-Paying Fields?

When considering which major to pursue, determine how important salary and salary potential weigh into your decision-making process. If you’re motivated by high earnings, pursuing a degree in a STEM-related field may appeal to you.

That said, some students care more about the importance of their work than the salary offered; they don’t want a job just for the money. Non-STEM degrees that students are often passionate about relate to human services, education, and visual/performing arts.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides a regularly updated list of positions offering the highest wages. Psychiatrists rank high on this list, as do oral and maxillofacial surgeons, obstetricians and gynecologists, and general internal medicine physicians.

If you want a job outside of medicine and healthcare, other positions with high salaries include chief executive, airline pilot, computer and information systems manager, architectural and engineering manager, and marketing manager.

5. How Rigorous Will the Coursework Be?

Some majors may feel harder than others based on factors like typical homework load, course expectations, and frequency of exams. Your core classes (i.e., classes specifically related to your major) will make up a significant portion of your college course load. So, before you declare a major, make sure you understand how rigorous your weekly workload will be.

Indiana University Bloomington’s National Survey of Student Engagement, carried out in 2016, determined the most difficult majors based on the average time students spent per week preparing for classes. The hardest majors included architecture, chemical engineering, and aeronautical engineering.

6. What Does Your Academic Advisor Say?

Checking in with your academic advisor is one of the most important steps you can take when deciding on a major. They’ve had similar conversations with hundreds of students and can provide insightful wisdom into picking a major. Your advisor may even propose a major you hadn’t previously considered that meets your academic and career goals.

Have a Question About College?

Some college majors are more popular than others due to their high earning potential and strong job prospects. Learn what the top 10 majors are in this guide. Choosing a college major is a decision many students agonize over. Here, recent grads offer new students advice they wish they’d heard earlier. Many students flock to just a handful of popular majors, leading to crowded fields. A well-chosen major and minor can give you a competitive edge for jobs.

BestColleges.com is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.

Chemical Engineering

Chemical engineers harness chemical reactions to produce things people want. It’s a very broad field that overlaps considerably with other branches of engineering , chemistry , and biochemistry . Chemical engineering majors learn how to reorganize the structure of molecules and how to design chemical processes through which chemicals, petroleum, foods, and pharmaceuticals can undergo. You’ll learn how to build and operate industrial plants where raw materials are chemically altered. You’ll learn how to keep the environment safe from potential pollution and hazardous waste, too. Paper mills, manufacturers of fertilizers, pharmaceutical companies, plastics makers, and tons of other kinds of firms will be looking for your expertise.

From microscopic organisms to cloning procedures, biology encompasses pretty much the whole world. Biology majors can study human, plants, animals, and the environments in which they live, and studies are conducted at the cellular level, the ecosystem level, or anywhere in between. You might find yourself looking to uncover secrets and for ways to solve problems, such as finding a cure for a disease. Biology majors may find themselves in med school, or in one of many growing fields such as genetics and biotechnology or working as a veterinarian, optometrist, ecologist, or environmentalist.

Looking for strategic college advice?

About Rob Franek

Rob Franek, Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review, is the company’s primary authority on higher education. Over his 26-year career, he has served as a college admissions administrator, test prep teacher, author, publisher, and lecturer. Read more and follow Rob on Twitter: @RobFranek.

Sources:

https://zety.com/blog/how-to-choose-a-major
https://www.bestcolleges.com/resources/choosing-a-major/
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/top-ten-college-majors

SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Next, write outlines for the prompts you came up with (or, if you came up with a lot of prompts, choose the most likely to outline). These outlines don’t need to contain much information, just your thesis and a few key points for each body paragraph. Even if your teacher chooses a different prompt than what you came up with, just thinking about what to write about and how you’ll organize your thoughts will help you be more prepared for the test.

study effectively

SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

body_test_blackboards

Do you have a big exam coming up, but you’re not sure how to prepare for it? Are you looking to improve your grades or keep them strong but don’t know the best way to do this? We’re here to help! In this guide, we’ve compiled the 17 best tips for how to study for a test. No matter what grade you’re in or what subject you’re studying, these tips will give you ways to study faster and more effectively. If you’re tired of studying for hours only to forget everything when it comes time to take a test, follow these tips so you can be well prepared for any exam you take.

