Featured Alumni

As a young entrepreneur I never wanted to find a job and work for a company. I just wanted to own my company. These days I hear that a lot. Someone asks little Timmy what he wants to be when he grows up, “Own my own business.” Everyone says great and just carries a long. Well I realized a few years back that owning your own business is a lot more complicated than that.

I needed to get a Business Administration Degree, or else I was never going to reach my goal of “owning my own business.” Well I’m almost there. I haven’t got my Business Administration Degree yet, but I’m already starting my own business. And on just the start-up I’m very happy I have all of the knowledge I’ve learned so far. I don’t think I would have made it this far without learning how to really run a business.

My theory is if you know how to run a business, then you know the proper way for it to be set-up. And it’s also a whole heck of a lot easier to set it up.

Today’s world is changing, and you’ve got to know what you’re doing just to keep up with the changes that are going on out there. Mark Cuban recently asked on his blog for a good idea for a new product or business that needs his money. Hundreds of people out there have submitted in-the-works ideas, but few have been chosen.

The point is 5 years ago that would have never happened. With the Business Administration Degree that I’m getting from Hubbard College, I feel like I have the ability to survive in this crazy business world.

Redmond, Student at Hubbard College

What Makes Hubbard College’s Associate Degree Different from Other Business Administration Degrees?

My experience at the Hubbard College of Administration (HCA) has been different in many ways than any prior school I’ve attended: The New York Collective, Hollywood’s MI (Musician’s Institute), you name it. At other schools I registered for each semester and then was burdened by the class schedule: One class at 10:30 another at 1:00 and then one at 6.  And that’s just one day! So I’d end up having too much time to kill between class, usually not very productive time as I’d be on campus, away from my home where I had other things to tend to.

When I started HCA I was happy to find out that they have a self-paced college degree, which you study in a classroom at your own pace. So I could make my own schedule and not be restricted. Here’s how it works: there are 4 periods per day, each about 2 hours long, one in the morning, two in the afternoon and one after dinner. (I currently go for the 2 afternoon periods 1-6pm with a break between for some food) Some others who work all day do the night period after dinner, so they can still get a degree without having to quit work and get a student loan.

So whatever schedule conflicts I have– jury duty, flat tire, meteor shower, etc… I can always put in my time at school. It’s great, the more periods I put in each week, the faster my degree goes. It depends on me, hey that’s novel… Now I’m getting my associate degree at Hubbard College on my own time!

Cassidy Turbin, Student at Hubbard College

I find it helpful that upon completion of each course on my business administration degree I’m immediately put onto an apprenticeship with a working professional in that field. Be it PR, organizational patterns or marketing, I’m introduced to new aspects of that field as well as practice the theories and tools I learn on my course. The apprenticeships also open up the door to more career opportunities and let me work in any given field for a week or two, building my portfolio before even finishing school!

Just recently after finishing my PR course I went to apprentice at a company and ended up learning how to do a formal case study and write press releases. At first when I was told that I’d be interviewing clients, designing and writing a case study and then writing press releases, I was stumped. I didn’t learn that on my course… That’s why I guess there are apprenticeships here. I got to put tools from my course to use when interviewing their clients for the case studies and in interviewing the clients I learned a lot about the retail business.

I came out at the end with a great final product. I was even offered a job there once I complete my associate degree!

Cassidy Turbin, Student at Hubbard College

Being Able to Command Doesn’t Mean You Have to Be the Boss

Have you been to a restaurant or something where the manager just freaks out to the employee for not doing something according to how the manager wants it to go?
Or have you ever seen a housewife abuse her maid for no apparent logical reason?

You don’t get things done well by treating people like animals.

Even though media and TV try to let you believe that all humans are like animals, this is not the reality. Humans are able to think about situations and often enough come to rational solutions how to handle them.

So why is it that some people have a ton of followers and some people can’t even get anything done through their friends?

A lot of the time it’s just defined as an X-factor, someone just has it or not. But I believe you can learn anything.

A few utilities one can keep in mind when you want to get something done through someone else:

•    Have good manners, this consists of communicating in a clear and understanding way and showing that the other person has an importance.

•    Have a reason to actually need the person to do it, and reflect that reason to him so he knows why.

•    Make sure the command has an ethically and morally correct action; else you are risking the person’s perception of right and wrong.

•    Be confident and show it, you must really have your intention on the command. You WANT it done. Not in a forceful way, but in a very strong confidence.

