Kettering University Offers Co-Op Education

The following is a sponsored blog entry.

When it comes to making money and creating wealth, many will argue that having a solid education is the best way to start. Choosing the best college or university is a chore many high school seniors and others face yearly. One university, Kettering, offers top notch engineering co-op programs as well as industrial engineering programs. US News and World Report has ranked Kettering University as "the #1 University in the nation for Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering" in its annual "America's Best Colleges Guide for 2008".

The school, located in Flint, Michigan, is helpful because it places freshmen students with companies to help them start gaining real world work experience. Kettering's class leading Co-op programs rotate students between school and their co-op job, alternating every 3 months to help give students valuable work experience. It's always best to decide early about what profession or job field you may want to get into, or stay out of. The co-op programs at Kettering will help greatly with that. Not only that, but Kettering's co-op program will give students relevant work experience on their resume, which can help with landing a job upon graduation, or they may even continue with a company they were placed at. Finding a job or job security are great benefits and this university could very well provide them to students.

Among other notable features, Kettering includes a "wired" campus, meaning the Thompson Hall dormitory is already set for students to plug right into hi-speed internet in their dorm rooms (PC/Windows support only). As for clubs and activities, Kettering offers a great variety, including hockey, karate, the Bulldog Band, scuba diving, cycling club and the Campus Crusade for Christ. Their campus is convenient to great local activities including Flint Cultural Center, Flint Farmer's Market and the Flint Generals Hockey team.

For students looking to gain real world work experience and test the waters of their prospective job field, Kettering looks like a very helpful option in terms of mapping out and acquiring a career.

Google Adsense Got You Down? Try These 5!

Like many other bloggers I've noticed a significant recent drop in Google Adsense click payouts. My best guess is this reduction comes due to the "Google Smart pricing" or even the poor economy. It could be a sign of advertisers cutting back on spending, and it makes you wonder if it will hurt the big G come stock report time. It makes for a great case to implement other advertising and money making ideas in the interim though. So what other alternatives could you use if Google earnings have taken a dip?

Here's 5 programs to consider:

1 - ShoppingAds - Places eBay style ads on your site. Get paid per click and per action (such as ebay signups and auctions). Minimum payout is $50, so it may take a while to see your first check, depending how you implement it.

2 - WidgetBucks - Puts animated widgets on your site. Allows for different payout based on visitors to your site from US or outside. Like ShoppingAds, minimum payout is $50, so it may take a while to see your first check, depending how you implement it.

3 - Amazon Associates - Get paid commission/referral fee if someone goes to Amazon through a link you've provided on your site, and buys something.

4 - Linkshare or Commission Junction - Affiliate programs which offer all sorts of lead and commission payments. For example, if someone joins Netflix or Gamefly through your link, you are given anywhere from $7 to $15. CJ's minimum payout is $25.

5 - Alternates to Adsense (Yahoo, Bidvertiser) - if you have multiple sites why not experiment on a site that doesn't perform as well with Adsense. Try Bidvertiser as it gives you a lower minimum before payout ($10).

View these and other recommended ways to make money online!

Those are 5 alternatives to experiment with if you've seen a drop in recent Adsense money. The first two, ShoppingAds and Widgetbucks give you click payout just as Adsense, and they can be run in addition to it. The #5 choices should be used carefully as they replace Adsense and may end up paying you less. But it's always smart to keep a few other moneymakers going, just in case. Experimentation will help your blog keep going along as a business, even when Google (or the economy) seems to be slumping quite a bit. And of course, if you have the time, try paid article writing (AssociatedContent, PayPerPost, ReviewMe) or Cash Crate surveys.

How to Catch a Leprechaun & Make Money!

Happy St Patrick's day to all readers of the Monetizer blog!! What better a day to be in the make money online spirit, then the day of Irish luck, gold coins, leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow! Some may even go so far as to try to build a leprechaun trap to get one of the mini Irish potato-loving creatures. According to legend, their weakness is fear of capture. So if you do catch one, they may be forced to give up their pot of gold! Just keep in mind, leprechauns despise the truly greedy people of the world, so be careful!

