Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Dr. Lauren Daly - Chief Academic Advisor for CollegeHacked.com
21 Plays17 days ago
Dr. Lauren Daly had her sights set on medical school but she saw an opportunity to improve the way classes were taught. Her desire to help people learn as opposed to just take their money and throw them into the machine of higher learning, took her down a different path. Now, Dr. Daly is half of the dynamic duo at CollegeHacked.com. She, together with Dr. Clifford Stumme, produce quality content about how to get an online education for a fraction of the cost and time traditional college takes. They do deep dives into the numerous options for an online education as well as ancillary learning sites like Study.com, Sophia learning, CLEP exams and more. If you are considering a degree, no matter your age or stage in life, you MUST check out their Youtube channel @CollegeHacked or their website for more info. Thanks Dr. Lauren!
If you liked this episode and would like to support the show, you can do so HERE. Thanks!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to College Hacked with Dr. Lauren Daly
00:00:01
The Jobs Podcast
Hey folks, you're listening to the jobs podcast. I am your host, Tim Hendricks. I am excited about the interview today. Dr. Lauren Daly is half of the dynamic duo over there at college hacked. If you haven't checked out their YouTube channel and you're looking for college information, career information, education information, you have to check their website out collegehack.com and look up their YouTube channel. It is a gold mine.
00:00:27
The Jobs Podcast
So welcome Dr.
Dr. Lauren's Educational Background
00:00:28
The Jobs Podcast
Lauren. Thanks for joining me today.
00:00:30
Lauren Daly
Thanks. What a glowing introduction.
00:00:31
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, yeah, yeah. try to make people look good when they're on the show. Now, your counterpart over there, Dr. Clifford Stummy, he's, you guys kind of tag team the whole college hack thing. Is that right?
00:00:42
Lauren Daly
It is right.
00:00:43
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Well, let's start off. I always start
Transition from Medicine to Educational Reform
00:00:46
The Jobs Podcast
off with a little bit of an origin story about where my guests, they were born, their upbringing, and just kind of gives ah a little bit of a snapshot into who you are.
00:00:55
The Jobs Podcast
And let's just kind of start where you were born and go from there.
00:00:58
Lauren Daly
Sure. So I was born ah in San Diego, California, to a conservative Christian family, and I was homeschooled all the way through, well I guess up to high school.
00:01:02
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:01:08
Lauren Daly
So think that was a big part of my upbringing and my academic journey because I mostly took oral exams with my mom. She would ask me questions. And so when I got to high school and I started taking proper exams, I had no exam-taking skills really at all. And that was not necessarily a failure on her part, but more of just kind of a learning process for both of us, I think.
00:01:26
Lauren Daly
um And I'm still that way where I would much prefer to give a presentation or do an oral exam. But but yeah, so those are that's that's where I grew up and was born and how it all started.
00:01:35
The Jobs Podcast
What part of San Diego? Because I went to Point Loma in San Diego.
00:01:38
Lauren Daly
Oh, nice. Yeah, I was over in Spring Valley, so more on the the eastern side of of the city. But yeah, you were out in like pretty pretty places.
00:01:44
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. yeah Well, yeah, it was nice. I couldn't afford to live there for too long, but you know I'm in Missouri now, so that tells you a lot. but So, yeah.
00:01:52
Lauren Daly
Very expensive.
00:01:54
The Jobs Podcast
So, you were homeschooled. How far into your education were you homeschooled? All the way through high school or?
00:02:00
Lauren Daly
up to high school and then I went to a private Christian high school.
00:02:03
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, okay. So after high school, did you know you were going to go to college or what kind of, how did that all play out?
00:02:11
Lauren Daly
Hey, great question. My mom had a famous saying in our household. She would always say, college isn't for everyone, but it's for you. So it was predetermined that I would be going to college. But um I got pretty lucky, I think, because when I was in high school, I took an AP biology class that just kind of on a whim, it shocked both my parents. They were like, are you sure you want to take on so much? You're doing your yearbook, you're playing golf, you're doing all these other things. It seems like academically it might be really challenging. And for some reason, I was very drawn to it.
00:02:39
Lauren Daly
And so i went through that class, and I totally fell in love with science. And so my goal became to go to medical school. And so you know I was already going to go to college anyway, so it just became a matter of putting the pieces together to get the prereqs for medical schools.
00:02:52
The Jobs Podcast
Did you know what area in medicine you wanted to to zero in on?
00:02:56
Lauren Daly
Yes, I'm very ADHD. I love to treat chaotic problems and and bring order in the midst of chaos. So I was thinking emergency department all the way. I can either admit or discharge you and never see you again.
00:03:04
The Jobs Podcast
Oh,
00:03:07
The Jobs Podcast
nice. So just constant constant chaos and excitement.
00:03:08
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:03:12
Lauren Daly
Exactly.
00:03:12
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. So where did you shift gears to? Cause you're obviously not in medical school now. How did that
00:03:18
Lauren Daly
Yes.
Joining College Hacked and Educational Insights
00:03:19
The Jobs Podcast
transpire?
00:03:20
Lauren Daly
Yeah, it was a ah long drawn out process of self-discovery for sure. I loved science, but as I progressed through undergrad and I took the prerequisites that I needed ah for medical schools, which is another fun story. I designed my own degree. We like to call them Chipotle degrees on the channel. But um I did interdisciplinary studies at Liberty and put together all the prereqs for med school so I could skip botany and ecology and the things that didn't really interest me.
00:03:43
Lauren Daly
And when I got done with my undergrad degree, I realized I had worked full time, sometimes taken 22 credits in a single semester of upper level sciences. And I just didn't have the background that I wanted in those subjects for the MCAT exam. I didn't feel prepared.
00:03:57
Lauren Daly
It had just changed from a four-hour exam to an eight-hour exam. That's the medical admissions test. And so I just thought to myself, I need to do some more to prepare myself. I'm not ready. So I decided to do a master's degree at Liberty in biomedical sciences.
00:04:09
Lauren Daly
And they had just, it was the first year of the program. And so they had offered this option to be a GSA, a graduate student assistant, and have your degree paid for while you were also teaching nursing nursing students anatomy.
00:04:21
Lauren Daly
So I got to teach at the same time that I was going through my master's. so
00:04:25
The Jobs Podcast
That is a full load of, i mean, you are busy. Good grief.
00:04:29
Lauren Daly
Yes, there was a period of time where I slept about six hours a night. If I was lucky, it was usually about four to six, but I was shadowing overnights in the hospital trying to get experience hours and i was teaching full time, going to school full time. It was pretty crazy.
00:04:42
The Jobs Podcast
So how how was your decision to steer away from, you got accepted into medical school, if I remember right, and
00:04:49
Lauren Daly
I did. Yeah, two of the three schools I applied to. I was very happy about that.
00:04:53
The Jobs Podcast
but you decided you weren't going to go down that path, correct?
00:04:57
Lauren Daly
Yes, exactly.
00:04:58
The Jobs Podcast
how was
00:04:58
Lauren Daly
So,
00:04:59
The Jobs Podcast
How was that received by your friends and family? Did you get kind of some concerned looks or?
00:05:03
Lauren Daly
oh my gosh, yeah, I had been on this single single track, very focused you know tunnel vision towards this goal of going to medical school. And then it seemed like at the same time, it all finally came to fruition and I was accepted.
00:05:16
Lauren Daly
I was telling everyone, oh yeah, I'm not into that anymore. you know That's kind of what it felt like. But behind the scenes, the reality was it was the teaching that changed my life and when I was teaching those nursing students, I started to realize how discombobulated, we'll say, the curriculum is in medical education and how much better it could be. There's so much low-hanging fruit, things we could do differently to help students retain information and have a better overall experience.
00:05:40
Lauren Daly
One of the weird pervasive things things going on in medical education is, oh, I went through this horrible program and got abused when I was in my health education program, so that's just how it is, and that should be the same for students who are coming through.
00:05:53
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:05:53
Lauren Daly
And it's like, no, we don't need to perpetuate bad cycles just because you went through it. Let's make things better for people in the future, not you know keep the status quo. So So I really got passionate about changing medical education to be more efficient and to treat students better because they're always they're giving up so much already anyway, financially, socially. They're sacrificing a lot to go into a helping profession to help people.
00:06:14
Lauren Daly
So we should be helping them. So it really changed my perspective. And I found myself not really wanting to pursue medical school myself as a student, but to try to make medical schools better for students.
00:06:24
The Jobs Podcast
When you talk about the efficiency improvements that you saw and the curriculum changes, this could probably be an episode in and of itself.
00:06:32
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:06:32
The Jobs Podcast
But can you give me some high points about what did you see that you thought, this is awful, this stinks, this is horrible, I've got to change all of this.
