Category: Feature Stories

Be The Change! UofL Launches Online Bachelor of Social Work Degree

Be The Change! UofL Launches Online Bachelor of Social Work Degree

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University of Louisville Launches Online Bachelor of Social Work Degree

In a time characterized by heightened social activism, growing interest in social justice, and tension surrounding controversial topics like intolerance and economic inequality, the 21st-century social worker’s role is more important than ever. For those longing to make the world a better place, the University of Louisville and Kent School of Social Work are proud to unveil our 100% online Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) starting in fall 2018.

The Bachelor of Social Work prepares students as social work generalists with special attention to issues of social justice. The knowledge and skills gained in the social work program have a broad range of applications in professional settings such as school systems, hospitals, nonprofits, law enforcement, the legal system and government agencies.

Is Social Work a Fit For You?

Think of times of crisis. On the news, you will see first responders, court officials, and lawyers. But less often seen are those important professionals who work in the background supporting those affected. These are the practitioners helping victims cope with tragedy and advocating for those without a voice.

These are social workers – deeply engaged in the most trying issues we face on a daily basis. It’s a role for the strong-hearted, for those who want to spend their career making genuine, tangible changes in the world. If that sounds like you, then social work is worthy of your consideration.

A Primer on the Social Work Industry

“What’s the industry outlook?” you ask.

Great question!

While many complex factors influence the industry, there are a couple significant trends driving much of the demand for social workers.

1) Aging Baby Boomer Population

By 2030, one out of five Americans will be over the age of 65 and it’s estimated the U.S. will need 70,000 social workers who specialize in geriatric care by 2020 – both in-home care and senior living communities. This includes handling cases of age discrimination, loss and end-of-life concerns, substance abuse, depression, and living with physical challenges.

2) Rising Substance Abuse

As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage our towns and cities, there is growing demand for professionals skilled in areas of drug and alcohol addiction counseling. This is in part due to the Affordable Care Act requiring more health insurance plans to cover substance abuse treatment, as well as courts more frequently sentencing participation in a rehabilitation program as opposed to prison.

UofL’s Bachelor of Social Work program offers a Drug and Alcohol Counseling track for students who have been impacted by the struggles associated with addiction and who have a desire help others win their battles with substance abuse.

Employment Outlook as a Social Worker

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Services, employment of social workers is expected to grow 12% by 2024 – the national average across all industries is 7%. The median annual salary in 2016 was $46,890.

About UofL’s Online Bachelor of Social Work

The online Bachelor of Social Work comprises 120-121 credit hours. Admission requirements to the BSW program differ depending on whether you’re entering the bachelor’s program as a Lower Division or Upper Division student. BSW graduates potentially qualify to enter the Master of Science in Social Work program with advanced standing which reduces the graduation requirements by half.

Transfer opportunities are available. Up to 60 credit hours may be transferred from a regionally-accredited 2-year college and up to 90 hours from a 4-year college. Your academic history can prepare you to move directly into the Upper Division curriculum.

Kent School is accepting applications now, so apply today to start making a genuine difference in your community!

“The Kent School of Social Work is dedicated to educating and empowering the next generation of social workers by preparing them to be the change they want to see.” – Armon R. Perry, Ph.D., MSW and BSW Director

About UofL Online Learning

The University of Louisville currently offers online programs in various areas of study for adult learners who are not able to come to a physical campus, but want to earn a college degree or certificate and advance their career.

The University of Louisville is a nationally-recognized, metropolitan research university, with a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, as well as the intellectual, cultural, and economic development of our diverse community of learners.

5 Reasons to Love Online Learning

5 Reasons to Love Online Learning

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5 Reasons to Love Online Learning This Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day is upon us! From chocolate to flowers to romantic dinners, it’s a time to celebrate the ones we love.

But Valentine’s Day can also be the perfect time to show ourselves some love.

If you’ve been considering a career change or you’re searching for that path to a promotion, revisiting the classroom is a sure bet. Explore these five reasons to love online learning this Valentine’s Day.