How to Study for a Test: General Tips

#1: Stick to a Study Schedule

If you’re having trouble studying regularly, creating a study schedule can be a huge help. Doing something regularly helps your mind get used to it. If you set aside a time to regularly study and stick to it, it’ll eventually become a habit that’s (usually) easy to stick to. Getting into a fixed habit of studying will help you improve your concentration and mental stamina over time. And, just like any other training, your ability to study will improve with time and effort.

Take an honest look at your schedule (this includes schoolwork, extracurriculars, work, etc.) and decide how often you can study without making your schedule too packed. Aim for at least an hour twice a week. Next, decide when you want to study, such as Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays from 7-8pm, and stick to your schedule. In the beginning, you may need to tweak your schedule, but you’ll eventually find the study rhythm that works best for you. The important thing is that you commit to it and study during the same times each week as often as possible.

#2: Start Studying Early and Study for Shorter Periods

Some people can cram for several hours the night before the test and still get a good grade. However, this is rarer than you may hope. Most people need to see information several times, over a period of time, for them to really commit it to memory. This means that, instead of doing a single long study session, break your studying into smaller sessions over a longer period of time. Five one-hour study sessions over a week will be less stressful and more effective than a single five-hour cram session. It may take a bit of time for you to learn how long and how often you need to study for a class, but once you do you’ll be able to remember the information you need and reduce some of the stress that comes from schoolwork, tests, and studying.

#3: Remove Distractions

When you’re studying, especially if it’s for a subject you don’t enjoy, it can be extremely tempting to take “quick breaks” from your work. There are untold distractions all around us that try to lure our concentration away from the task at hand. However, giving in to temptation can be an awful time suck. A quick glance at your phone can easily turn into an hour of wasting time on the internet, and that won’t help you get the score you’re looking for. In order to avoid distractions, remove distractions completely from your study space.

Eat a meal or a snack before you begin studying so you’re not tempted to rummage through the fridge as a distraction. Silence your phone and keep it in an entirely different room. If you’re studying on a computer, turn your WIFI off if it’s not essential to have. Make a firm rule that you can’t get up to check on whatever has you distracted until your allotted study time is up.

#4: Reward Yourself When You Hit a Milestone

To make studying a little more fun, give yourself a small reward whenever you hit a study milestone. For example, you might get to eat a piece of candy for every 25 flashcards you test yourself on, or get to spend 10 minutes on your phone for every hour you spend studying. You can also give yourself larger rewards for longer-term goals, such as going out to ice cream after a week of good study habits. Studying effectively isn’t always easy, and by giving yourself rewards, you’ll keep yourself motivated.

body_dogreward

Daaaance to the music

It’s still not clear which type of music is best — classical, country, rock, or hip-hop — so go with your favorite. Give those biology notes a soundtrack and feel at least some stress slide away. de Witte M, et al. (2019). Effects of music interventions on stress-related outcomes: A systematic review and two meta-analyses. DOI: 10.1080/17437199.2019.1627897

Just before staring at a piece of paper for 3 hours, direct your gaze inward for 3 minutes. Research suggests meditation can boost attention span and improve focus. And if you do it often enough, you can keep those intellectual gains well past the college years. Zanesco AP, et al. (2018). Cognitive aging and long-term maintenance of attentional improvements following meditation training. DOI: 10.1007/s41465-018-0068-1

Power Words

abstract: Something that exists as an idea or thought but not concrete or tangible (touchable) in the real world. Beauty, love and memory are abstractions; cars, trees and water are concrete and tangible. (in publishing) A short summary of a scientific paper, a poster or a scientist’s talk. Abstracts are useful to determine whether delving into the details of the whole scientific paper will yield the information you seek.

