How to help my dad go back to school

Hello everyone! I’m not sure where the right place to post this is but I’m giving it a shot.

My dad is in his late 40’s and is a really smart, hard working individual. He’s worked extremely hard to get where he is now and make the money that he does. His family didn’t have the money to get him into college when he graduated high school and back then, there wasn’t much of a push to go to college either so he never went and just went right into working. He’s worked so much that he was able to get me through college and is now doing the same with my younger brother.

Recently, he’s had a lot of time on his hands as well as options to move up within his job and make more money but he’s found that a lot of his growth is being hindered by not having some sort of degree. He’s expressed to me that if he could go back to school and get an associates, he would. It definitely interests him, the idea of having a college degree and with how he talks to me about it, I can easily tell that having a college degree is an accomplishment he wants for himself...

BUT: my dad has some conditions that need to be met in order for him to actually go forward with this, which is why I’m here asking for help because I wouldn’t know what schools do what he’s asking for and how to go about this process.

Here we go: The class needs to be strictly online. That’s non negotiable for him. To put this into perspective, My dads job involves a lot traveling at a moments notice. One minute he’s home and the next minute there’s a job out in Oklahoma that needs him there in less than 72 hours. Sometimes he can predict when he’s leaving, other times not so much. And he could be in Tennessee on Tuesday, Louisiana on Saturday and home in New Jersey by Monday morning. This may seem like he’s constantly busy, but he’s not. My dad does have a lot of free time when he’s not on a job and due to a recentish promotion, he’s home more than I’ve ever seen him my entire life.

Because of his unpredictable job, my dad cannot attend an in person college and the same goes for an online zoom/lecture class. He does not want to have the obligation to show up for an online lecture/zoom call because he will not be able to keep up with attendance when his class is at 8pm EST and he’s on an airplane to California and won’t be landing until 6pm PST. He could easily do class work and listen to recorded lectures on the airplane though!

My dad wants to go to a “real, credited college. Not a diploma hand-out school”. I feel like this is self explanatory.

He does not want to attend a school that has tests you need to show up in person for. If you don’t know what these are, a lot of schools will have you take majority of the class online but when it comes to the final exam or midterm, they require you to show up at a special location like your local community college and take the test publicly with verifications that my dad is who he says he is (think SATS). Again, this falls back on the unpredictability of his job and the fear of being unable to show up for an important test and failing it because he cannot just tell his boss of over a decade “sorry I can’t take this job in Michigan, I have a test at 5pm that day at my local library”. That will not fly.

Lastly, my dad wants to get an associates in business/management. He wants to avoid core classes as much as possible (I already told him everyone takes core classes and to suck it up) but obviously if this can be avoided, would love to know!

If anyone knows of any online schools that are credible, legit, and have this type of flexibility that he’s looking for, please let me know. I know my dad has a ton of conditions that may make the process of finding a school a little harder, which has discouraged him from seriously looking into this, but I think there has to be some college out there that will work around his time and pace. My dad spent his life working and pushing my brother and I to go to college and further our education because he was never able to. Now I feel like it’s my turn to give back in some way to him and change his thinking from “I was never able to go” to “I went and I did it”.

Any help is appreciated and if there is any advice you’d like to drop about what it’s like going back, the application process, the process in general, things I or my dad should know, please tell us. Thank you everyone!!

Submitted September 30, 2020 at 08:37PM by gamergirl0218 https://ift.tt/34gPf3B