Learning doesn't end when you pick up your diploma. Continuing education is a must in the working world these days, whether you are fresh out of school or well into your career.
UW-Madison is a great place to strengthen your skills as an environmental professional or to simply explore a personal environmental interest. Continuing education here takes many forms: Short courses, workshops, and independent study programs are plentiful. They last from a couple of hours to several weeks or longer and range in price from $10 to well over $1,000. Some come right to your home. Most offer continuing education credits.
Whether you seek professional development, personal enrichment, or both, consider the following programs:
The College of Engineering's Department of Engineering Professional Development offers many short technical courses with environmental emphases, and not just for engineers. Some sample titles: Design for the Environment, Cogeneration Technology, Environmental Analysis of Highway Projects, Diagnosing Indoor Air Quality Problems, and Horizontal Wells for Environmental Remediation.
Choose from scores of Executive Education professional seminars offered by the School of Business, including: Project Management, Strategic Planning, How to Work More Effectively with People, and Futures, Creativity, Innovation!
The Small Business Development Center in the School of Business helps people in small public or nonprofit organizations as well as in small businesses with courses such as The Basics of Financial Management, Do-it-Yourself Market Research, and Promote Your Product or Service.
The Division of Continuing Studies serves up hundreds of professional and personal enrichment courses for people who love to learn. Examples: Grants Development, Community Fundraising, Creating Your Home Page on the Web, Publicity: Media Relations, and Preparing Effective Presentations.
The University of Wisconsin-Extension's Learner Resource Center points to management training information for people in the nonprofit sector.
The Learning Innovations program of UW-Extension and the UW System offers nearly 600 correspondence courses at different academic levels. Want to learn a foreign language? Here you can study more than a dozen of them, from Arabic to Russian, without leaving home.
Distance Learning. More than 150 courses, from many University of Wisconsin campuses, are available via e-mail, the Web, the Educational Teleconference Network, cable TV, CD, and other "distance learning" media. Environmental topics include Water Resource Management Issues and Sociology and the Environment.
The Environmental Resources Center offers several courses statewide via Wisconsin's Educational Teleconference Network. Topics have included community hazardous waste management, sustainable community development, and community watershed education for youths.
CALS Extension and Outreach. The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) offers short programs in erosion control, water management, and other natural resource concerns.
Wisconsin Union Mini Courses. A campus tradition for decades, these popular non-credit courses cover everything from bicycle maintenance and sailing techniques to bird watching and family wilderness adventures. If you are not a current student, faculty, or staff member, you must belong to (or join) the Wisconsin Union to enroll.