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: (ADHD) This is a disorder characterized by not being able to focus or pay attention, being physically overactive, not being able to control behavior, or a combination of these.

COVID-19: A name given the coronavirus that caused a massive outbreak of potentially lethal disease, beginning in December 2019. Symptoms included pneumonia, fever, headaches and trouble breathing.

data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning. For digital information (the type stored by computers), those data typically are numbers stored in a binary code, portrayed as strings of zeros and ones.

distraction: Any event or situation that draws someone’s attention away from whatever had been his or her main focus. Distractions can be external events, such as sounds or sights; or they can be internal events, such as thoughts or emotions.

journal: (in science) A publication in which scientists share their research findings with experts (and sometimes even the public). Some journals publish papers from all fields of science, technology, engineering and math, while others are specific to a single subject. The best journals are peer-reviewed: They send all submitted articles to outside experts to be read and critiqued. The goal, here, is to prevent the publication of mistakes, fraud or sloppy work.

model: A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to portray something or to predict one or more likely outcomes. Or an individual or thing that is meant to display how something would work in or look on others.

stress: (in biology) A factor — such as unusual temperatures, movements, moisture or pollution — that affects the health of a species or ecosystem. (in psychology) A mental, physical, emotional or behavioral reaction to an event or circumstance (stressor) that disturbs a person or animal’s usual state of being or places increased demands on a person or animal; psychological stress can be either positive or negative.

superficial: Something that is on the surface (hence, not deep), such as the skin of the body. Or, something that appears important until, looked at more closely, there is little substance to the claim.

Champions’ Mindset: Unleash The Power of Peak Performance

An often-neglected but crucial key to the puzzle of how to study effectively comes in making sure you yourself are well. You have to think of yourself as an athlete – an elite, exam-taking athlete. And you cannot possibly perform at your best unless you are taking good care of your mind and body.

29. Keep Going

Once you do decide you’re a high-performer, you’ll behave accordingly! That might only mean a small tweak to your habits each day. Working three hours instead of two. Using retrieval practice not just re-reading.

And if you struggle to associate with that new identity as a high performer today: then PRETEND. Ask yourself what a high performer would do in this situation? How would they tackle this assignment, this tricky exam question? Act accordingly.

30. Keep Growing

31. Keep Walking

A brisk walk is a great way to take a “quality break”. It will not only reset your focus, but also boost your creativity! People often find a good idea often pops into their head while out on a walk, and psychologists have good evidence for the relationship between walking and creativity.

32. Keep Talking

33. Keep Breathing

Taking slow, calm breaths from deep in your belly is a great tonic to soothe jittery nerves. Get in the habit of practising regularly. It’s another great way to find the right mindset to study effectively.

And if you struggle with anxiety, consider practising meditation: it’s not woo-woo or religious any more, it’s mainstream, and it just teaches how to focus your mind in the present and stop it racing with worries about the future.

34. Take A Pressure Vaccine

References:

https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-study-for-a-test
https://greatist.com/happiness/better-study-tips-test
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/top-10-tips-study-smarter-not-longer-study-skills
https://examstudyexpert.com/how-to-study-effectively/

Will Space Tourists Finally Get a Ride, Air – Space Magazine

Will Space Tourists Finally Get a Ride?

Virgin Galactic has moved into its New Mexico Spaceport. Let the flights begin.

There’s something flying over Spaceport America on this warm October afternoon, and as usual, it’s not a spacecraft. It’s an Extra 300, owned by Virgin Galactic. Alone in the cockpit is company chief pilot David Mackay, who’s doing tight, descending corkscrews designed to spike the G-forces.

Mackay doesn’t live here in New Mexico—not yet—but his presence here on an ordinary work day indicates the progress Virgin is making toward launching its suborbital space tourism business. Another pilot has relocated to Spaceport America full-time, and a new one is already training.