00:06:33
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:06:40
The Jobs Podcast
And so I'm taking a completely different direction in my my career.
00:06:45
Lauren Daly
Yeah, a really good example is what I did my dissertation on, and that was the remediation process in medical education. And the reality is most schools, when a student fails a course, especially in medical school, the steps that are taken to fill that knowledge gap so that they can move forward with their cohort are extremely inadequate.
00:06:51
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:07:01
Lauren Daly
There just isn't enough being done. Typically what we do, and this is embarrassing, but um is in U.S. medical schools, we give a student a test. They fail the test. They fail the class. And then we say, okay, you failed the class.
00:07:12
Lauren Daly
Here's a copy of that test. Read the answers over and over, and we'll give you the same test. And if you pass it, you can move on.
00:07:18
The Jobs Podcast
Oh my goodness.
00:07:18
Lauren Daly
And the problem with that, especially in degrees where at the end of it you're given a national exam, is that you didn't learn that material. So now you're going to fail that portion of your national exam down the road unless you plug that knowledge gap somehow.
00:07:30
The Jobs Podcast
So you're just getting, you're basically being tested on your memory short term so you can pass a test, but you're not learning anything.
00:07:34
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:07:37
Lauren Daly
That's right.
00:07:38
The Jobs Podcast
Good grief.
00:07:40
Lauren Daly
Yep.
00:07:40
The Jobs Podcast
Well, I'm irritated now at our medical field, but so you saw some changes, you wanted to make some changes. Now what?
00:07:50
Lauren Daly
Yeah,
Challenges in Medical Education
00:07:51
Lauren Daly
so i so I went down that road. I worked for two different medical schools helping kind of you know reshape curriculum and working with students trying to make the process better and their lives better. And I realized at both of those schools, there were the same systematic problems going on with leadership that I was just not going to be in a position to change.
00:08:08
Lauren Daly
So I was just about to finish up my PhD. I had been accepted to those medical schools. Before I attended, I went to them and said, thanks so much for the acceptance. I'm going to go ahead and decline. I've decided instead to do a PhD in education and you know focus it towards medical education and So I was about to finish up my PhD. I had worked for a couple of medical schools doing what I thought I wanted to do.
00:08:28
Lauren Daly
And I was pretty miserable. i felt like the environment was not conducive to change or growth. It was just a lot of very similar looking people making decisions that were not in the best interest of students.
00:08:39
Lauren Daly
And that just isn't what I want to be a part of. And so um around that same time, Cliff called me up. We had worked together in Virginia at Liberty for a number of years. We were faculty there together. We ran the Chipotle degree there together for a while.
00:08:50
Lauren Daly
And so he called me and said, hey, I started this company called College Hacked based on a lot of the advising stuff that you taught me when we were at Liberty together. do you want to come work for me? And I said, absolutely.
00:09:01
The Jobs Podcast
To jump back just a second, the I guess the resistance that you felt or that you encountered on these at these two different schools, is it a systemic thing or is it just this is how we've always done it and it works so we're not going to improve it?
00:09:03
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:09:16
The Jobs Podcast
what's What's behind the resistance to improvement?
00:09:21
Lauren Daly
an excellent question. i think it's a few different things. you know With anything, there's usually multiple factors. But in my experience, a lot of it is ego. A lot of it is you know because I went through it, you should also have to suffer. Suffering is inherently a part of service industries.
00:09:36
Lauren Daly
And I just don't think that that has to be true in so many ways. I think you're automatically sacrificing a lot of yourself and your own life and time and finances to go a direction like that. Why can't we at least make the education part of it smoother? Why you know why do we have to say, oh, by tomorrow you need to know these 300 terms instead of spacing it out like normal people would in a different type of curriculum?
00:09:58
Lauren Daly
There is enough time for the things that we want to teach them if we do it in an efficient way that is respectful of their time. And if we give them you know directions in advance, syllabi in advance, you know just a lot of little pragmatic, practical, easy, low-hanging fruit things that I was not seeing happening.
00:10:12
Lauren Daly
Like, for example, there were delays on giving students the times that they needed to be at class all the way up to like the day before classes started in several instances at both schools.
00:10:23
Lauren Daly
Like, we can't tell the kids what time they need to be at class in advance? That seems a little bit silly, guys.
00:10:29
The Jobs Podcast
Well, yeah, that, boy, that is a perfect example of low-hanging fruit. My goodness.
00:10:32
Lauren Daly
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:33
The Jobs Podcast
I can understand if you were trying to turn a battleship around, but if you're just trying to, you know, smooth out the sailing, I don't know why that would be such a problem, but it's probably just ingrained in some of these institutions.
00:10:36
Lauren Daly
Right.
00:10:43
The Jobs Podcast
This is how we've always done it.
00:10:45
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:10:45
The Jobs Podcast
And, excuse me, so this is how we're going to do it.
00:10:48
Lauren Daly
Yeah. And I think the focus now is, a if you think about parenting, I think this this aligns really well with our idea of parenting. You know, 20, 30 years ago, kids were seen and not heard. that Parents were not driving you to all kinds of, you know, basketball games and music lessons and things the way that they do now.
00:10:57
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:11:03
Lauren Daly
There's just a different focus parenting. on investing, I think, in your kids. And it's almost like this keep up with the Joneses war between parents and their kids and and others. but But anyway, it's that same way with medical students where you know we we want to do what's right for them, but what's right for them has changed over time.
00:11:19
Lauren Daly
And it's not just beat them up with a bunch of material and leave them on their own and the the strong will survive. We aren't like that anymore.
00:11:24
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Well, I'm Generation X, and so it was kind of a Lord of the Flies a little bit as far as my generation.
00:11:30
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:11:31
The Jobs Podcast
um And, you know, i can see i can see both sides of it. My generation has this little this little spot where we can see the older and the younger generations, and I think we can learn something from both. There's a time and a place to grind it out and knuckle down.
00:11:46
The Jobs Podcast
Not everything should be a video game or just come easy, but at the same time, we can't just always stay in this rut because that's the rut that we've always been in.
00:11:49
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:11:56
Lauren Daly
Yeah, exactly. And if there are ways to decrease the pain that someone goes through in order to enter a helping profession, that seems like something we should probably do.
00:12:04
The Jobs Podcast
Sure. i want to I want to go down a quick rabbit hole. Something you just said tricked ah ah tripped a question in my head.
00:12:09
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:12:12
The Jobs Podcast
The learning that a lot of these online schools offer now, the the ah Purdue and the ah Liberty and stuff like that, what's changed about the online learning that makes it, is it more efficient or is it just more streamlined or is it a better way to learn?
00:12:20
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:12:31
Lauren Daly
That's great question. I think
Innovations in Education Delivery
00:12:33
Lauren Daly
the best thing that's happened in higher education in the last maybe 10 15 years is this this continuous move towards offering a variety of ways to finish because the reality is everybody has different goals.
00:12:46
Lauren Daly
When I get a client who comes to me for College Hacked, they might say the value for the degree, the the value of the degree for me is in it being completed, not in the learning I would do during the degree because I need to check a box, which is a real situation that exists. And I'm sure we'll talk more about that.
00:13:00
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:13:00
Lauren Daly
But other clients might come to me and say, the learn The learning in the degree is the value for me. I want to learn from the degree how to have skills that will propel me into a new job or you know something like that.
00:13:11
Lauren Daly
And those are two totally different use cases, but they're pursuing oftentimes the same degree. So it matters a lot that there are different ways to approach education for different people. An 18-year-old kid right out of high school is going get a lot more value from the general education section of a degree than an adult who's 50 or 60 and has been in their terminal degree for 30 years and suddenly just needs a degree for h r
00:13:32
The Jobs Podcast
Right. In you know my department that I work at, the fire department, if you want to promote up into a chief officer role now, they require that you have a bachelor's degree. There are folks that have been doing this job for decades.
00:13:46
The Jobs Podcast
They can do it in their sleep, but they have to get that box checked in order to even apply for the job that they sometimes have already been doing, just volunteering or filling in temporarily or whatnot.
00:13:48
Lauren Daly
Yep.
00:13:57
The Jobs Podcast
So there absolutely is a lane of folks where I just need to finish to check this box. I don't need the knowledge because I've already got it from experience.
00:14:04
Lauren Daly
Right.
00:14:07
Lauren Daly
Right. And especially if the job post itself says bachelor's degree. If you're not telling me what field it needs to be and then you're telling me that the bachelor's is not actually necessary to complete that job function set.
00:14:17
Lauren Daly
Right.
00:14:17
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, right.
00:14:18
Lauren Daly
It's just that you either need to filter down less applicants or you're trying to meet some HR, you know, like, you know, socials, the way that people are able to view the company.
