Where to Hang Your Diploma

Your diploma is a special document which should be hung up where it can be seen. Most people know this. However, a lot of people don't really know where a good place to hang their diploma may be.

Top choices for where to hang diploma frames include:

• Your office or cubicle. If you work in a professional setting then you should frame and hang your diploma where clients can see it.
• Your home office. If you work from home then you should make a spot in your home office for your diploma. It helps remind you of how much you have accomplished.
• Your den. People who don't want to hang their diplomas at work may find a spot in a den at home where it looks good.
• Mom's house. If the diploma doesn't mean enough to you for you to hang it then give it to Mom and Dad. They'll be proud to hang it in their home to show it off for you!

It took time and money to earn that piece of paper. Don't let it just sit in a drawer when it could be hanging in a great frame on your wall instead.

The Importance of Proper Training

About two years ago, my brother-in-law decided that he was going to quit his job as a police officer, which he'd been at for nearly 10 years, and work for a friend who had his own mortgage broker business. The decision was triggered by dissatisfaction with the politics at his police department, but it was a bad move. I don't think he realized how difficult it is to make a living on commissions without having the proper loan officer training.

The business did put him through the minimum training required, of course, but it just wasn't enough for my brother-in-law to understand what he was doing. He needed some more in depth mortgage education, which he didn't get.

In addition, a successful broker usually needs to build a reputation and relationships with real estate agents in the area, so that he can depend on them to send business his way. Like any business where you are dependent on yourself for income, being a mortgage broker requires a lot of marketing yourself, and I just don't think he understood this.

The end result was that after several months working in that office, he still wasn't making enough in commissions to pay his bills and support his kids. He ended up going back to work as a police officer (at a different department), and that ended his short stint as a mortgage broker. I guess there is a lesson in this — to be successful in a career change, you really need to have the proper training to make the change in the first place!

Cooking Schools Start Up the Campfires

One of the things that people working in the cooking industry are starting to realize lately is that it's really important for all chefs to know where their food comes from. They need to have an understanding of how it's grown and where it thrives in order to truly know when it's fresh. Cooking schools and culinary arts academies are taking this to heart and making sure that their students get outside of the classroom and back in touch with nature.

Take a look at the calendars for any local cooking school and there's a good chance that you'll see at least one day scheduled for getting outside. Students may be asked to spend a day working on a local farm. Alternatively, they may be taken out on a camping trip to learn about finding and cooking with native foods. At the very least, they may be asked to get their food from the farmers' market.

Good culinary arts institutes around the nation are making plans to make sure that their students gain a thorough understanding of their food from start to finish. They simply can't make a good finished product if they aren't in tune with the farming and shipping processes that go into getting the food ready for cooking.