These are actually things you have to just apply to really see how it works; just reading it on my blog and knowing it won’t actually get you anywhere.

As I have pointed out several times, application of the actual learned theory is what makes you capable in this business world today.

In my business administration degree I had communication drills; this actually makes you able to confront people better. It’s just continually training your leadership and ability to get things done.

This has all the knowledge you need to know about communication, what does it consist of and how do you use it correctly?

My favorite course was the sales training, you get about 26 drills that you keep doing until YOU feel comfortable about it. The other communication courses were a lot of fun too, you get to really connect with the other students this way also.

Every entrepreneur has a little insecurity about starting out and getting to command all these people, it takes some responsibility and confront which this training can really boost for you.

Jerome Garot
quejay@gmail.com

Jerome Garot - Student at HCA

Because Trampolines Get Boring Soooooo Fast

You don’t get stuck on a trampoline or a rollercoaster just in life. Businesses can get into this seemingly endless cycle themselves.

Where many people would say “Oh, well that’s life….”, I would say “Let’s find a solution” and go out and handle any problems that have come my way.

I wasn’t always like this, in the past I would just avoid the problem, go around it, or just accept its existence and live with it. This is what most people do, most of my friends at home too. This isn’t the right thing to do I’ve realized.

As long as a problem goes unhandled, it will keep you under in some way or another. It might just be a little extra weight, but could also be your biggest barrier to succeeding in life in general.

So what made me change that way of handling life? In studying for a business administration degree, you learn to organize so that problems don’t happen very easily. Now what if it explains it in such a way that makes it able to even apply it in your life?

Many see work as the biggest annoyance in life, but that just means they don’t get their job well enough and they haven’t organized it in a way that makes it enjoyable for them.

There are certain very basic laws in this world that hold you back, it’s not bad luck, it’s not the weather, it’s often a hidden suppressive source.

The Hubbard College gave me these really great solutions to everyday problems that help me in widening my capabilities in choosing a career and pursuing it. It has removed a lot of barriers for me and made me realize that the sky is not the limit. In fact there is no limit whatsoever.

Jerome Garot
quejay@gmail.com

Jerome Garot - Student at HCA

Because When You Flip a Coin in Your Career, You Often Find Yourself on the Ground Looking – for Both

Isn’t it just frustrating when you don’t know what to do? What do you base your decisions on? Money? Family? Pleasure? And after looking back, was it the right thing to base your decision off on? In life you can find yourself looking at some major decisions, attaining a college degree, buying a house, walking up to that girl you like… So how do we decide on these things? Usually friends or family who ‘know all about it’ enlighten us on these decisions, but who says they made the right decision in the first place?

Now I’m not saying to be a rebel and go against everything others say, my mom still tells me what I should bring with me when I go on a date. (Awkward cough.)

- I’m just saying that with all this data in life, you should be able to get the valuable data from it and then decide on your OWN what the right decision is. Kind of like a filter.

If the question “HOW?!” just popped in your head, don’t worry. I’ll explain.

Personal and career development is something that takes some people a lifetime to figure out, the biggest question often being “Who am I?”. Some are not even real to themselves. They have no direction in life, and just don’t know what to do!

In my previous blog I talked a little about leadership, every person being one in one form or another. It is important that people know this.

- When they say “I can’t be a leader.”, they are wrong because they are already one!

Now when you make a decision by yourself, you must have some code that you reason with to make it seem logical. You have it right this moment, the question is, is it an ethical one? Is it right?

Even as a CEO, you have your business administration degree, all this knowledge, but who is benefitting from your decisions? Just you? Or the whole company?

I have learned in one of the earlier and easiest but very beneficial courses, a logical code to think with that I can follow in making almost any decision in life and business. It looks at all aspects and doesn’t leave anything out, you truly get to see what is best for the most number of aspects.

The courses at the Hubbard College are all unique in their own way, and this is just another of my experiences with them.

Jerome Garot
quejay@gmail.com

Business Administration degrees from HCA

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover, and Never Judge a Businessman by His Suit

Have you ever seen a “suit” who just doesn’t produce, but still makes a lot of money? (If you’re thinking about Michael Scott from the Office, erase it and think of someone YOU know in your vicinity.) And on the other hand, have you seen someone who works his or her butt off who doesn’t get paid a dime?

- Maybe this might even be you. A hard working student who gets a B, compared to the cheating student who gets straight A’s. It’s not fair.

