APU Careers & Learning Online Learning

Adults Returning to the Classroom: How Can They Succeed?

Dr. Dani Babb, Author of “The Adult Student”

By Dr. Dani Babb
Faculty Member, Economics at American Military University

If you have picked up my book, The Adult Student, you may be well on your way to deciding whether or not to go back to school! Congratulations – you have taken the first step towards investing in yourself with something that no one can take away from you. A tool that will help you market yourself going forward, engage in a new career, advance in an existing one, start a business, change professions, model to your children that you value education (and yourself), build self-confidence and your own skill set and knowledge.

Yes, as you can tell, I am a big fan of education. I have devoted my second post-Information Technology (IT) career to engaging with students and professors to guide them in their quest to make their goals and dreams become reality. The fact is, today many of us do not get to go to school at “traditional times”, or may find that we need a degree to maintain our competitiveness or move up in our field. I earned one of my degrees in a traditional state school, another in a private evening program, and another online. I have been an on ground and online professor since the early 1990s during a career in IT and after, when education became my only career. My roots in online education go back to the beta version of Blackboard. I have published many books on education and business, and I share my wins and losses openly. I am forthright and candid in my approach to business and education, knowing that mentoring is useless without it. My company, The Babb Group, is an educational consulting company focusing on helping students and professors make informed decisions.

That is my goal with this book – that you will walk away and know clearly whether you can and should go to school now, how to pick whether to go to school in an online or a brick and mortar format, and where to attend. Hundreds of professors and students shared in the journey along the way and offered their input and critique, criticism and suggestions, most of which I incorporated into this book.

I am a Professor of Economics for American Military University and teach as an adjunct at other schools, working with students from associate level programs to doctoral programs. I teach economics, technology, statistics, business, management, and other practical subjects. I earned my Doctorate in 2004 and my MBA in 1999. I am an analyst and commentator for cable and local news channels – FoxNews, Fox Business, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, Bloomberg and others.

My pledge is to offer a unique perspective to educate consumers and students on what is taking place in the market, and to offer a fresh look for people on Main Street where analysis really counts. All of the data in the world doesn’t matter if we don’t know what it means. This is my approach to educating consumers, and I hope you find this to be a useful approach in this book as well. I co-authored the first mainstream book about online education called Make Money Teaching Online with Dr. Jim Mirabella in 2006, and this book is a natural progression from the educator side into the student side.

Please stay in touch, whether by email, or social media. We have a lot of groups out there to support you from your initial decision all the way through graduation and beyond.

 

About the Author:

Dr. Dani Babb is President of The Babb Group, an Educational Consulting Company in California. She is an author and television commentator, remarking on the markets. Dani is an Economics Professor at American Military University and the author of the book The Adult Student. You can follow her on twitter @danibabb, or at www.thebabbgroup.com.

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