The test flight team, like the rest of Virgin’s employees at Spaceport America, is preparing for the first commercial operations of SpaceShipTwo and the WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane that launches it on short hops to the edge of space. “I think we’re making history here,” Mackay says during a stroll through Virgin’s hangar. “We’ve designed two aircraft and a rocket motor for a brand new industry.” The first flight from New Mexico is expected next June.

Subscribe to Air & Space Magazine Now

This story is a selection from the December/January issue of Air & Space magazine

It’s been a long time coming. In October 2009, Virgin Galactic announced that flights from Spaceport America would begin within two years. The facility was declared open in 2011, but that was followed by years of delays and a fatal in-flight accident (there had been another deadly accident on the ground in 2007) as the launch system was under development in Mojave, California.

Residents of two New Mexico counties have chafed at the wait, having voted more than a decade ago in favor of a tax to help pay for the spaceport’s construction. With $209 million of their money already spent on the project, including a $7 million runway extension, the taxpayers have seen little return on their investment so far.

Things started to gear up last May, however, when Virgin founder Richard Branson announced that the company is ready to begin flights as soon as a second SpaceShipTwo vehicle is complete. (VSS Unity is already being used for testing.) “Our Virgin Galactic adventure has been intertwined with New Mexico and Spaceport America right from the start,” Branson told the assembled media. “Today, I could not be more excited to announce that…we are now ready to bring New Mexico a world-first, world-class spaceline.”

Five months later, there’s a real sense of anticipation at this remote, eerily beautiful spaceport. If Virgin’s schedule holds, next summer’s inaugural flight will be a watershed moment for the nascent space tourism business. Ordinary rich people—as opposed to the super-rich who have visited the International Space Station—will routinely be able to buy a $250,000 ticket to space.

Branson has always said he will be the first passenger, a claim he reiterated at an Air Force Association meeting in September. “We’ll do a few more final test flights and then I’ll go up,” he said.

After years of delay that may seem sudden—VSS Unity has flown just 12 times, and only twice to space—but Virgin maintains that the final tests are only needed to validate earlier testing and will go fast. Unity will fly again before year’s end, this time with the passenger cabin fully outfitted. Once the entire launch system is proven to work in its final configuration in Mojave, the pilots will then take several flights to familiarize themselves with flying in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic’s pilot corps is an accomplished group of aviators that includes commercial pilots like Mackay, former NASA astronaut Rick Sturckow, and U.S. Air Force combat veteran Kelly “Cosmic” Latimer, who later became a NASA research test pilot. Most of the pilots have played a role in developing the vehicles, either with The SpaceShip Company that manufactures them or with Virgin itself.

The FAA will have to sign off on those vehicles before passenger flights begin. Up until now, the company has been granted a license only to fly “non-deployed scientific, experimental, or inert payloads.”

Safety remains a sensitive subject. In 2014, the first SpaceShipTwo experimental vehicle, VSS Enterprise, cracked apart during flight, killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury when it crashed into the Mojave Desert. Investigators blamed co-pilot error and pointed to deficiencies in Virgin’s training procedures, but found no show-stopping problems with the vehicle design.

Branson’s determination to ride to space himself may help replace memories of the crash in the public mind. “I certainly won’t go into space before brave test pilots feel 100 percent comfortable that we’ve checked every box,” he told the Associated Press earlier this year.

During my visit in early October, three technicians in white protective suits are working inside the Virgin hangar on a gangly, twin-fuselage aircraft. It’s a WhiteKnightTwo carrier craft named Eve, which now resides in New Mexico full time. The massive hangar, large enough for three such airplanes, smells faintly of epoxy. “I can’t wait until SpaceShipTwo moves here,” Mackay says.