I’ve seen it happen a lot, where someone works at a company for a long time and he wants to start making more money, because he’s increasing his life, maybe buy a house, get married, etc. He’s working at this company for 10 years and STILL the promotion depends on how nice he is to the boss or how close he is related to him.

Now this just isn’t right.

A position in a company should not be based on this; neither should it be on your knowingness about things. It should be based on PRODUCTION.

- What can you produce that is valuable to the company and thus making you a valuable asset to the company?

If you’re looking at continuing education after high school, or just getting a business administration degree after your college, the Hubbard College is a great college to teach you the accurate way of doing business and being a professional. In addition they provide 100% job placement after graduating the associate degree.

What I like about this, is that the companies who are associated with the college base their promotion and salary on statistics – actual recordings of the production amount.

- Most of the companies are from old graduates/alumni and apply the business administration technology that the school gives. (And they are really nice guys too, makes you see a different side of businessmen and women.)

So yeah, this has helped many of my graduated friends get started in the business world, it makes it way easier than just being thrown out in the real world after 4 years like most colleges/universities do.

Jerome Garot
quejay@gmail.com

Jerome Garot - Student at HCA

The Difference Between “Business in Books”, and Business in the Real World

When looking at the current state of affairs in the business world, one can’t help but wonder where it all went wrong. For many politicians, pointing their finger and blaming innocent organizations seems to be their solution. This all makes it pretty obvious that they’re just trying to ignore their responsibility for ruining the economy and the lives of people who are part of it.

Right now, being able to DO things goes a lot further than being able to just KNOW things. This is what students and entrepreneurs must be focusing on in choosing a career to pursue.

I’ve been interested in business administration for several years and had some college experience back in The Netherlands, where I’m originally from, and I couldn’t find myself being able to actually apply what I had learned and had been taught (but apparently did get a good grade on).

• Many of my friends just want to get their business administration degree and then start making some money. This traps them in the “9 to 5 drag”.

• Their education gives them nothing that they can think with for themselves and then need to be worked in for 2 years at a company from which they never seem to be able to leave from.

• They didn’t learn the fundamentals of expansion in life nor in business.

• They can’t confront expansion, because they never really learned HOW to do it, and what it actually consists of.

I left after my first year at The Hague College and moved to Los Angeles by myself to start a program at a school that really caught my attention. This was the Hubbard College of Administration (HCA). After my initial orientation at the college, I just knew this was different than anything I had ever encountered before.

I started immediately when I received my student VISA and after one year I have been sent out to numerous businesses to apply each theory course in the real business world.

Thanks to this different way of educating, I actually have the confidence that I will be able to use everything I have learned.

I am currently finishing my Associate Degree and am going to pursue Consultant Programs right here at HCA.

Jerome Garot

Cassidy Turbin - Student at HCA

Hello all, this is my first blog post for the Hubbard College. Through these following blogs you can find how I use what I learned at the school in my career training to help me with my business plans.

To give you a little information about myself I’m a 22-year old musician (Multi-instrumentalist.) and live in Los Angeles. I am a freelance musician, meaning I play for people who pay me to record or perform with them. I also have been teaching private music lessons for the last 8 years both from my own studio location as well as from a music school in Pasadena and a private school in Canoga Park.

About 3 years ago I became more interested in how I could get more work as a musician and how to increase my student roster and keep them coming in. I wanted to finally have that waiting list I dreamed about. I started doing various things, i.e. student referral rewards, Internet ads, etc. to promote myself and found the business side of my lessons to be rather hit-or-miss. Sometimes my promo would work and other times I’d lose money printing. So I started reading business magazines and finance articles in magazines but nothing seemed to help as they only addressed problems large corporations had. I needed something more basic that could be applied from the top down; something that could apply to an individual’s career all the way up to a large corporation.

I was invited about a year ago to one of Hubbard College’s Talent Café nights to play some music and got an idea after taking a tour, of the self-paced college degree they offer. I before had considered going to one of the many California Colleges to get some sort of Business Administration Degree, but I had just finished a year earlier, the Musician’s Institute and felt it was time to get my career on the move. I liked the idea of coming to a college and studying on my own schedule, there in the school. So I signed up for the degree program!

Now I’m almost done with my program here at the Hubbard College only a year later… Sure beats a 4-year degree!

Through my blog posts you’ll read about my successes in applying the courses I’ve taken here. Enjoy what’s to come in my future posts.

Cassidy Turbin