00:14:28
Lauren Daly
you know Oh, we have X amount of people with degrees at this company or that sort of thing.
00:14:31
The Jobs Podcast
Sure. Do you find that a lot of folks, I mean, do you have a percentage? Is it mostly people coming to you saying, I just need to check a box? What what is the current climate like with your customers?
00:14:44
Lauren Daly
Yeah, that's a great question. We've had about 1300 clients since we started a couple of years ago. And I would say, out of those ones that I've seen so far, probably 900 1000 of those want to check the box as quickly as possible and the major doesn't matter.
00:14:59
The Jobs Podcast
Wow. Wow.
00:15:00
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:15:01
The Jobs Podcast
Wow.
00:15:01
Lauren Daly
Yeah, and I think a lot of that comes from COVID, right? When COVID happened, we we shifted from hiring geographically to hiring people from all over the place. And now you've got thousands of applicants for jobs that used to have 10 or 100 applications, and they just can't look through all those people. So now we're requiring bachelor's degrees just to filter.
00:15:19
The Jobs Podcast
Wow. That was, thanks for going down that rabbit hole with me.
00:15:23
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:15:23
The Jobs Podcast
Now, I kind of took you off pace. You said that Dr. Clifford called you and said, hey, all this stuff that you taught me, I started this company.
00:15:31
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:15:32
The Jobs Podcast
Walk me through how that all kind of played out.
00:15:34
Lauren Daly
Yeah, that's definitely a very reductionist statement because in reality, he got his start many years ago doing homeschool co-ops. He would go to these gatherings of homeschool parents and give them presentations about clef exams for their kids so that they could save on college costs.
00:15:48
Lauren Daly
um So he's been doing this for a really long time. And then, of course, he being the director of the interdisciplinary studies program at Liberty, he got a a front row seat and got to kind of control that. process of helping students reach their academic goals in various ways.
00:16:00
Lauren Daly
So yeah, he definitely brought a lot to the table. Plus, thank goodness, he's the face of the YouTube, because that's not something I would enjoy taking over full time. So he's always asking, and I'm always pushing him off.
00:16:10
Lauren Daly
But yeah, so
00:16:11
The Jobs Podcast
the I married a, my wife was homeschooled.
00:16:13
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:16:15
The Jobs Podcast
And so I asked the questions and she tells me what questions to ask. She's the smart one out of the, out of the group, you know, that's right.
00:16:21
Lauren Daly
I love it. Yes, you're the head, but she's the neck, right? Yeah.
00:16:24
The Jobs Podcast
That's exactly right. So you guys decided to team up and you started, what was that like when you first started? Just, we're going to be on YouTube.
00:16:34
The Jobs Podcast
People are going to see me like, how how's that all kind of, was it hard to adjust?
00:16:38
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:16:38
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:16:39
Lauren Daly
I am surprised by how little adjustment there was, I think, actually, because I'm a really introverted person. You wouldn't know that from a phone call, of course, because I don't have to give nearly as much energy not seeing you or, you know, being in your presence.
00:16:46
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:16:51
Lauren Daly
but But yeah, I am personally very introverted.
00:16:52
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:16:54
Lauren Daly
So I thought, oh, this is going to be really difficult for me. I don't want to be, you know, in the public eye. But It helps a lot that we're not by any means famous. So it's not like I can't go to the grocery store in my pajamas and and be ignored.
00:17:05
Lauren Daly
I can I still have anonymity, thankfully. But ah but yeah, but I think the the biggest thing was probably realizing that people are going to see my thoughts about education and think that I am ruining or tainting education somehow.
00:17:07
The Jobs Podcast
right
00:17:19
Lauren Daly
And that happens all the time.
00:17:22
The Jobs Podcast
Well, I mean, your anonymity may be going away because I've been watching your YouTube channels growing pretty quickly. Every time I kick on there, you have more subscribers. So get a wig and some glasses, you know, and start hiding.
00:17:32
Lauren Daly
Thanks. Yeah, it's been pretty consistent.
00:17:35
Lauren Daly
I will. I absolutely will.
00:17:38
The Jobs Podcast
So the you started doing the the YouTube channel. you're You're putting out videos What's it, I mean, do you have regular meetings with Dr. Clifford as far as what's the topic for this?
00:17:51
The Jobs Podcast
Or do you each kind of take a specific part of this entity and focus on that? And then you get together for the Q&A or how does the job breakdown happen?
00:18:01
Lauren Daly
Yeah, for the first year so, Cliff was pretty much doing all of the social media stuff. And then I would come in for Q&A videos every now and again. And typically we'll film, you know, four or five videos in a sitting and then break them up and distribute them over time on the channel.
00:18:14
Lauren Daly
So it wasn't really a huge part of my every day. But in the last year or so... It's definitely ratcheted up where I'm doing more of that, more scripting of videos, more research for different video concepts. We'll get together every now and again and spitball through ideas, um we're looking at you know the metrics of the channel and what people are really looking for more information about.
00:18:33
Lauren Daly
We get some requests from people ah pretty consistently like, hey, can you do ah a terminal level degree video like doctorates and PhDs? And there just really isn't enough of the population looking for that sort of stuff for us to warrant a whole video on it, especially when Cliff has ah about six other businesses that he's running at all times.
00:18:49
Lauren Daly
So he's always, yes, he gets money from those and this is his baby, his passion project.
00:18:50
The Jobs Podcast
Grief.
00:18:54
Lauren Daly
It's really awesome.
00:18:56
The Jobs Podcast
So let's talk about online education as far as you you mentioned a minute ago, CLEP tests.
00:18:59
Lauren Daly
Mm-hmm.
00:19:04
The Jobs Podcast
And CLEP stands for what?
00:19:06
Lauren Daly
College level exam preparation, I think.
00:19:10
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Now, those are just basically if you have the knowledge in a certain subject, you can kind of test out. Is that a fair summary?
00:19:19
Lauren Daly
Right. It's just a high stakes test. Exactly.
00:19:21
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Do you find that a lot of folks go into those k CLEP tests thinking, I got this, and they don't really, they just think because they know stuff and and they're kind of interested in it, that they can just sail through it?
00:19:34
The Jobs Podcast
Or does that happen quite a bit?
00:19:36
Lauren Daly
Definitely the reverse. Most people psych themselves out of any ability to take a CLEP exam.
00:19:40
Lauren Daly
So most of our clients, i would say, are are adults, you know, been out of school for a long time.
00:19:40
The Jobs Podcast
okay.
00:19:41
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:19:45
Lauren Daly
And so the reason they haven't gone back is because they think, oh I'm not smart enough or I just I can't hack it. I don't have the skills for ah for completing this. So most won't even approach k CLEP exams. But actually, CLEPs in some cases are really helpful for skipping, like, for example, 12 essays on SOFIA that would be required, where you could just do one single two-hour CLEP exam over basic high school English and knock out both English classes at certain schools. so
00:20:07
The Jobs Podcast
You know, the Sophia and the study.com and the k CLEP test, this stuff didn't exist when I was younger. And this, it's so cool.
00:20:14
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:20:15
The Jobs Podcast
When I stumbled onto this, my son ah didn't quite understand my excitement, but I'm like, you have, yeah, i said, man, you have no idea the gold mine that's sitting right here.
00:20:16
Lauren Daly
isn'
00:20:20
Lauren Daly
enthusiasm yeah
00:20:25
The Jobs Podcast
And then, you know, I watched some of your videos and I'm like, you can get a bachelor's degree in less than 13,000 bucks, buddy. You have no idea
00:20:32
Lauren Daly
Totally.
00:20:33
The Jobs Podcast
The opportunity that's right here staring you in the face.
00:20:36
Lauren Daly
who
00:20:36
The Jobs Podcast
And he's like, whatever, you know, golly.
00:20:37
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:20:39
The Jobs Podcast
And I said, look, man, mom and I are paying for this. So you are going to sit down and watch these videos.
00:20:42
Lauren Daly
Nice.
00:20:43
The Jobs Podcast
And then he started doing it.
00:20:44
Lauren Daly
That's awesome.
00:20:45
The Jobs Podcast
And I think, you know, when you can get a teenager to go, well, okay, then that's a win, you know.
00:20:49
Lauren Daly
Yes. Yes.
00:20:52
The Jobs Podcast
Do you have a lot of people that are most of your clients in the adult arena or do you have folks that are still in high school that say, hey, I want to get a start on this now doing the CLEP test, Sophia, study.com, stuff like that?
00:21:07
Lauren Daly
Yeah, we definitely do. Actually, I'd say a growing population of our client base is younger students, in particular their parents who are finding us maybe even for themselves. And then they're thinking, whoa, hold on, there's a lot of applicability here for my kids, which means less money that I'm spending in the long term, but still setting them up for success.