The Extra is in the hangar as well, and Mackay eyes it eagerly as he speaks. He’s a seasoned front man for the company, but he’s more comfortable in a cockpit, having first flown with the Royal Air Force, then with Virgin Atlantic, and now as chief pilot for Virgin Galactic. Among his other achievements, he piloted SpaceShipTwo during a February 2019 test flight to an altitude of 56 miles, making him the only Scot who has ever been—just barely—to space. (The X-15 rocketplane flew higher in the 1960s, as did SpaceShipOne when it won the XPRIZE in 2004.)

A newly installed flight simulator sits along one hangar wall, nested inside a cupola of dark drapes. A pair of employees in street clothes is testing the simulator’s data connections to operations centers here and in Mojave. Having a high-fidelity sim on the premises is vital to transitioning all training and flight testing to New Mexico. “We are spending less time in Mojave,” Mackay says of the pilots’ workload. “The bias now is being here more, and there less.”

Before long Mackay excuses himself, steps over to the Extra and is soon soaring into the uncommonly cloudy sky. The Gs of the planned suborbital flights don’t peak above a relatively mild 4.2, but these aerobatic flights help keep the pilots conditioned.

Apart from this activity inside the hangar, there are more clues that the long-delayed dream of routine spaceflights over the New Mexico desert may actually be close to happening. The company unveiled its new mission control room and the Spaceport’s customer lounges and other interior rooms in August. In mid-October, it introduced the hip, futuristic “spacewear” designed by Under Armour for VG passengers.

Since last spring, the number of staff here in New Mexico, from pilots to electricians, has tripled. Last year there were only 40 Virgin employees at Spaceport America, but that swelled to 120 this year and should hit 160 next year.

Perhaps the most hopeful sign of progress is slapped to the wall of an office near the empty mission control room: an Aztec pyramid of Post-It notes detailing all the public services needed to pull off a landmark future event. The National Guard, local firefighters, and sheriff’s deputies will all be involved. At the top of the pyramid, one note stands alone: “First Flight.”

Passengers will walk through the doors, load into a Land Rover and meet SpaceShipTwo on the flight line. The vehicle will be attached to its carrier ship by then. Spectators will have a good view of the runway as the WhiteKnightTwo takes off and circles up to 50,000 feet. From there, the SpaceShipTwo is dropped and ignited like a missile. A 70-second burn gets the spacecraft on a coasting trajectory to 62 miles altitude, which satisfies both of the commonly used (and somewhat arbitrary) definitions of what qualifies as “space”—50 miles and 100 kilometers. The passengers then unbuckle for five minutes of weightlessness before the long glide back down to the same runway. The whole ride, from walkout to wheels stop, takes under two hours.

Back inside the spaceport, the Gaia room’s digitally enhanced walkway cuts through what Virgin calls the “social center” of its operation. The dark, natural tones and sunken seating areas are intended to remind passengers of the Home Planet as they prepare to leave it, according to Brouwer. Today there are a handful of employees ordering coffee from the impossibly pleasant barista working at a backlit, Italian marble island. In the future, Gaia is where customers will congregate between training sessions and for social events, prepare for departure and celebrate their return with champagne. Interaction with staff is encouraged.

“This is hospitality as Richard sees it,” Brouwer says. As general manager of astronaut relations and hospitality for Virgin, he designed these interiors. His experience is in a select niche of the high-end hospitality market, in remote places “where the location, instead of gold faucets, makes the property luxury.” He has managed estates on several private islands, including Branson’s Necker Island (in the British Virgin Island chain).

Now Brouwer is trailblazing an entirely new kind of venture, the world’s first space tourism operation. In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (available since Virgin Galactic stock recently became publicly traded), the company describes their target market as “individuals with $10+ million net worth” and a “demonstrated propensity to spend on experiences.”

Virgin is selling more than five minutes of weightlessness, or even five days at Spaceport America, for the quarter-million dollars it charges Future Astronauts. “Having a ticket means being part of a special members club, with special access,” Brouwer says. “I don’t want to say it’s a cult; that’s way too strong, but they do show their passion.”