On a serious money making tip, today's a great day to get into the habit of seeing that there is an abundance of wealth in the world..Some may call it greed, while others call it the true attitude towards becoming rich! Rather than seeing the world as a place of scarcity where you have to scrap and scrape to save money, why not dream big, realizing there's plenty of money for those who are dedicated to attaining wealth?

The Monetizer is a green character, and everything around you should be green today, so this won't be a tough assignment at all..Start seeing the abundance of green and money there is in your world, then bring that attitude back as you dive into making money online! Just make sure you aren't green with envy over what others have! Realize that the green will be lining your wallets and bank accounts as you work harder online! This may seem overly optimistic, but it's the attitude of many successful entrepreneurs, including Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, and Wallace Wattles, the author of "The Science of Growing Rich".

If you need additional ideas for celebrating, order yourself a green bagel, green salad, green beer at the pub, or have a movie marathon and watch the Leprechaun Pot of Gore Collection (5 DVD Set). They will show you the determined Leprechaun character who pursues that elusive gold coin, and does everything in his powers to retrieve it! The movies will also give you an idea what happens if you steal a leprechaun's gold or try to capture one! (Warning: these movies aren't for the squeamish or easily frightened viewers!)

Happy St. Patrick's day, and the Luck O' the Irish to all!

(Image above courtesy of FunDraw.com)

Creative Blogging Leads to Success

The Monetizer heard a lot about the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki, who's been featured as a financial guest speaker on CNBC, and is well known as a business-savvy friend of Mr. Donald Trump. Unfortunately, that first book in the series wasn't available at the bookstore, so I picked up book 3 in his series, Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!. Aside from the long title, its a book nearing 400 or so pages and packed with interesting anecdotes and tips. Now this book doesn't just relate to playing the stock market, finding the next hot company to invest in, or flipping real estate, but it also offers a very valuable piece of info relating to online business ventures.

One of the underlying keys of the book is that Rich dad points out you want to be on the Business/Investor side of the equation rather than the Employee/Student side of things. In other words you don't want to be working for someone else, because that won't get you rich as quickly. His best tip is that the best investments are not the ones you buy (like stocks or land), but rather the ones you create. And that may mean a farm full of livestock, hand knitted blankets, wooden furniture, a flying car, a full-fledged business, and even a website. Under website also falls the blog, which we all know can be quite the moneymaking tool, and in fact a business. The blog is your creation and can basically be done with little or no initial investment, making it a very smart choice for those who love to write and feel creative juices flowing. All you need is your brain, some time, effort and Blogspot or Wordpress to get it going. Or you could choose to invest a little and buy a domain with hosting, taking a bit more risk.

We are a long ways from the profitable industrial age, and now in the extremely profitable information age. If you think of some of the wealthiest and youngest entrepreneurs around, they are the people behind major, successful websites or technology ventures. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, the Google guys...they all dreamed big and used internet real estate, creativity and an underlying desire to drive their products all the way to mainstream success. John Chow, Darren Rowse, Shoemoney and countless others have done so, or are doing so with blogs at this moment. There's no reason you or I can't do the same.

It always perplexes me when I see people doing blog entries about "Adsense doesn't work" or "well my blog isn't working out". The main reason I feel that they are even typing these statements, is a lack of passion or creative drive (which nobody really lacks). It's ok to point out the occasional mishaps or mistakes/failures, but giving up before you even see success is in my opinion the wrong way to go. Tapping into your creative thoughts and passions will almost always be rewarding. Having a blog in a niche can open up plenty of opportunities for other ventures as well via networking, collaboration and continued effort towards your blog.

I recommend to the people who are having trouble finding inspiration to continue with their blogging and online ventures, do more reading. Books like The Secret, "The Science of Getting Rich" and Think and Grow Rich!: The Original Version, Restored and Revised are 3 I'd recommend which should supercharge you to start acting upon your passions and pursuing success.