00:21:24
Lauren Daly
I think especially with the economic changes recently and kind of the unknowns about the future and what's coming, most people are looking for ways to to reduce their costs and the input, especially if you're having to take loans or go out on a limb.
00:21:27
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:21:36
Lauren Daly
you know Not only is higher ed getting slammed in the media right now, and much of it for good reason, but but people are just concerned in general about finances and where they're spending their money.
00:21:44
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. And college is not getting any cheaper. I mean, you go to a four-year, you can buy a house for what it's going to cost you to get a traditional bachelor's anymore.
00:21:48
Lauren Daly
no No.
00:21:51
Lauren Daly
Yes. That's right.
00:21:54
The Jobs Podcast
What is I know that you do the consultation part of it, but I'm going to try and pry a little bit of information out of you for the listeners.
00:22:01
Lauren Daly
Yeah, go ahead. Okay.
00:22:03
The Jobs Podcast
if
Advice for High School Students on Credits
00:22:04
The Jobs Podcast
ah Like my other son, he is 15 years old. He'll be a sophomore.
00:22:07
Lauren Daly
Mm-hmm.
00:22:08
The Jobs Podcast
What is some advice that you would give for a high school student to get a huge jump on on their their college education and their future?
00:22:20
Lauren Daly
Yeah, for for kids, especially if they're not yet 18 or graduated high school, the biggest part of hacking for them is how to get credits that are going to have longevity.
00:22:32
Lauren Daly
Because we just don't really know what the next few years looks like for SOFIA or study.
00:22:32
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:22:35
Lauren Daly
So while it's not a bad idea to have them get on SOFIA and accumulate some credit that way, you only have to be 13 to start a SOFIA account, which is pretty cool. um So they can start really young. But, you know, if they're already several years away from starting college, one of the things about hacking is it it has ah an expiration date for sure.
00:22:52
Lauren Daly
The longer you take from the time that you get the credit to the time you roll it into the school and take your final classes and graduate, the longer that timeline is, the more chance there is that things are going to change and you're going to need to either retake classes or something's going to not quite pan out the way you originally planned.
00:23:06
Lauren Daly
So for kids, AP credit and k CLEP exams are by far the safest, most long-lasting forms of credit that they could be going after.
00:23:15
The Jobs Podcast
What is different about the CLEP exams versus the SOFIA and study.com Avenue? Is it the governing body that that oversees them?
00:23:24
Lauren Daly
It's the proctor testing because at the end of it, you always have that standardized exam that's either in a testing center.
00:23:26
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Okay.
00:23:29
Lauren Daly
Now, sometimes you can do it at home, but that's still ah relatively on the rare side, I would say. Most people are still going to a testing center. With AP, you have to be attached to a high school class to even sit for that. So they already, there's a lot of, you know, you've been guided through the class and now you're taking this guided exam. So I think it's the, the um the what's a good word? Maybe the closely guarded nature of it. Whereas Sophia and study and those kinds of guys, those are open book, open notes now. So.
00:23:56
The Jobs Podcast
Well, yeah, I mean, somebody could just find the answers and not really learn the information.
00:24:02
Lauren Daly
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:03
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. What do you like most about your job?
00:24:07
Lauren Daly
I think all of the different people from all the different walks of life that I get to interact with. I mean, literally, where else could you get such a swath of humanity that you just get to hear from and step into their lives for, you know, a few hours?
00:24:19
Lauren Daly
Everyone from truck drivers to C-suite executives to Apple geniuses to, you know, all kinds of people in all different situations that either want to complete a degree because maybe it's been on their bucket list their entire life.
00:24:31
Lauren Daly
I've had a number of clients in their 70s and 80s who say, you know, I'm running my last few laps here and it's been a side mission all my life to go back and get my degree and now's the time. So yeah, I think getting to see so many different perspectives and and ways that you could live life is really fun.
00:24:45
The Jobs Podcast
I'm going to go down a rabbit hole as far as the the actual day-to-day of going to an online school.
00:24:51
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:24:53
The Jobs Podcast
And I know that it will vary a little bit depending on who the or what university or school that you're taking your online courses from.
00:25:01
Lauren Daly
yeah Yeah, pretty much.
00:25:02
The Jobs Podcast
But the way I see this as an outsider looking in is you literally need a laptop and an internet connection and that's it. And you can get a bachelor's degree for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time.
00:25:14
Lauren Daly
Yeah, that's right.
00:25:16
The Jobs Podcast
You got my attention. i mean, good grief.
00:25:20
Lauren Daly
I love it
00:25:21
The Jobs Podcast
I know. So what what do you see? Are there any changes on the on the horizon that you see coming towards this way of learning that may make it better, may be areas of concern?
Concerns over Changes in Online Education
00:25:34
Lauren Daly
Yeah, there are a couple things that spring to mind. um Of course, schools changing their equivalencies and how they accept these different platforms and the classes that these platforms offer is always top of mind for us. um Just yesterday, University of Maine at Presque Isle, which is a really popular hacking school,
00:25:51
Lauren Daly
released a very big revamp of the way that they accept classes in particular from Sophia and study and they reduced a lot of what they accept and this will impact hundreds if not thousands of students who have been working up to earning these credits and then transferring them into the school.
00:26:05
Lauren Daly
I think one of the things that is really disheartening about those changes is that they often come without any warning from the school. It wouldn't take any monetary input or really any extra time for them to just put a banner on the website that says hey If you're looking into applying to these majors, there's changes coming to what you might be planning to do.
00:26:22
Lauren Daly
Just be aware of that. You know, something as simple as that. And we see that a lot with with places like Sophia or Straighter Line or Study. They'll do that where they have banners on their websites that say, we're phasing this class out or, you know giving the community an update.
00:26:34
Lauren Daly
I think if you're a school that's going to say that you believe in hacking and if you allow it, then you believe in it or you should, then you should really be transparent and honest about whether you stop believing in it or whether you need to shift some things um What's been, i think, most frustrating is that the schools won't really give a ah specific rationale for why these changes are made, right? They'll they'll say very general things like, um you know, we just want to make sure that students are prepared for the workforce.
00:27:00
Lauren Daly
And okay, I can respect that, but as a student, that doesn't tell me whether you think I'm hurting myself by taking these classes on SOFIA. Maybe it's a situation where you've had professors come to you and say, everyone who's gone through this math class on SOFIA and then come into my math class has not been prepared enough.
00:27:14
Lauren Daly
We need to stop accepting that class. Okay, as a student, I'm fully on board with that now because I understand that you're making that change for my benefit and for graduation rate benefits, and we're all on the same page with that. But when you just make changes in a silo and you don't explain to people what your rationale was and why you did that, then it just breeds a lot of chaos and a lot of negative feelings towards hacking where people say, oh, I'm This was inevitable. Hacking is a terrible thing. But that might not even be the heart behind why the change was made. So so that would be one thing is schools, you know, making these changes, but not really telling everybody why where their head's at, why they're making these changes so that we can react appropriately and kind of plug the gaps or, you know, fix things so that students are better prepared.
00:27:53
Lauren Daly
The other thing is the government, of course, you know, with with any new... administration, you're going to change some things, you're going to shake up some things.
00:28:00
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:28:00
Lauren Daly
A lot of people super worried that things like Pell Grant or financial aid are going to go away. Those things aren't going to go away. They might be housed under a different branch of the government or something like that. Not saying all the changes are positive, but let's be honest, this is a really broken industry. We need to revamp the way that we look at higher education, what we think is appropriate, the way we train students,
00:28:20
Lauren Daly
we're in a different world than we were in when we created these systems originally. And we haven't really changed them much since that time. So I do think it's good that we're revisiting what the the value of college is really going to be in the future. Because one of the things that Trump has talked about in particular is the need for accreditation. Do we need that body anymore? Do we trust that body anymore?
00:28:38
Lauren Daly
You know, when I look at schools like University of Phoenix and University of the People in particular, having regional accreditation, it blows my mind. And it makes me question whether we really are, you know, putting the effort needed into those checks and those checks and balances to to inspire confidence from the public.
00:28:56
The Jobs Podcast
You make a good point about you can't just rip the rug out from under people. You got to give them an opportunity to plan and adjust.
00:29:00
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:29:02
The Jobs Podcast
And, you know, something you just said there at the end are some of these online universities. And I want to be careful. I'm not making an accusation. This is just a blanket question.
00:29:13
The Jobs Podcast
Do you have ah a little bit of a diploma mill thing going on where it's just, you know, we'll take your money and here you go as a piece of paper. But the the recipient of that piece of paper is not really getting, maybe they just need to check a box and they don't care.
00:29:27
The Jobs Podcast
But do you find that the education that you get online is equivalent to what you get in class for the most part?
