Professor Elam

Monday Sept  10 2012

One student built on my idea about re thinking college. She suggests that a stepping stone process following the nursing model I suggested is the way to go. This makes lots of sense for accounting. There is a designation as Certified Bookkeeper. That would be the first rung on the ladder. One might move on to a specialty or perhaps CMA or CIA. 

Here is her suggestion.

 In your blog here you discuss the possibilities if there were a certification program like in nursing. I think that it is a great idea. In the concept of nursing, which was something that I was originally interested in high school, they have what they call the stepping stone process. In this process you start off as a CNA (Certified Nurse Assistant) with some careful watching, some experience, and testing you move up to the LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) which gives you more responsibilities, more freedom on your own, more experience and after some more testing you move up to RN (Registered Nurse) which is the highest in nursing besides a nurse practitioner who is almost considered a doctor. It would be a great idea for something like this in every field because like you said in the statistics most students end up dropping out. If there was a program where you could get tested on your knowledge and get some certification then maybe we would have less unemployment, because it would provide many job opportunities. It would also save the economy because there are some jobs that are big and some that small. Although the more educated individual could do the big and small jobs, it would give opportunities to people who have some knowledge of the subject at hand and are certified in that subject. This would be opportunities for them to get experience which almost all employers want but it would also be a little cheaper for the consumer as well. The more educated individuals would probably cost more for their services and time which is understandable but if you could get the same job done by hiring a certified person as you could from someone who holds the degree of course you would go with the cheaper of the two. That is like buying a pepperoni pizza just to pick off all the pepperonis and throw them away. Why would you not just buy the cheese pizza which is a little cheaper in the first place and it doesn’t have the pepperonis.