To keep that passion from cooling during the years of delay, the company has provided ticketholders with tours of the spaceport, run-throughs in simulators, G-flights in the Extra, and meet-ups at solar eclipses. “With a smaller number of people, we have the opportunity to get them more involved,” Brouwer says.

Virgin Galactic’s business plan, as laid out to the SEC, predicts an increasing number of flights as the fleet of vehicles grows. As more people fly, some of the special access will likely fall away, leaving the five-day visit as the core of the experience. Nor will tourism be the only revenue stream. In October, Virgin Galactic and the Italian Air Force signed an agreement to launch scientists doing suborbital experiments. It’s the first time a government agency has reserved a slot for researchers on a commercial suborbital launcher.

The future looks good on paper. Paying flights are projected to start in June with the two existing vehicles: Eve carrying VSS Unity. A second SpaceShipTwo vehicle will enter service in 2020, and a third in 2021. These are already under construction in Mojave. As the fleet expands, the number of customer flights will gradually scale up, building toward five flights a month in 2022.

In the SEC documents, Virgin projected a $104 million loss in 2020, but expects to break even in 2021. By 2023, it expects $274 million in annual earnings, with big profits on each flight. Assuming five of six passenger seats are filled on every flight, that’s $1.25 million in revenue. Operating costs—$121,000 in rocket motor and fuel, nearly $200,000 in customer service and insurance, and another $118,000 in flight operations—leave $820,000 per flight.

Each SpaceShipTwo will be expected to perform five flights per month; the WhiteKnightTwo carriers are each good for 15 monthly flights. At that rate, the Virgin Galactic pilots would be flying every two or three days. According to Mackay, compared to an airline pilot’s schedule, “This is not a particularly stressful job.”

David Bushman scrutinizes one of the spaceport’s concrete launchpads, looking for blemishes on its smooth surface. There’s an ocean of desert around the 98-foot by 98-foot slab, originally built by SpaceX and left unused when that company decided to test its flyback boosters in Florida instead.

Spaceport America assumed ownership of the site and now rents these and other pads to any company that needs the concrete and elbow room to test something dangerous, secretive, or loud. Bushman says his “aerospace engineer” job title should really be “spaceport engineer.” He’s wandering around like any landlord inspecting a property after tenants have moved out. In this case, it’s the smallsat launch company ABL Space Systems, who tested some rocket engines on the slab.

Bushman pauses and aims his phone camera at a pair of bolts rising from the concrete. “These are supposed to be taken off,” he says. “We’ll fix the pad and send them the bill.”

Until recently, this was the day-to-day business of Spaceport America. The operators spent the lean years waiting for Virgin by providing launch range services to companies large and small. Boeing has tested its Starliner crew capsule on high-altitude drop tests; aspiring smallsat launchers UP Aerospace and EXOS are tenants; SpinLaunch, another startup, is testing designs in the spaceport’s Advanced Technology Area; and various industry hypersonic programs have conducted tests here.

Now the place is switching from this odd-job culture to focus on the primary tenant, who’s finally started to move in. “I believe I’m part of the ramp-up,” says Bushman, who left the Dream Chaser spaceplane program at Sierra Nevada last year to join the Spaceport America staff.

Frank Dominguez is an electrical technician who came to work at the spaceport after a decade building gas stations. Now he’s refueling and tending to airplanes, sharing the workload with a multi-tasking maintenance staff that’s more than doubled this year to five. “I never thought I’d be doing this,” he says happily.

The desert surrounding Spaceport America may make it a good place to test rockets, but it doesn’t do Dominguez any favors. “If we need a fuse, we don’t just have it on hand at a store,” he says. “It’s an hour away, so stocking is hard.”

Most new horizontal-launch spaceports—typically existing airports licensed by the FAA—tout their access to existing supply chains and a nearby labor force. But Spaceport America is banking on the idea that its remote location is a plus.

