Is College The Right Choice For You?

College is a very traditional next step. You’ve finished high school (or your teen has!) and now you’ve got to make a big decision about your future. Most of all, you want to be qualified for the career of your choice, and you want to give yourself the best chance of getting hired in your chosen field - so a degree it is, and becoming a student for the next three, four, or five years seems completely natural in most people’s minds.

But it’s not the right choice for everyone out there. There’s a lot of things you can do in this world, and there’s all kinds of people with different tastes and goals that take full advantage of this. So if you’re feeling a lot of doubt over your college prospects, here’s a couple of questions to ask yourself.

To make it to graduation, you’ve got to be happy about your choices… and if college isn’t right for you, don’t force yourself! (Image)

What are Your Main Goals?

And how can you achieve them, if you don’t want to go to university? You can graft for years at different jobs, gaining all kinds of experience. You can go in for an apprenticeship or a traineeship, and get paid whilst you learn, which is something a college student would never be able to do. You could even turn your attention to the online world and all the ways it allows you to make money, if that’s one of your main motivations.

No matter what your goals are, you need to be sure that college isn’t the only way to achieve them, before you decide to give it a miss. We hear a lot about college graduates who can’t find jobs and are saddled with thousands in debt, and most likely will be for the rest of their lives, so be sure you’re in a position to earn more than them and proceed faster than they will. Because otherwise, it’s just another bad decision you might not have thought through properly.

Try to Find the College of Your Dreams

If the idea of heading to college is daunting only because of the logistics, then there’s a good chance you’re simply headed off to the wrong place, or you’ve chosen the wrong course. So now’s the time to put that right, and to make sure you’ve got a full ride of academic enjoyment ahead of you.

Using something like college consulting services can really help you out here, and they can help you to bulk out your college applications properly, to give you the best chance of getting into your top choice. We’re always worried about what our parents will think, but this is your life and your career - make sure you’re giving it the boost it needs on your own terms and conditions.

Just because college is all you hear about doesn’t mean you actually have to go to one. So making sure college is right for you before you commit to it.

How to Choose the Best Stationery Supplier for Your Office Needs

Choosing the right stationery supplier for your business can be a tough and difficult decision. On one hand, it's a mundane task that distracts you from your main focus, on the other hand, picking the wrong supplier could leave you without essential supplies at the wrong moment. So how do you choose the best stationery supplier for your office?

Product range is a key factor in choosing the right supplier. A good supplier will leave no gaps in their product range when it comes to providing the best choice for their clients and maintain a healthy amount of stock too. A good sign of a reputable stationery supplier will have a wide range. You can find the widest range here from Office National. As you can see from the web page, they carry all the necessary business stationery to suit your needs under a very easy to use website. 

Pricing is one of the hardest challenges when it comes to finding a reputable stationery suppler. Cheap doesn't always mean the best quality, expensive sometimes leads costs spiralling; these are all factors to take into account when choosing your stationery supplier. Branding, quantity & quality are all factors that should be taken into account when weighing up the costs of a prospective suppliers' merchandise. Paying the extra for a reputable brand can cut costs in the long run if a product has notable durability. 

Getting hold of essential stationery also has another important consideration: delivery time. It's no use picking a supplier and placing an important order to find out the delivery will take weeks. Ideally you want no more than 3 – 5 working days for shipments to arrive. Whilst quicker deliveries are great, they usually come with a premium, therefore increasing costs. On the other hand, slow deliveries can be crippling to businesses and leave you without vital equipment at the worst possible time. 

The final consideration for a supplier, is how much they value you as a customer. In the world of business to business transactions you will more than likely be a repeat customer. This goes hand in hand with a prospective suppliers after sales customer support. The last thing any business wants is to find their new printers not working correctly and no support to get them running. If a company does have a dedicated after sales support team then they will usually make this very clear to any possible clients visiting their page, like this one. 

Obviously, this article is aimed at those who've got their footing and are preparing to launch into the world of business so if you are just entertaining the idea of starting your own business, or entrepreneurship, then it would be worth your while reading this very informative article, especially if you've just left college. Ultimately you will need stationery supplies at some point and when you do, you should have the supplies to pick the right supplier.

Bye Bye College, Hello... Business?

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The aim for every young person as they work through college is to reach the other side and then be ready to face the world doing what they have worked so hard to achieve throughout their school years. But what happens to you if you decide that starting up a business is your calling?

Coming straight from college to entrepreneurship is a huge lifestyle change. You may not realize exactly how hard this aspect of your working life will be until you get out of the education system and start up your empire. Before you do get started on your business venture, here are some of the things you will want to think about...

Is your idea good enough?

It is crucial when you are planning to start a business that your idea is actionable and will work. It might be worth doing some market research to find out where there is a gap in the market for what to want to create, and also whether someone else has already thought up the idea before you.

Are You ready to start?

The next question you must ask yourself is whether or not you are ready to jump in and start up your business right away. Think about whether you have the funding and resources to create your product or service, and think about premises. Is this something you can work on from home or will you need to build a workshop out of Armstrong Steel to complete the work?

Are you prepared for hurdles?

Starting up a business isn’t just as simple as making your product and selling it on, you will likely face many challenges along the way. There will be people who will doubt your ability to succeed, and you may find it hard to reach out to your target audience to begin with. To run a business you must develop a thick skin and be able to deal with everything that comes your way.
 

Alone or with a team?

Think about the type of business you want to set up and whether it is something you need help for, or if you can set it up yourself. You might possess the skills and resources to start up the business alone, but it can be greatly beneficial to have someone there helping you along the way and giving their ideas to the project too. Decide if there is anyone you know who you could go into business with.
 

Can you afford it?

Running a business is an incredibly expensive business when you take into account the taxes, materials, shipping, employee wages and office rent. Decide whether or not you can possibly afford to run the business in the first place before you just dive in blindly. You could find that you need the help of an investor or even a loan from your bank to get you up and running before you are stable enough to go it alone.

History is Human

As a history major in college, I've always had an affinity and appreciation for the story of our world. I often visit museums and monuments, taking moments to look into the context that lead us to now. Certainly nowadays this is a contentious issue in terms of who we decide to erect statues to and which ones we decide to take down.

While we create our collective memory of the past (meaning it is subject to our whims and limited by what we have left to examine), there is a universal thread that hit me recently; history is human.

We often exalt the figures of the past, making it hard to imagine and relate to them (especially since we don't have many realistic depictions of people until recently with the advent of video with color). But what is sobering to realize, is that these people we make monuments to and learn about in books, were just that, people. They were humans figuring out their way in the world as best they could, often making mistakes, and victims to their emotions. They made meaning as best they could with what they had, and did as well as they could muster with what they had. The impressive part is that they survived, thrived, expanded, and made it possible for us to be here in an amazing time to be alive (albeit at great cost and certainly we are in an imperfect world still). 

It makes me feel like we can give these historical figures a bit of a break. They did all they could to improve life in their time (and often succeeded), we need to continue the tradition and use the incredible tools at our disposal to expand the common good. To be clear, I don't mean this to say we should give people free passes for the awful things they did. We should not honor people who embodied any sort of hateful ideology. With that being said though, history has always been made by humans working hard and working together. And while we are the cause of many of our own problems, we are also the solution to those problems.

People will be learning about our time in the future. What do we want them to say?