1) Flexibility Is As Sweet As Candy

Many online degree and certificate programs are asynchronous — you don’t have to log on at any specific time for group discussions or lectures. That means you can take Valentine’s Day off from school work to spend more time with your sweetheart.

Even though most classes will have specific due dates for assignments and exams, the decision to study at 3pm or 3am is entirely up to you, and you’ll never find yourself losing sleep to stumble in to that 8am class or rushing out of work to get to your evening class on time. You’ll have 24/7 access to all your course materials, lectures, discussion boards, and more to use when you find most convenient and when you’re most in the mindset to learn.

2) Tuition Savings Are Dreamy

Beyond the advantages of flexibility, there are also a number of tuition advantages for online learners.

Take our competency-based Healthcare Leadership track as an example. This program offers a Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), which allows you to apply your life or professional experience toward tuition-free credits. This is essentially like “testing out” of material you’re already familiar with, in order to accelerate your path to graduation.

Similarly, our online RN to Bachelor of Science in Nursing program will help you build a nursing portfolio in which you apply your professional experience toward up to 30 tuition-free credit hours. That’s a potential savings of almost $15,000!

For the many online degree programs that don’t offer a PLA or portfolio benefits, there is always the possibility of employer-sponsored tuition assistance. As of 2012, EdAssist found that 71% of U.S. employers offer some level of tuition assistance to their employees. Even if your company doesn’t have an existing tuition assistance program, it’s worth discussing with human resources, since there is growing emphasis on continuous education and training at most companies in order to retain employees.

Read more: 7 Questions to Ask HR About Tuition Assistance

If you don’t have access to employer tuition assistance, there are lots of scholarship opportunities available, as well as scholarships reserved specifically for adult learners and non-traditional students returning to the classroom.

Last, but not least, transferring credits is a helpful way to save on tuition and more quickly reach graduation. For undergraduate programs, you may transfer credit to UofL from any regionally-accredited university. Graduate credits from accredited institution may be transferred as well — typically, up to six credit hours may count toward your degree requirements.

3) Self Paced Learning = Self Love

Between focusing on your career, raising a family, having a social life, and all the other responsibilities you carry, life can sometimes be hectic. And trying to stack an online degree on top of all that? Right…

The great thing about seeking your degree online is courses are often at least partially self-paced. If you need to reschedule your study time to make it to your kid’s basketball game or school event, you can do just that without worrying about missing a lecture or in-class assignment. If you have a sudden emergency or any of your schedules collide, you can catch up later by watching a recorded lecture or re-arranging your schedule to make time for finishing up those couple chapters of reading.

Long story short: with online learning, you don’t have to choose between your personal life and an education. Show some self-love by giving yourself the flexibility needed to maintain all parts of your life alongside earning a degree.

Read more: How To Get Ahead In Your Online Classes

4) Build Relationships Around the World

Without the common meeting time and face-to-face interaction you find in a traditional education setting, you might be thinking online classes are characterized by isolation and feeling like you’re taking on this challenge alone.

You might be surprised to learn professors are highly-engaged with students through video conferencing, texting, and email, and that virtual study groups, discussion boards, and social media groups offer lots of opportunities to build lasting friendships with students and faculty all across the world. This is especially true in cohort-based programs, in which a group of students moves through the degree program as a single unit. In a cohort, you’ll share classes with many of the same students from semester to semester, so it’s easier to form study groups and friendships even though you’re in an online environment.

Online degree programs are also a breeding ground for professional networking opportunities, because they tend to be more populated by career-oriented adults who may have years of experience in a specific industry or at a company you’re interested in pursuing. There is a great variety of people you could meet in online courses — people from different states, countries, life experiences, careers, leadership levels, and goals — who can enrich your life personally and professionally.

5) Finding New Passions

Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, right? You might feel stuck in your job or burned out with your current career. You might not feel going back to school is an option, since you’re trying to balance a busy home life while working full time.

How can you get that passion back? By trying different things!

Online classes come with a lower investment than a traditional, on-campus format, since you won’t need to completely re-work your life around being on campus throughout the day. That means you can try different classes and experience studying a variety of topics in pursuit of your passion without much interruption in your current day-to-day life.

