Southwestern Advantage Blog

As a college student, you know internships are important. You know there are many to choose from. So, how will you find the right one for you? How will you become the right person for them ? How will your internship springboard you into a fulfilling post-grad career? Let’s start here... 3 Qualities of a Great Internship Challenge You may have expected “experience” to be first on the list, so why would challenge rank higher? Ask yourself this – wouldn’t the more challenging internships offer you better experience by default? Wouldn’t a future employer be more interested in your history of taking on challenges? The fact is, dealing with challenge is synonymous with meaningful experience. The bigger the challenges the better the experience. Don’t be fooled by that “internship in the fashion industry” where the day-to-day responsibility is to fold t-shirts at the mall, or the glamorous experience interning in Manhattan on Wall Street where the day-to-day responsibility is to pou...

As an alumna of their sales & leadership program , I obviously loved the Southwestern Advantage products and believed in their effectiveness in reaching students.  Now, as an educator, I am even more convicted in the Southwestern Advantage products. I currently teach third and fourth grade students in a small school in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.   Most of my students have never been past a two hour radius of their home.   I try to incorporate as many “real-world” experiences to my students as possible while still reaching all the standards that are required.   I have found in my years of teaching that kids LOVE non-fiction books.   As a teacher, so do I.   Books about animals, space, and our Earth are so interesting to kids who love learning.   My students choose to use their free-time in the classroom reading the Explore and Learn and Ask Me books from Southwestern Advantage.   They are always quick to tell me the new facts they...

I grew up in a community where if you didn’t get along with someone, the advice we heard from our elders was, "Learn how to." If we had trouble working with someone, the teacher purposely assigned us to a group so that we would have to work together. My parents insisted that I learn to work my problems out. They didn’t call other parents to complain about our problems and how they could fix them. I was disciplined by my parents whenever I lacked self-discipline -- when I was disrespectful to others, when I didn't do my share of the chores, or when I got poor grades. Did I like it at the time? Nope; but now as an adult, I'm grateful for it. And now, as and educator, I increasingly see the opposite approach growing into a dangerous parenting trend. Every parent wants to see their children happy, safe, and successful. Teachers want the same for their students. However, the growing hurdle is the mindset that if a child gets upset, the parent(s) should step in and fix...

From the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2013, I lived in the Rocky Mountain states. I spent one year in Montana, one year in Wyoming, and one year in Colorado. Now, if you’ve ever been out that way, you know two things: 1) it’s absolutely beautiful, and 2) it’s not very densely populated, especially Montana and Wyoming. One thing that this means is that to visit any city other than the one where you live, you have to drive at least an hour, sometimes three or four. I don’t know about you, but I get highway hypnosis pretty bad if I don’t keep my mind occupied while I’m on the road. So, when I would drive anywhere, I liked to call people on the phone. As you can imagine, though, sparsely populated areas don’t have the best reception. (If you don’t believe me, just watch any wireless provider commercial—the coverage maps are almost non-existent over the Rockies.) This led to some fairly awkward phone conversations. “Guess what happened? <static static> bro...