ONE-week crash courses are common in the United States today and taking one while you’re on your one week spring break from college or university will not hurt either. Instead of getting promiscuous on a road trip in a bikini around a lake this spring break; why not channel your talent to learning something in one week by taking a crash course online. It could be a foreign language, administrative skills or something fun like poker online - the choice is yours!

There are virtually lots of fields you can choose in which online educational program to take. If you are an agronomy major, you may want to learn a similar field which is world botany. The online course will take you on a virtual tour about the various plant species all over the world. You will be introduced to plant species that are alien to your landscape in say, Peregrine Cliff, Maryland. Do you know that each place in this country has its distinct plant species living there? There are some cactuses inhabiting the Mojave Desert which you certainly can’t find in Alaska. Plus the online course can likewise guide you to other plant species in such unexpected places as Chile, Antarctica or Israel.

If you are taking a course in filmmaking at USC Film and Television Department, then you may want to take an online crash course in film critiquing. I will certainly be taking one right now because I’m taking a degree in filmmaking at NYU Film School here in Manhattan. And I want to discuss to you some of the movies that I have seen.

One of the great movies I’ve seen recently is The Great Debaters. For time immemorial, I’m pretty sure this will be the inspiring movie for all oratorical teams across the United States. This is what is Any Given Sunday is to football and Glory Road is to basketball. But Glory Road transcends even farther. Glory Road has another plot – that of racism. I wonder why that movie has never been nominated in the 2007 Academy Awards. Denzel Washington’s other latest offering American Gangster has been touted as The Black Godfather. It is the story of the first prominent black Mafia-style crime lord, Frank Lucas. And until now, the guy is still alive is occasionally seen as a source by MTV for its celebrity interviews. Now isn’t that a feat? There are still dozens of movies out there worth critiquing. Have a happy spring break!

THE United States today is muddled with fears of an incoming recession. And if you’re a high school graduate who is academically and financially-off enough to be enrolled at Georgetown, then it’s time to focus on one’s studies in your senior year in high school so you’ll get the attention of the college admissions staff of let’s say Georgetown. After all, college admissions staff will get only the best of the best of the students who want to enroll who they think are inclined to help in steering the United States and the whole world towards the next generation.

That may sound highfalutin to many but Fortune 500 companies and even government institutions hire only the best to those who can deliver and make the companies earn more. Anyway, employees will never be disregarded. They can win vacations anytime and some last as long as two months complete with a spouse and kid in tow, all expenses paid at the most exotic locations in the globe such as Cancun. If you graduate from a degree in international relations for instance and you persevere towards achieving a doctorate, then you may well enough to be promoted as national security adviser.

See? It’s not just in economics that anybody can excel. There are lots of fields indeed to explore where you can be financially successful and spiritually satisfying at the same time. And it is not just the upper middle class college graduates whom I”m referring about. Even ordinary people like you and me can make it big in the wide world of success that is the great American dream. You don’t need to be lucid to achieve that. You can make your own American dream come true.

For instance, you have just graduated with a degree in teaching elementary pupils and all your life, your tuition has been paid off with student loans. It will definitely be a great reprieve if all your college student loans, consolidated or otherwise, are totally forgiven. Imagine the relief if you will not panic anymore having the burden to pay your student loans for the next 30 years. How to achieve that? If you have succeeded in being employed as a teacher in a public elementary or high school in the United States, then all your college student loans are forgiven. That’s because the United States plays a very high emphasis on the education of underprivileged children especially those that are children of immigrants. That’s why the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in 2002 by no less than President Bush to effect that purpose.

If you have just graduated from high school and you have a keen interest in human pathology and physiology but doesn’t have the financial capability to be enrolled in a medical school, then take an academic scholarship. Who knows, you’ll be the director of CDC someday? And you can help people in a really very big way.

ONLY oneself can change his or her financial status. That is why this 2008, be good in your studies if you are still a student because it will definitely reflect on your career later on. For instance, if you have been in the dean’s list consistently during university days, chances are you will get a job more immediately than the rest of your peers. It is much better to study in college nowadays because more and more universities and colleges in Spain, the United States and other countries in the world have already established networks with potential employers. For the small educational institutions such as community colleges and vocational schools, their network of potential employers comes from the county or the state itself. For larger educational institutions such as Georgetown, their pool of potential employers is listed under Fortune 500.

Schooling or taking up a master’s degree as well as a doctorate can definitely make one be promoted. Let’s say for instance that you are already at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency being an intelligence analyst. If you will persevere schooling at Georgetown taking up a master’s and then a doctorate in international relations, chances are you’ll move up the institutional ladder and become a deputy director either for administration or operations. Or maybe you can become a bureau director at one of the attached agencies at Foggy Bottom. Or maybe you can become the assistant of the National Security Adviser. There are a lot of possibilities to explore.

Let’s have a non-conventional example. Let’s say that you are from Salamanca and you would like to learn English as a second language. Thus, you have persevered completing the basic stage of TOEFL or Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. That takes one calendar semester to finish or about six months. That’s a lot of patience on your part especially if you have a day job. But since you’re not contented with it, you went on finishing the intermediate and advanced stages of TOEFL. Later on, you went to Thailand teaching English. It’s very lucrative to teach English there especially among the workers in the hospitality industry because there are many English-speaking tourists in the country. Besides, you can enjoy the serenity of Thai beaches especially in such places as Phuket where you can skinny dip on a moonless night and just enjoy the glow of planktons illuminating your body in the water.

Another case in point – let’s say you’re already a registered nurse from the Philippines. But since you want to move on to such countries as France and Japan where workers in the health sector are highly paid, you need to take examinations such as NCLEX. Or if you’re an agricultural economist from Maine and you have been working at the state Department of Agriculture for 12 years, chances are you will be promoted to state secretary of agriculture if you complete your master’s degree and doctorate.