You can jump around different general education courses to get a feel for psychology, business, the humanities, information technology, and plenty more until you find an area that piques your interest. While that does come with a price tag, of course, can you truly put a dollar amount on the value being happy in your career and living a life of passion?

About UofL Online Learning

The University of Louisville currently offers dozens of online degree and certificate programs in various areas of study for adult learners who are not able to come to a physical campus, but want to earn a college degree or certificate and advance their career.

The University of Louisville is a nationally-recognized, metropolitan research university, with a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, as well as the intellectual, cultural, and economic development of our diverse community of learners.

Life As a Community Health Nurse
Life As a Community Health Nurse

Life As a Community Health Nurse

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Life As a Community Health Nurse

Interested in a career that is dedicated to the health and well-being of the community you serve? Then you may be interested in becoming a community nurse! From educating others on disease prevention to providing clinical care, your efforts will help your community combat common and chronic health problems.

What is Unique About a Community Health Nurse Role?

As a community health nurse — sometimes called population or public health nurses — your role is to provide access to healthcare for the community at large, not just those that seek care in a medical facility. These nurses take healthcare to the people by traveling to neighborhoods with prevention and education efforts, as well offering on-location services specifically designed for those who may not be otherwise able to afford medical care. Serving those in need is the heart of community health nursing.

In this career, your job will include identifying and addressing poor self-care to help your patients lower their health risks as you work to decrease the number of visits to hospitals, ERs and doctors’ offices in the community. This will require a broad knowledge of preventable issues stemming from diet, sexual practices, substance abuse, and social or domestic violence.

Your working environment will range from private homes to community centers, workplaces, clinical care sites and health-related community events. You may also be called upon to provide services during a public emergency or as part of a disaster response plan.

Is the Need for Community Health Nurses Growing?

Yes. As the average life expectancy grows and chronic illnesses increase, community health nurses play critical roles in healthcare education and delivery. Demand is very high, especially for positions that work with vulnerable populations.  More information about the expected growth of this field is available through the Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE), an organization dedicated to serving public health nursing professionals.

According to the American Nursing Association, job opportunities outside of a hospital setting represent one of the four biggest nursing trends. Nursing positions focused on the community — such as in-home care, population health, and chronic care in special facilities — are on the rise. This growth is largely due to the opportunities created in response to the Affordable Care Act and an increased focus on the consumer’s role in their own health.

What Does It Take to Be a Great Community Nurse?

First, it takes passion. Many community nurses believe they have the very best job in the world. On a daily basis, they’re rewarded by seeing the impact they make in the community. From regular interactions with community members, they know they are making a difference.

Being a community health nurse also requires seeing the big picture. Community health nurses seek to change not only individual habits, but also those of entire populations such as women, children, ethnic and cultural groups, those living with diseases like HIV/AIDS, and those with various chronic conditions. Building community education is key in affecting transformational change.

Lastly, great community nurses are curious and creative. They dig deeply to the root causes of health issues and innovate strategic plans to help prevent these problems from growing. As a community nurse, you’ll be working with healthcare delivery, and also leading interventions that address social factors such as poverty, education and institutional bias that limits access to health care. Through addressing the broader spectrum of health and wellness, you will promote social justice by striving to close the healthcare gap for vulnerable communities.

What Will My Day to Day Schedule Be Like?

Depending on your position, you can expect a wide variety of daily tasks. Most of these will fit within a scheduled “9-to-5” work day. Because you are dealing with the broader population, you will not see the scheduling and shift changes traditional clinical care nurses often experience in a hospital setting.

What Can I Expect to Earn Annually?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for a health educator was $53,000 in 2016. However, your earning potential will change based on the community you work in, your individual experiences, and the position you choose.

How Will Having My RN-BSN Degree from University of Louisville Help?

University of Louisville’s online Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RN-BSN) degree is designed specifically for registered nurses who want to take that next step in their career. The entry level requirements for community health educators starts with a bachelor’s degree. Earning your online nursing degree from University of Louisville will not only qualify you for these positions, but will also open the opportunity to chart further career growth and improve your lifetime earning potential.