00:29:35
Lauren Daly
This is an excellent question. i think there are so many different factors that weigh into this. It's really hard to give a straight answer. But of course, there's no way I'm going to say that sitting in a class residentially on a campus is the same experience as taking a class online in your pajamas at home.
00:29:49
Lauren Daly
It just isn't. But the value proposition that's in that residential class does not apply to everyone. And that's the thing I think people forget.
00:29:56
The Jobs Podcast
ah
00:29:57
Lauren Daly
Just because you got a college degree doesn't mean it was in the best way for you or the most advantageous way for you. Again, if you're an 18-year-old kid, there's so much value in you being on campus and having those relationships and networking and learning how the world works.
00:30:10
Lauren Daly
If you're a 60-year-old C-suite executive, you're not going back to community college to sit in with a bunch of 18-year-olds. There is literally zero value in that for you.
00:30:18
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, that is a very valid point. you You do a lot in your pajamas, I'm picking up. You're you're taking a lot of...
00:30:25
Lauren Daly
I love being in my pajamas. Yes, this is why I can never not work from home again. Yeah.
00:30:30
The Jobs Podcast
is the Is the student loan thing, how do the... um'm I'm thinking back to when I got loans, a Perkins Loan, I think was one of them, and a
00:30:37
Lauren Daly
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:40
The Jobs Podcast
ah Well, a Pell Grant, I think that that's a grant. I forget what the other major government loan was, but do they look at these online courses with a different take or do they just see them as far as a loan standpoint or a qualifying for loan standpoint the same?
00:30:57
Lauren Daly
Yeah, from a loan standpoint, they're pretty much the same. The big difference is in the cost of attendance. So if you're going to go to a residential school, the government's calculating how much money you make, how much money the program costs, and then they're figuring out how much to give you based on those factors.
00:31:10
Lauren Daly
In an online program, the overhead basically goes away, right? You have so much less cost of attendance in an online program than you do in a residential program. So in that regard, things are very different. But in terms of giving you what's needed to cover the online tuition, it pretty much works the same. Most people don't feel a difference.
00:31:27
The Jobs Podcast
I didn't know if they would see it as, well, we're not going to do the loan because we're not going to get as much back because it's less expensive or if they viewed it different differently academically. But if it's accredited, I wouldn't see they would see it as different.
00:31:37
Lauren Daly
Right. Exactly. Currently, regional accreditation is really what we use to determine if a school gets funding or not.
00:31:44
The Jobs Podcast
you You mentioned a minute ago about the need for accreditation, and I want to say up front, I have zero knowledge about accreditation, what the process entails, what it even means other than it's a good thing, I guess.
00:31:57
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:31:58
The Jobs Podcast
But what do do we need accreditation? What's your opinion on that?
Ensuring Educational Quality through External Oversight
00:32:03
Lauren Daly
Yeah, i I do think we need some sort of external body that is not the school itself weighing in on whether the school is doing good things or bad things. Because if we look back at history, like the Corinthian school saga, we know that there are plenty of schools that can pop up and just do very evil things. And if nobody's watching, they're happy to go on doing that for an extended period of time.
00:32:22
The Jobs Podcast
And
00:32:22
Lauren Daly
And there have been many schools who have hurt many, many people targeting them because they don't know how higher ed works, taking all their financial aid money, leaving them with no real skills. There's lots of great books on this. But ah but yeah, so so we see over history that we it's not an industry where we can just deregulate everything and walk away for sure. So there does need to be some sort of hallmark of quality.
00:32:44
Lauren Daly
and but But what that is might change because right now what how it works is regional accrediting bodies.
00:32:45
The Jobs Podcast
ah
00:32:49
Lauren Daly
You've got regional and national accreditation. National is actually considered the less valuable one. You typically always want to try and would attend a regionally accredited school. Usually when you want to go get a master's or a good job where they're looking at your transcripts, they will specifically look at whether your school was regionally accredited.
00:33:04
Lauren Daly
a whole different topic. The regional and national have since merged, ah you know, a year ago or whatever, but nobody really looks at it like that yet because it's too new. So, you know, technically there is no differentiation, but there is.
00:33:15
Lauren Daly
so um So, yeah, so usually they're looking at the regional accreditation status to decide if a program is solid or not.
00:33:22
The Jobs Podcast
The loan process, another little side note, when you do a consultation with somebody, which you offer that on your website, what do you help them? Let's dive into that.
00:33:32
The Jobs Podcast
Let's just go down this, this really, this good topic.
00:33:34
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:33:37
The Jobs Podcast
Do you help them not only get a game plan together as far as these are the classes that you need to take to get from point A to point B? Do you help them with financial aid? Do you maybe not do the financial aid portion for them, but you give them the resources to then go and apply for themselves.
00:33:53
The Jobs Podcast
What all do you offer when you do a consultation with someone?
00:33:56
Lauren Daly
Yeah, it mostly depends on what the client needs because we have people that come from all kinds of backgrounds.
00:33:59
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:34:01
Lauren Daly
So sometimes I have clients who are like, I barely finished high school. I've never even spoken to a college or looked anything up. I have no idea about anything about this world. And in that case, I'm going to give them every single link, every single you know explanation that they're going to need to move forward.
00:34:15
Lauren Daly
um You know, we won't like fill out the FAFSA for anybody or anything like that, but I'll definitely give the link.
00:34:18
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:34:20
Lauren Daly
I'll give the school codes for the schools that we've been looking at together so they can add that to the FAFSA. I tell them how the process will go and the school contacts them to talk about their aid package and stuff like that. So definitely give them some insight about what to expect.
00:34:31
Lauren Daly
I think demystifying higher education is probably the number one thing that we're doing besides just building equivalency charts for which class to take for what at which school. Other than that, it's all about just making it accessible and making it not scary. Because most people think, oh, you have to be so smart to go to college. And, you know, really, you just have to be willing to work hard and put up with some administrative red tape. And that's about it.
00:34:53
The Jobs Podcast
The what you just said right there about demystifying the college experience. I can see someone like if if someone came to me, I'm almost 51 years old. If someone said, hey, you need to go back to college.
00:35:05
The Jobs Podcast
ah The the mountain in front of me, would be i would not be looking forward to that.
00:35:09
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:35:10
The Jobs Podcast
I don't know what I'm going to see when I sit down and at a computer. I'm relatively tech savvy, but I just don't know what I'm in for. What are some of the common ah misconceptions that people have when they come to you about online college that you you just see a lot and go, no, that's a common misconception and here's the truth?
00:35:30
Lauren Daly
Yeah, one of the things is definitely the age of credit because most of our clients are still adults. Well, we have probably maybe 10% of younger people, but the rest are adults. And so for many of them, they tried college before. It didn't go well, and they have never tried again. And so they'll come to me and say, oh, I don't have any credit anymore because that was back in the the 80s.
00:35:49
Lauren Daly
And I routinely see credits come over from as early as the 60s I've seen before transfer over into new schools. So I think there's ah a general belief that if you got started before and you waited a long time, there's no way to use any of that to get help you get finished now. But actually, usually there is.
00:36:04
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm. I hadn't thought about that part of it. is Is the tech side of things, I mean, I know you mentioned earlier when I said all you really need is a laptop. what's Is the interface for these online schools, is it pretty straightforward and easy to pick up? I i know that it's different per school, but as a general rule, is it usually pretty user-friendly?
00:36:25
Lauren Daly
Oh my gosh, such a variety of qualities of learning management systems. We call them LMSs, learning management systems.
00:36:29
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:36:30
Lauren Daly
At Liberty University, for example, phenomenal. They have a whole room of of um coders who are sitting there building all of their amazing ah tools and dashboards and class interfaces and things like that. They do use Canvas for their LMS, so they didn't make that proprietary. but But they put a lot of effort into making sure that the UX UI and the student experience is really, really good. And then you've got really small schools um that use,
00:36:55
Lauren Daly
you know, other things like Brightspace is another learning management system, very much more 90s looking. So these smaller schools that don't have as much resource for things like the LMS, little bells and whistles and stuff, it's definitely a less exciting and colorful and intuitive experience, but all the functions are still there. You just have to explore a little bit more.
00:37:15
The Jobs Podcast
Well, the cosmics ah cosmetics of it, a lot of times that's what you get when you have the bigger operations. But the do you find that most of your students, and i'm I'm asking you tech questions here, but do most folks use one specific browser or is it usually a Windows computer or a Mac computer or does it matter?
00:37:19
Lauren Daly
Yes, totally.
00:37:32
Lauren Daly
I don't think it matters too much. i would say the browser, if anything, is what seems to matter the most. um ah Most of my Firefox Mozilla users have to switch over to Chrome to make some of the pop out videos and things work from some of these courses.