The really valuable real estate here is not underneath your feet but overhead. Look on any map of air traffic over the United States and there will always be a gap over New Mexico, right where Spaceport America sits. The spaceport has access to 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace controlled by its neighbor, the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range. By agreement with the military, Spaceport America officials can open up parts of the government’s restricted airspace very quickly.

This ability to launch and land at will is a critical argument for the Spaceport’s existence. The advantages are real: No overhead airline traffic, no competing for launch windows, no crowds of gawkers watching proprietary experimental spacecraft during testing. And no chance of collateral damage if things go kinetically wrong.

Even after Virgin Galactic is up and running, spaceport managers envision that customers will continue to use its launch areas. “Some companies want to be entirely mobile, and just bring in everything themselves,” Bushman says. “Some want a concrete pad and buildings, others just need a flat spot in the desert.”

Diversity, to a spaceport, is job security, and the operators have their sights set on other emerging industries. Bushman sees an opportunity in space landings, relying on the airspace restrictions and empty expanse of desert to make it an ideal place for science satellites and other fast-moving payloads to return.

Virgin’s second spaceship, VSS Unity, gets a shove from its hybrid engine during its first powered flight in April 2018. (Virgin Galactic) The following February, chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses reacts to the thrill of becoming the first non-test pilot to make a commercial spaceflight during a test of Unity’s passenger cabin. (Virgin Galactic)

“We don’t have to go straight up and down,” says Mackay, the former Virgin Atlantic pilot. “We would need a new spacecraft, because this one isn’t designed to do it, but it could be a starting point. And once you have high-speed, point-to-point, it’s not that big a step to get into orbit. And that opens up even more possibilities.”

Ironically, talk of spinoff ventures points to a vulnerability in Virgin’s plans. Space tourism isn’t the biggest of markets, and everyone’s aware it’s a gamble. “It takes a lot of positivity,” Mackay admits.

But the dozens of staffers now unpacking boxes and setting up offices in Spaceport America hold on to their belief that something great is happening here. The countdown clock is running, and the day that Virgin Galactic’s space tourism business either rises or falls is coming. The final verdict will be delivered in the skies over central New Mexico, and we’re all invited. With a $250,000 ticket in hand, of course.

About Joe Pappalardo

Joe Pappalardo lives with his two shelter dogs in South Texas, a stone’s throw from three commercial spaceports. His most recent book is Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight.

Virgin Galactic gearing up to start selling suborbital spaceflight tickets again, Space

Virgin Galactic gearing up to start selling suborbital spaceflight tickets again

The company’s One Small Step qualification system launches today.

If you’re looking to book a ride to suborbital space with Virgin Galactic, you shouldn’t have to wait much longer.

More than 600 people have reserved a seat aboard the company’s six-passenger SpaceShipTwo craft, which is designed to carry customers and payloads on brief trips to suborbital space and back.

Virgin Galactic halted ticket sales in December 2018 after its latest SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity, reached space for the first time, on a piloted test flight. But that hiatus will soon come to an end, company representatives said.

“In light of continuing, strong progress towards commercial service, Virgin Galactic is now preparing to release its next tranche of seats for sale to the general public,” Virgin Galactic representatives wrote in an update on Tuesday (Feb. 25).

“In the first phase of that process, the company will be launching its new One Small Step qualification process on Wednesday, February 26th, allowing those who are serious about flying to space to register now and be front of line for firm seat reservations, once they become available,” they added.

Qualifying via One Small Step, which you can do here, involves making a refundable $1,000 deposit.

It’ll take a lot more cash to actually go up on VSS Unity, though exactly how much more is not clear at the moment. The most recent ticket price for SpaceShipTwo was $250,000, but Virgin Galactic has not yet revealed what seats will cost when they go on sale again.

SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft by an airplane known as WhiteKnightTwo, which drops the winged spacecraft at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters). At that point, SpaceShipTwo’s onboard rocket motor fires up, taking the vehicle up to suborbital space.

Passengers will get to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space and experience a few minutes of weightless before coming back down for a runway landing.

VSS Unity has reached the final frontier on two test missions — the December 2018 flight and another one in February 2019. Those flights took off from Mojave, California, where Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing subsidiary, The Spaceship Company, is based. But commercial operations will take place at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

And commercial operations could start soon — perhaps sometime this year. VSS Unity recently relocated to Spaceport America and has begun the final phase of its test campaign.

Virgin Galactic’s vision doesn’t begin and end with VSS Unity. Two more SpaceShipTwo vehicles are currently being built in Mojave, and others will likely follow; the company’s hangar at Spaceport America can accommodate five SpaceShipTwos and two WhiteKnightTwos simultaneously.

Virgin Galactic s VSS Unity space plane arrives at New Mexico spaceport, Space

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity space plane arrives at New Mexico spaceport

Unity is now in the final phase of its test campaign.

Virgin Galactic is one big step closer to flying customers to suborbital space.

The company’s newest SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity, arrived yesterday (Feb. 13) at Spaceport America in New Mexico, the hub of Virgin Galactic’s commercial operations.

Unity made the trip from Mojave, California — the home base of Virgin’s manufacturing subsidiary, The Spaceship Company — beneath the wings of VMS Eve, the plane that will carry Unity aloft during operational missions. The journey therefore kicked off the final stages of Unity’s test campaign.

“This captive-carry flight provided an opportunity for engineers to evaluate VSS Unity for over three hours at high altitude and cold temperatures, a longer period of time than is experienced during missions to space,” Virgin Galactic representatives wrote in a statement yesterday. “These environmental evaluations of system performance are difficult to replicate at ground level, making captive-carry missions a vital component of VSS Unity’s flight-test plan.”

SpaceShipTwo is a six-passenger space plane designed to carry people and scientific payloads on brief trips to suborbital space. The vehicle gets airborne with the help of a carrier plane called WhiteKnightTwo (VMS Eve).

At an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters), WhiteKnightTwo drops SpaceShipTwo, and the space plane fires up its onboard rocket motor to make its own way to suborbital space. Passengers onboard SpaceShipTwo will get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth’s curvature against the blackness of space before coming back down for a runway landing.

A ticket to ride SpaceShipTwo currently sells for $250,000, and more than 600 people have put down a deposit to book a seat, Virgin Galactic representatives have said.

Unity has already made it to the final frontier twice, acing piloted test flights to suborbital space in December 2018 and February 2019. Both of those missions took off from Mojave, as did the space plane’s many other test flights.

But the test campaign has now moved to New Mexico. There will be more captive-carry flights from Spaceport America, as well as unpowered “glide flights” and rocket-powered test missions, Virgin Galactic representatives wrote in yesterday’s statement. This work will continue to prove out Unity’s performance and also allow the vehicle’s pilots to familiarize themselves fully with Spaceport America and its surroundings.

When these test flights are done, Unity will be ready to begin flying paying customers.

“When Virgin Galactic started moving to New Mexico [from Mojave] last year, everyone felt the sheer magnitude of the task ahead, but we were encouraged and excited by the team’s confidence and strong vision for the future,” Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said in yesterday’s statement.

“Today we realized the next step in that dream by bringing our beautiful spaceship to New Mexico,” he added. “We still have significant work ahead, but we are grateful to all our teammates who have made this day a reality.”

Virgin Galactic’s vision of the future involves more than just VSS Unity and VMS Eve. The company’s hangar at Spaceport America can accommodate five SpaceShipTwo vehicles and two WhiteKnightTwo craft simultaneously, allowing for frequent flights from the facility. And Virgin Galactic intends to fill that hangar eventually; two additional SpaceShipTwo vehicles are currently under construction in Mojave, for example, and both are pretty far along.