Another exceptional benefit to pursuing your RN-BSN at UofL is previous work experience can earn you up to 30 credits toward graduation through the program’s professional portfolio – that’s a potential savings of more than $14,000 in tuition!

Learn more about UofL’s online RN-BSN degree and take that next step in your nursing career today!

Preparing for a Career in Civil Engineering
Preparing for a Career in Civil Engineering

Preparing for a Career in Civil Engineering

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Preparing for a Career in Civil Engineering

Gains in the housing market and a push for improving U.S. infrastructure, as well as companies like Amazon looking to expand their geographic footprint, make this a compelling time in the civil engineering world.

Now it’s a very good time to further your education and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. Here’s an overview of what’s happening in the industry—and what you can expect as you earn your Master of Science in Civil Engineering, available 100% online from the J.B. Speed School of Engineering at UofL.

What trends are impacting construction engineering?

In an economy that has seen a lot of flux over the last decade, value still rules the day. Here is an example of how this reality has impacted construction engineering trends — and what tomorrow’s civil engineers may be focused on, according to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

  • Single-design Models shave 20% or more off construction projects by allowing all facets of the engineering, drafting and coordination to be completed under one roof.
  • Prefabrication used to assemble materials off-site is helping construction teams improve project schedules by taking basic construction out of the field. More fabrication is happening before construction elements even show up to the job site.
  • Energy Efficiency is driven by new technologies that allow finished projects to be smarter than ever. For example, sensors regulate energy consumption based on zones, scheduled usage and seasonal considerations.
  • Permanent Modular Construction offers new opportunities to have templated projects go up quickly, eliminating the extra time typically allocated for such work — and with similar or better quality. This is particularly appealing for replicated projects like barracks or storage units, as well as fast-food or retail pop-ups and other scalable outbuildings.

Is the civil engineering industry growing?

Commercial, public and nonresidential projects are on the upswing, fueled by significant industry recovery in recent years. Industry growth is tracking ahead of overall growth across all jobs, a good sign for the immediate future, according to projections from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

What can I expect to earn annually?

According to BLS.gov, the annual salary for a civil engineer in 2016 was over $83,000. This is an averaged salary; your earning may vary based on the scope of your work, experience and the area in which you live.

Will earning my master’s degree in civil engineering help me?

There was a 60% increase in the mandatory requirement for a master’s degree on civil engineering job postings published between 2014 and 2015 (Labor Insights).

Moreover, a strategic initiative called “Raise the Bar” backed by the American Society of Civil Engineers has been designed to advance the profession by raising educational requirements for licensing future engineers. Specifically, “Raise the Bar” recommends that state licensure laws better protect public safety and community welfare by requiring all new civil engineers to hold a master’s degree in engineering or 30 graduate credit hours, beyond the four-year undergraduate degree. ASCE believes the complex challenges facing the industry demand an advancement in technical excellence and professional leadership, with a particular emphasis on growing fields like sustainability, computer applications, advanced materials or nanotechnology.

Earning a master’s degree can help you stay competitive and marketable in the field, secure your current position or advance your career as opportunities for a better job arise.

The master’s in civil engineering program at the University of Louisville can help you align your education with the industry trends and job demands of the future. Our Master of Science in Civil Engineering is offered through J.B. Speed School of Engineering, recently ranked as one of the best graduate schools for engineering in the United States, according to U.S. News and World Report. With our 100% online degree, you have the flexibility to maintain your professional and personal life, while joining UofL’s learning community from anywhere in the world.

If you have already earned your bachelor’s in civil engineering, you can take advantage of this online degree program now to enhance your skills and expertise within the civil engineering profession.

Learn more and apply today to start down the path to Master of Science in Civil Engineering degree!

About UofL Online Learning

The University of Louisville currently offers online programs in various areas of study for adult learners who are not able to come to a physical campus, but want to earn a college degree or certificate and advance their career.

The University of Louisville is a nationally-recognized, metropolitan research university, with a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, as well as the intellectual, cultural, and economic development of our diverse community of learners.

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