00:37:45
Lauren Daly
So I think there is some, there is some maybe alterations needed for those who are on ah older, you know, platforms or something like that.
00:37:45
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:37:53
Lauren Daly
But, but in general, it's pretty low, like the school will always give you a setup requirement. So they'll say you need a computer that runs at least, you know, this, that, or the other to make our classes work and that sort of thing. But as most things move to the cloud now, it's, yeah I just, I don't see nearly as much of those technological issues anymore from students.
00:38:10
Lauren Daly
I used to get a ton of emails like, I i can't open this thing or you know whatever, and we'd have to go into an incognito window or you know do a bunch of weird stuff to to kind of bypass the ad blocker that was going on or whatever. Now it seems like most systems are pretty intuitive, and I don't get nearly as many of those emails now that I'm thinking about it.
00:38:25
The Jobs Podcast
Are most of these online classes, and this may depend on the class, are you just watching videos and answering questions online or typing stuff in? Or do you have presentations that an instructor will do, he'll go live or she'll go live and do a presentation and then you have to interact?
00:38:43
The Jobs Podcast
Or is it just a hodgepodge of all the above?
00:38:46
Lauren Daly
Yeah, there are schools like that still. We call them synchronous, where you meet at a specific time with other people from your class. um But most schools, especially all the ones we talk about, are going to be asynchronous, where you have deadlines in the class, if you do, which we'll talk more about. But for those schools that do have weekly deadlines, they'll tell you at the beginning of the class what all the deadlines are and what everything is due by those deadlines.
00:39:07
Lauren Daly
So as long as you're meeting the deadline, you can complete the work at any point in time. So you can log on at 2 a.m. or 2 p.m., whatever works for you.
00:39:15
The Jobs Podcast
Has the method that they use to teach as far as the style, has that changed? And
Competency-Based Learning and Flexible Pacing
00:39:22
The Jobs Podcast
more specifically what I'm trying to ask, and I'm just not doing a very good job at it.
00:39:26
The Jobs Podcast
The. we We mentioned early that you'll have the the way people would learn where it's just like, well, here, memorize this to pass the test and then just move on. um You check the box and you're fine.
00:39:39
The Jobs Podcast
But if you ask somebody two months after they took that test, they can't remember anything. Has there been anything that maybe changes the way the information is absorbed or whether it's delivered so it is absorbed better?
00:39:52
Lauren Daly
Yes, using it, manipulating it. So I think this is a failure of of previous models of higher education before competency-based came out, really. And it's not that you can't.
00:40:01
The Jobs Podcast
Competency based, that's the term.
00:40:03
Lauren Daly
Yes. Yeah, competency-based education is awesome. So that's going to be a program where you don't have specific deadlines. You usually hit just have a term length. So for example, a school might say, you have eight weeks in this term. Pay me a flat rate for access to my system during those eight weeks. And then you can finish as many classes as you want to.
00:40:20
Lauren Daly
So the class doesn't run for any set number of weeks. It doesn't have weekly deadlines. There's no other students that you're interacting with in the course with you. It's really just you and the material and the assignments that are required.
00:40:31
Lauren Daly
So if you're someone who has 30 years of experience in your field and you're going back to school majoring in something in your field, then you can imagine how much easier of a process that's going to be because now you're just dumping what's already in your brain out into these papers and assignments and you're moving on in a few days or a couple of weeks versus eight or 16 weeks of a whole semester.
00:40:40
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:40:49
The Jobs Podcast
Do you find that that competency-based learning approach is more effective with adults versus like teenagers, or does that just really click with a lot of people across the board?
00:41:01
Lauren Daly
It seems to click with a lot of people across the board, especially those that are neurodivergent. This is something we see a lot in our client base, which is people saying, I just never fit the mold. When I was in high school, I was bouncing around. I was interested in doing things, not hearing things. you know Sitting and listening was not my thing.
00:41:16
Lauren Daly
And it's not that those people were unintelligent or unable to be successful. In fact, most of them come to us, oh, I have millions of dollars for my companies that I've started over the years, and I'm very successful, but I've always wanted that piece of paper. That's something that comes up all the time.
00:41:28
Lauren Daly
So yeah, so just having this way of learning that is based more on your timeframe, your ability to go fast or slow based on how interested you are or how much time you have in your life. I think that's what was really missing. And ah that being there now is bringing a lot of people back to the table where they're saying, okay, well, there's a way that I could actually be successful in this world now where there wasn't before.
00:41:49
The Jobs Podcast
Totally random question. If I just came to you and said, do you have any advice for how I can be successful as I step into this online college project or this, you know, task that I have in front of me to graduate?
Keys to Success in Online Education
00:42:05
The Jobs Podcast
Do you have two or three bits of advice that if I follow them, my chances of success and smoother sailing go up?
00:42:14
Lauren Daly
Humility, curiosity, and networking. I think those are the three things that are really, really important when you're in an online degree.
00:42:18
The Jobs Podcast
Uh...
00:42:22
Lauren Daly
Most people, especially adults, because they're not really on chat forums as much as younger people typically, but so they don't usually realize that there are these robust communities on Reddit and Discord and even Facebook.
00:42:26
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:42:32
Lauren Daly
Lots of different platforms where students who are taking the same classes as you or have the same plan as you are all kind of talking together and sharing useful information together about, you know, oh, this professor really hates this topic. Don't write your paper on that. You know, those kinds of things that are unique to different professors or situations that aren't just globally applicable from school to school.
00:42:51
The Jobs Podcast
Aside from Reddit, which I think most folks listening know about Reddit, are there any other forums that you've seen that, and I'm not asking for an endorsement, but just ones that you've heard a lot of people say, i found I got a lot of value out of this forum or that forum.
00:43:00
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:43:05
Lauren Daly
Yeah, the top two are always Reddit and Discord. Discord's the other one, which is more of a chat you know function, but very similar to Reddit in that people are usually anonymous and are sharing bits of information.
00:43:10
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:43:15
Lauren Daly
But there's all kinds of different subchannels for all the specific schools. So you can just jump right into an ongoing discussion from current students about you know the the day and age at that school, whatever the hot information is or whatever is happening.
00:43:28
The Jobs Podcast
Is there anything that you dislike about your current job?
00:43:34
Lauren Daly
Oh, that's a good question.
00:43:36
The Jobs Podcast
Don't say Dr.
00:43:36
Lauren Daly
Probably.
00:43:37
The Jobs Podcast
Clifford because he's great.
00:43:38
Lauren Daly
Oh my gosh.
00:43:38
The Jobs Podcast
I really like him lot. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:40
Lauren Daly
Oh my gosh, me too. He's such a wonderful human. Him and his wife and kids are the coolest.
00:43:43
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:43:44
Lauren Daly
um I think the only thing that I dislike about my job right now is just how, and this sounds like a humble brag, but how busy we are. We're booked out about a month right now.
00:43:54
Lauren Daly
And so, you know sometimes i have people miss their sessions or something and they're like, oh I just need to reschedule for tomorrow.
00:43:55
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:43:59
Lauren Daly
And I'm like, um I'm booked out a month. I'm sorry. I'm at max already doing the most that I possibly can.
00:44:02
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:44:05
Lauren Daly
um And so you know what that means is we need to hire. But they're in this sort of industry where it's consulting based, there's always so much fear in that because it matters so much more who the person is rather than what they know. So it's finding that right fit. And when you're a company of you know a handful of people, any addition is going to be a really big deal. It's going to change a lot of things. So Just having the time, um i think, to to invest in creating onboarding materials and making sure that we're in a place where we can replicate the results that we've had and the happiness that clients have had so far. Because the last thing I want to do is decrease quality over time, right? Like if we're going to grow, we need to do it in a sustainable way because our mission is not to grow. It's to help as many people as possible.
00:44:43
Lauren Daly
And if we're growing at the same time that that's happening, then awesome. But ultimately, you know, the free resources that we're giving on YouTube is not just to get you in the door. It's a part of our actual mission. We really want as many people as possible to know that you don't have to spend $50,000 in four years getting a college degree.
00:44:58
The Jobs Podcast
Well, yeah, it's a good problem to have when you start getting all of, you know, it's like this, I have so much on my plate right now.
00:45:01
Lauren Daly
yeah
00:45:06
The Jobs Podcast
I am swamped. It's, know, it's a blessing, but at the same time, you're just one or two people and you can only do so much. I mean, you still have a family, you have to prioritize things and whatnot. So
00:45:16
Lauren Daly
Right.
00:45:17
The Jobs Podcast
I can see that, but what are your, you talked about hiring people, but do, what are your future plans for college hacked? What's, what can your viewers expect over the next six to 12 months?
