As a licensed electrician in Oregon, it is your professional responsibility to renew and maintain the appropriate licensure. Oregon grants various specialized electrical licenses, each of which has its requirements for education and work experience. It is vital to note that while the Oregon CCB (Construction Contractors Board) offers contracting electrical licenses, the Oregon BCD (Building Codes Division) office provides non-contracting electrical licensure. 

Renewing your electrical license does not need to be tedious. At Portland Community College (PCC), we can walk with you every step of the way to ensure you complete your electrician continuing education requirements in time to submit an electrician renewal license application.  

It's easy to start a classroom teaching experience by looking around your room (or virtual "room" in an online class, as it might be) and asking what items would help people learn best in this environment. That is an excellent first thought because it means you don't want to approach teaching casually that doesn't put students on the track to success. However, in modern education, the goal is to go a step further, beyond what would work well for you to what would work well for as many students as possible.

Learning to create inclusive college classroom environments helps you see more students succeed, especially first-generation college students. Doing so also enables you to improve diversity and inclusion in the college classroom and empower everyone to share their experiences and viewpoints. To do so, however, there may be some needed mindset shifts that help you create an inclusive classroom.

Many full-time workers feel like they are at a loss for advancing in their careers when they need their job to make ends meet. The truth is that, even with full-time work, there are ways to move forward by using part-time coursework that aligns with your next career goals.

Managing a class load when pursuing a certificate or degree from Portland Community College is entirely possible. Still, you'll experience your days as less hectic if you do some serious prep before starting the work-plus-school lifestyle. Here is how to balance classes and full-time work because you still want your life to have balance during this busy season! 

While we linger on the difference in earnings between bachelor's degree holders and high school graduates, many people still find themselves in a situation where a four-year, traditional residential bachelor's degree wasn't the right fit after high school. Often, life has carried people to a time when they have to make different calculations than an 18-year-old typically must make when it comes to answering, "Why is college worth the cost?"

While average data can tell us a lot about how education improves outcomes for many people, from access to healthcare to financial stability, it's also essential to think through what you want that education to do for you. If your goals are to progress away from entry-level, less-skilled positions, you need to determine whether a four-year degree will even give you access to those higher-level roles. If you need a particular certificate or credential, that might be much less expensive to obtain while providing a similar result when combined with your prior experience.

Many of the benefits of attending college, things like forming social bonds, may not be your priorities when deciding if college is worth it. Non-traditional students of all kinds can find a valuable way to make post-secondary education work for them.

Here are three ways to make college worth the cost at different stages of life.