00:45:30
Lauren Daly
Yeah, well, I'll give you a hot scoop that Cliff doesn't even know yet.
00:45:33
The Jobs Podcast
All right.
00:45:33
Lauren Daly
So we'll see how he feels about it.
00:45:34
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:45:36
The Jobs Podcast
You heard it here first folks.
00:45:38
Lauren Daly
That's right. This is right. Hot off the press.
00:45:40
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:45:40
Lauren Daly
ah I would love to try to hire my mom ah for for the next consultant that we have working with us because she's been in higher ed for 30 years. She's been C-suite a number of times. She's held basically every role in higher ed you can have. She knows way more than or Cliff know. um I think she would be an excellent addition.
00:45:58
Lauren Daly
But she's you know got her own stuff going on. So she's talked about maybe maybe in the future, you know i could start shadowing you and maybe learn the learn the ropes. But yeah, I mean, just a wonderful person, wonderful coach. i always feel like I'm not even her daughter because I'm i'm so starstruck by her. I think she's just one of the coolest people I've ever met. So successful and kindhearted and and just helpful, just seeks to help and understand others. So yeah, that's I would love to, in the next year, try to get my mom to start seeing some clients too because she's awesome.
00:46:27
The Jobs Podcast
Well, do you want me to, I'll start a petition and we can get dr Clifford on board and, uh,
00:46:30
Lauren Daly
yeah I love that.
00:46:34
The Jobs Podcast
So I always ask one of the questions that I really am curious about ah the answer from every guest, and it doesn't matter you know who it is or what their occupation is. I always ask for their advice on how to deal with failure. If someone comes to you and said, I blew it, I made a mistake, whether it was in you know filling out a form or taking a class or someone that works for you in the past,
00:47:02
The Jobs Podcast
What advice can you give someone on how best to deal with failure?
00:47:07
Lauren Daly
I like that. Good question. I think when I think about Personal failure. I think for me, the number one thing that comes to mind is taking responsibility. And that's whether it only impacted you or whether it impacted other people too, but not covering it up, being honest about it, realizing what the implications are of the failure. What do I need to do now to to fix this, to make this right?
00:47:29
Lauren Daly
If you're the only person involved, then a big part of it is not beating yourself up, right? Realizing that failure is a part of learning. You have to fail in order to innovate, in order to grow and move forward. So failure should really be expected.
00:47:40
Lauren Daly
um The scale of failure is, of course, going to vary. So if you're looking at losing your house versus maybe gaining a pound because you ate too much out or something, you know, those failures are slightly different.
00:47:47
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:50
Lauren Daly
But but yeah, in general, I think the The most important thing when you mess up is to be honest about it and to confront it head on and to look at the whole situation. a lot of people love to bury their head because they're so either ashamed or overwhelmed or, you know, whatever it might be with failure.
00:48:04
Lauren Daly
But that's the worst thing you can do because now it's just going to fester and you're going to feel worse and worse about it.
00:48:06
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:48:08
Lauren Daly
It's going to impact every area of your life. You have to get it out, you know, journal or talk to somebody or do what you got to do. But you got to get through the feelings of it so you can take action.
00:48:18
The Jobs Podcast
You know, i heard ah I heard an example once about people like to sweep failure under the rug, but the problem is that makes a hump in the rug that you constantly trip over.
00:48:27
Lauren Daly
Ooh, I love that.
00:48:28
The Jobs Podcast
And it's such a perfect analogy because there's just that little bit of difference in height, but you walk over that, you walked up and down that hallway 10 times a day, and it doesn't take much to trip you up and it'll do it until you finally rip that rug back and handle the mess.
00:48:45
Lauren Daly
That is such a good visual.
00:48:45
The Jobs Podcast
And that Well, thanks.
00:48:48
Lauren Daly
Yeah, it makes me think of clients that I have all the time that to say, you know, I've been so successful in my career, but I just don't have that piece of paper. And it's always that stick in my craw. You know, it's the thing that keeps me ah awake at night.
00:48:57
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:48:58
Lauren Daly
And yeah, it's the bump under the rug for a lot of people.
00:49:01
The Jobs Podcast
I can tell you're from Virginia, sticking my craw. You don't hear that too. You don't hear that from folks on the West Coast.
00:49:07
Lauren Daly
That's right. My grandma's from Tennessee, so I have some of her isms.
00:49:09
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, there you go.
00:49:10
Lauren Daly
Yes.
00:49:11
The Jobs Podcast
You've got some hillbilly sayings then.
00:49:13
Lauren Daly
That's right.
00:49:14
The Jobs Podcast
So Dr. Clifford, you guys work so well together. When I watch your YouTube videos, you just, there's ah an ebb and flow there. You can tell that you both have a lot of mutual respect for each other, admiration for each other.
00:49:29
The Jobs Podcast
You just ah fill in the gaps perfectly as you answer questions and discuss things.
00:49:36
Lauren Daly
Oh, thanks.
00:49:37
The Jobs Podcast
What's the, is that just a familiarity that you have with each other or is there, is that something that comes naturally or do you have to work on it?
00:49:45
Lauren Daly
great question. I think... From the first time I ever met Cliff, we were instantly united by this strong principle of justice. I think we're both really justice-oriented people where we want to do the right thing, even if it's hard.
00:50:01
Lauren Daly
And that's, you know, no pat on our back. It's just were we're built in that way where that's one of our top priorities. Everybody has a different focus, and that's why, you know, many parts make up the body. but but you So that being a uniting force, I think, has always made us get along really well.
00:50:15
Lauren Daly
When he called me out of the blue and said, hey, do you want to come work for me? The first thing I said was, when I mess somebody's plan up, are we going to pay for it? Because that's what's really important to me is if I mess up, can I make it right? Because it's going to happen. I'm really good at my job, but it's going to happen. You know, now nobody's perfect.
00:50:29
Lauren Daly
So can am I going to have the resources? Am I going to have your support to not pretend that we didn't do anything wrong, but to confront it and to make it right? And he said, absolutely. You've always had that, you know, when you've been with me previously and it wouldn't change now. So I think that we're very united by this desire to to help other people better themselves in their lives and their families' lives, especially.
00:50:48
Lauren Daly
um But then also, you know, to do what's right, even when it's hard.
00:50:52
The Jobs Podcast
The online YouTube game, and i'm I'm going to ask this question partly for my own knowledge because I just do an audio podcast, the video thing. it's That's a big step, big step up in expense and time and editing and all of that kind of stuff.
00:51:03
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:51:06
The Jobs Podcast
And I've already got one career. you know
00:51:08
Lauren Daly
yes
00:51:08
The Jobs Podcast
So, but do you have any advice on growing uh, an online channel, whether it's a podcast or a YouTube channel or whatever, what, what things do you do or have you done that you've seen a good return on your investment as far as growth?
00:51:26
Lauren Daly
Great question. Cliff would definitely answer this in a much more thorough way because he does more of that stuff than I do. But there is one huge example that I can think of immediately and that's the comments on our YouTube channel. I have um primarily handled the comments for the last probably year, or year and a half. And Cliff will jump in sometimes, especially if they're directed immediately at him.
00:51:43
Lauren Daly
But we get a lot more comments as time goes on. And one of the things that I hear from clients in sessions all the time is, um, I picked you guys because you're so thorough in the comments and you give away so much information for free.
00:51:55
Lauren Daly
And ah that made me feel like, you know, I could trust you. You weren't just in it for the money. And I'm so grateful that that comes through because that is true. You know, not to not to sound super cliche, but the mission for us here is much deeper than just making a buck.
00:52:06
Lauren Daly
I have a PhD. I could go get another really, really well-paying job where I make much more than I make. At this job, pretty quickly, I would imagine, even in this market.
00:52:12
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:52:14
Lauren Daly
I know that's ah tough to say. but But yeah, so I think we're here because we want to be here and not because we're just trying to make a buck. And that's that's important to us. So growing-wise, we have a ton of word of mouth. I'd say that's the largest way that we grow besides YouTube. We don't do any marketing. So it's really just the YouTube and when people are happy with us and they tell others that they know.
00:52:33
Lauren Daly
that we exist. And so, yeah, so word of mouth and then the comments, you know, just interacting with our community base and the people that are maybe already done with their degree, but they're just so excited about hacking and they're part of the community now that they continuously come back to watch the videos and comment. That's really special.
00:52:48
The Jobs Podcast
The comment section is something that you talked about giving away a lot of good information and and not basically being having all of your information hoarded behind a paywall.
00:53:00
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:53:00
The Jobs Podcast
um And I think that lends itself to these folks are actually trying to help. Yes, there's a profit side to it. Of course there is. I don't make any money doing this podcast. I don't need to remind myself of that, but
00:53:10
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:53:12
The Jobs Podcast
um I enjoy having the conversations with folks like yourself. It's interesting. It's fun. i get a bunch of free knowledge talking with people like yourself and, and I can do it, you know, when I, when I have time, I control the schedule, but I can see how if,
00:53:18
Lauren Daly
Yeah.
00:53:28
The Jobs Podcast
People are going to lend, it lends itself to your true intentions and them being genuine and real as opposed to ah eventually I'm just going to give you a link for my paid course or how to make money off of you.
00:53:42
The Jobs Podcast
It's not a hook.
00:53:43
Lauren Daly
Yes. Yes. Actually, so when i first ah jumped on with College Act, Cliff sat me down and said, this is our marketing strategy. He said, other people do it differently. And there's other players in our same niche that do it differently, where they like the paywalls and they like the, you know, lead you down the...
00:53:58
Lauren Daly
the rabbit hole, and then give you value at the end of it. He said, we're going to do the opposite. He said, I've studied marketing strategies, and it's really important to me that we give people a lot of free information so that they can do this on their own. If they either can't afford us or they don't want to pay for it, they can still do it. But then I want to provide a luxury service, basically, where people can opt out of that and not spend the 50 or 60 hours to do it themselves.
00:54:19
Lauren Daly
And, you know, hopefully we'll get enough people to pay for it But he, from the very beginning, sat me down, gave me a book on marketing and said, this is what we're doing, and it's very intentional. So I respect him a lot for that.
00:54:29
The Jobs Podcast
What's one of the best compliments that you've gotten with this college hacked thing? Is there one or two instances that really pop out that kind of bring a tear to your eye or?
00:54:40
Lauren Daly
The first time somebody showed up in a session with me and said, oh, it's you. I was so hoping it was going to be you. Nothing against Cliff. I love Cliff, but I was really hoping I'd get you. That shocked me because from the very beginning, people were so used to seeing Cliff and he's the face of everything and he's got a great personality.
00:54:56
Lauren Daly
He's had YouTube channels before that were very fun He used to be the pop song professor.
00:54:59
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:55:00
Lauren Daly
Look it up. Super good time. But um yeah, so he was very used to being kind of this YouTube version of famous. And I was not. And so when I'd meet with clients, a lot of times they were disappointed because they're like, oh, OK, you know, I'm not I'm not upset, but I was sort of hoping to meet Cliff, you know, that sort of thing.
00:55:15
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:55:15
Lauren Daly
And now more often than not, people are like, oh, good, I got you. And that just warms my heart.
00:55:19
The Jobs Podcast
Do you rub it in his face? Do you say I'm their favorite kind of thing?
00:55:22
Lauren Daly
No, because he's, he totally is so nice.
00:55:22
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:55:25
Lauren Daly
He's always like, well, they should see you. You know, everything. i don't know, you know, hardly anything. Sometimes people pay extra to meet with Cliff and he's always like, oh, that's so funny because really you probably know more than I do, which I think is funny.
00:55:36
The Jobs Podcast
When, the as we kind of land the plane here, what, when someone comes and they get a consultation from you, we talked about, you know, kind of that you offer that service and and a couple of high points, but what should people expect from,
00:55:51
The Jobs Podcast
going into a consultation with you, if they decide, okay, I'm ready, I want to step up to that luxury service, that custom um service that you offer to help me, you know, and my path, what should they expect before they go into that meeting?
00:56:07
Lauren Daly
Yeah, we have two different um options or entry points where you could jump in with us. If you're coming to the table without much knowledge and you feel like you don't really have a good grasp of what schools are an option or what differences there are between hacking methods or competency-based versus standard schools, asynchronous versus synchronous, all these kind of higher ed terms that a lot of people aren't familiar with, it's definitely in your best interest to do ah a two-session package that we offer because that first session, we're going to spend a full 50 minutes on Zoom um I'll screen share, we'll go over all the different school options, the hacking platforms, I'll ask you if you like papers or tests better, if you like deadlines or no deadlines, you know, kind of give you the lay of the land in terms of what's on offer when you're hacking a degree.
00:56:47
Lauren Daly
And then that way we can pair you with the best school and major for your situation. Because everybody's goals are different and everybody's learning aptitudes are different. Somebody may love exams, somebody may hate exams, there's different schools that offer, you know, different delivery styles.
00:56:59
Lauren Daly
So we're really trying to pair you with the best fit so that you have longevity in that degree and you're you're more likely to persist in finish. um So that would be the first session if you don't know too much. And then the second session, we would get back together after you've applied to that school, maybe sent any transfer credits that you had to them to get those evaluated.
00:57:16
Lauren Daly
The school will give a name to each of those classes so that I can then tell you how those classes will fit into your degree plan. And we can build the rest of the equivalencies. So I'll say, take these things on Sophia, take these things on straighter line.
00:57:26
Lauren Daly
that sort of thing so that by the time we end the second session, there's really no question left about anything and you just take the steps that are laid out in the document and move forward. The second option is if you maybe do have a lot of familiarity, maybe you've binged our videos for an extended period of time and know a lot about the college options and think you're probably pretty sure that you want to go to X school for X major, then we offer just a single session for around half the price of the two session package and that one's just to get together for one 50-minute Zoom call where we're planning all the classes and then writing out the next steps and everything. So you skip that first session of comparing schools. so
00:57:59
The Jobs Podcast
So the package that they get, where or the end result is going to be, it's a literally a step-by-step, like A, B, C, D. This is what you want to do. This is your game plan to get from starting college to finishing college, correct?
00:58:13
Lauren Daly
Exactly, yes
00:58:14
The Jobs Podcast
Wow. So turnkey, everything, follow the plan and you'll be a millionaire. Well, maybe not a millionaire, but you'll be successful. More successful than you are now. Let's reign that in just a little bit.
00:58:23
Lauren Daly
Yes, exactly.
00:58:25
The Jobs Podcast
I don't want to make promises you can't keep.
00:58:27
Lauren Daly
words.
00:58:27
The Jobs Podcast
So absolutely outstanding interview.
00:58:27
Lauren Daly
mr
00:58:30
The Jobs Podcast
Thank you so much. um i I'm going to probably watch more of your videos this evening. I saw you guys had a couple of new ones up.
00:58:36
Lauren Daly
Oh, thanks.
00:58:37
The Jobs Podcast
But where can they, I mentioned it at the beginning, but please tell the listeners where they can find you, how they can reach you and in the different social media aspects that you have.
00:58:47
Lauren Daly
Yeah, the easiest thing is going to be the YouTube for sure. Under the about section, we have our general email inbox listed, and that is just team at flexed.net. um So that is a way you can always reach us. My email is lauren at collegehacked.com. So pretty simple to remember.
00:59:03
Lauren Daly
So you can always reach out via email. We encourage people if they think that maybe we would be a good fit for their situation, but they aren't sure if we can really help type us up a little paragraph of your context and situation, throw us your transcripts if you are comfortable And I can get back to you and at least tell you, yeah, based on what you have left, i have some school options where you could save, you know, $8,000 or whatever on what you have left.
00:59:22
Lauren Daly
So that way you can decide if the expenditure is worth it. In general, it's pretty easy for us to pay for ourselves because the ROI on our services is actually kind of insane when you think about it. So I do think it's it's normally worth it if you're trying to save the time.
00:59:35
Lauren Daly
If you are flush with time and you want a hobby, this is a great hobby to jump into. You'll map your own degree for sure. ah but yeah.
00:59:42
The Jobs Podcast
that That does not sound like a good time as far as mapping out my own college. That sounds awful. But i think your service is something that I would certainly pay for just for the ease of having a turnkey package delivered to me.
00:59:54
The Jobs Podcast
And then there's nobody to to blame if it doesn't work except me. So...
01:00:00
Lauren Daly
Well, thanks for that. Yeah, I think that would be a that would definitely, that tells me what type of person you are. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. You are responsible for yourself and your success or failure depends on you. i love that.
01:00:11
The Jobs Podcast
Well, hopefully my my one of my boys, at least ah for sure in the next year or so, it might be reaching out to you. So we may talk again in the future.
01:00:17
Lauren Daly
Awesome.
01:00:17
The Jobs Podcast
But thank you so much. I know you're you're busy. You've got a lot of irons in the fire. So thank you for taking the time to talk with me. Hopefully the listeners got a lot out of this. I know that I did.
01:00:27
Lauren Daly
Thank you so much. It's been so wonderful to be here. I'll have to ah convince Cliff to get on the phone with you too. I think you guys would have a great time.
01:00:32
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he's probably going to be jealous after listening to your interview, I think.
01:00:37
Lauren Daly
That's right. I got to you first.
01:00:39
The Jobs Podcast
That's right. Thank you so much.
01:00:41
Lauren Daly
You're welcome.