Work! Study! Party!

Work! Study! Party! This article is all about opening up your mind to the possibility that you can work, study and party all on your own from the comfort of your home, frat house or dilapidated dorm room. In fact, all you really need to take care of the working part is a PC and an internet connection! Just imagine it. You make the money you need for partying and taking care of yourself while building your professional resume all on your own independently! No working in the cafeteria or slaving away as a teacher’s aide so all you can afford is the cheapest beer known to humankind! Welcome to the Future of Work In early August of 2013 oDesk announced that their online workplace reached the 1 billion dollar landmark. Yep, millions of people (not much unlike yourself) working from their own lives and at the speed of their own lifestyles from around the world helped oDesk earn 1 billion smackaroos! That’s nothing. Right now as you read this the estimated online workforce is worth 1 TRILLION. It’s so big and the marketplace has grown so fast it’s hard to really get any concrete numbers on just yet†¦ Here’s a pretty serious nugget though: â€Å"By 2018 online work is projected to be a $5B market.† Think about it. If you owned a big or small corporation right now and saw workforces on the local level shrinking and reeling under the rise of 21st century technology, wouldn’t you turn to hiring people online? 1. Global access to skilled workers 2. 24 hour productivity 3. Super-fast and efficient hiring process Need we go on? Within the year prior to releasing this information 2,389 different marketable skills were added to oDesk workplace. That’s just oDesk. Then there’s Elance and many other startups catering to YOU! Giving you a way to work with a PC from anywhere, at any time, and at any price. Here’s the three steps to getting started. Set up Your Website! Yes, you need a website. It’s no different than needing a toothbrush, smartphone or a car or any other modern technology. A website has become part and parcel to affluent life. Even if you don’t own (host) your own right now, you already probably have websites set up in your name on social media profiles: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Don’t take it too seriously, like what to name it. The point is to just get it started and think professionally. Your website will evolve as you do though. Just because you can post links on your Twitter profile doesn’t mean you’re tech-savvy. Once you set up your own web platform and begin growing it you learn a master’s worth of web-skills inside the first year or two even when you only use it passively. Establish a Service Provider Profile Optimize It What service can you provide via your computer? Name it. Create something new. There are thousands of current skill sets to choose from. There are hundreds upon hundreds of ways to make active and passive income online today. Many more will be created in the next few months from now as you read this. Here’s the trick though: you need to pick just one to three things and focus on them. Don’t try to make money 10 different ways while also chasing down a degree and a social life. It won’t work. It might work for a little while but eventually you’ll crash and burn. Try to pick one skill, for example if you’re an English Major you could write or edit things. If you study math you could offer to balance people’s books for them. Whatever. So, you’ve got your website on the side building and then you set up a service provider profile on oDesk-eLance or any other online work platform where people can hire you directly and you can begin collecting stats: jobs completed, logged hours (virtually), reviews, feedback and testimonials, a portfolio, etc. Optimize around your skills so that the people looking to hire you can find you and do so. Start Building Your Digital Name Right now, everything you do in life is building your name in both the real and virtual worlds. Simply Google your name to see what kind of presence you currently command. After you realize how powerful your online behavior is, you can steer it like a ship and create any virtual persona around your name that you like. It’s going to happen either way, so why not control it? You can begin making money within a few days to a few weeks. That’s the reality. It’s being done on by students on campuses all over the world right now. In fact, there are probably some students around you who are already doing it. They set their own rates, work for who they want, do what they want and work when they want. Get started. Begin actively building your brand, choose a small set of skills or ideally just one to focus on and begin growing in digital value. And, always keep your eye on the future!

Biography of Frederick Douglass

Biography of Frederick Douglass The biography of Frederick Douglass is emblematic of the lives of slaves and former slaves. His struggle for freedom, devotion to the abolitionist cause, and lifetime battle for equality in America established him as perhaps the most important African-American leader of the 19th century. Early Life Frederick Douglass was born in February 1818 on a plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland. He was not sure of the his exact birth date, and he also did not know the identity of his father, who was assumed to be a white man and likely a member of the family who owned his mother. He was originally named Frederick Bailey by his mother, Harriet Bailey. He was separated from his mother when he was young, and was raised by other slaves on the plantation. Escape From Slavery When he was eight years old he was sent to live with a family in Baltimore, where his new mistress taught him to read and write. Young Frederick demonstrated considerable intelligence, and in his teens he was hired out to work in the shipyards of Baltimore as a caulker, a skilled position. His salary was paid to his legal owners, the Auld family. Frederick became determined to escape to freedom. After one failed attempt, he was able to secure identification papers in 1838 stating he was a seaman. Dressed as a sailor, he boarded a train northward and successfully escaped to New York City at the age of 21. A Brilliant Speaker for the Abolitionist Cause Anna Murray, a free black woman, followed Douglass northward, and they were married in New York City. The newlyweds moved onward to Massachusetts (adopting the last name Douglass). Douglass found work as a laborer in New Bedford. In 1841 Douglass attended a meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket. He got onstage and gave a speech which riveted the crowd. His story of life as a slave was delivered with passion, and he was encouraged to dedicate himself to speaking out against slavery in America. He began touring the northern states, to mixed reactions. In 1843 he was nearly killed by a mob in Indiana. Publication of Autobiography Frederick Douglass was so impressive in his new career as a public speaker that rumors circulated that he was somehow a fraud and had never actually been a slave. Partly to contradict such attacks, Douglass began writing an account of his life, which he published in 1845 as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The book became a sensation. As he became prominent, he feared slave catchers would apprehend him and return him to slavery. To escape that fate, and also to promote the abolitionist cause overseas, Douglass left for an extended visit to England and Ireland, where he was befriended by Daniel OConnell, who was leading the crusade for Irish freedom. Douglass Purchased His Own Freedom While overseas Douglass made enough money from his speaking engagements that he could have lawyers affiliated with the abolitionist movement approach his former owners in Maryland and purchase his freedom. At the time, Douglass was actually criticized by some abolitionists. They felt that buying his own freedom only gave credibility to the institution of slavery. But Douglass, sensing danger if he returned to America, arranged for lawyers to pay $1,250 to Thomas Auld in Maryland. Douglass returned to the United States in 1848, confident he could live in freedom. Activities In the 1850s Throughout the 1850s, when the country was being torn apart by the issue of slavery, Douglass was at the forefront of abolitionist activity. He had met John Brown, the anti-slavery fanatic, years earlier. And Brown approached Douglass and tried to recruit him for his raid on Harpers Ferry. Douglass though the plan was suicidal, and refused to participate. When Brown was captured and hanged, Douglass feared he might be implicated in the plot, and fled to Canada briefly from his home in Rochester, New York. Relationship With Abraham Lincoln During the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Stephen Douglas taunted Abraham Lincoln with crude race-baiting, at times mentioning that Lincoln was a close friend of Frederick Douglass. In fact, at that time they had never met. When Lincoln became president, Frederick Douglass did visit him twice at the White House. At Lincolns urging, Douglass helped recruit African-Americans into the Union army. And Lincoln and Douglass obviously had a mutual respect. Douglass was in the crowd at Lincolns second inaugural, and was devastated when Lincoln was assassinated six weeks later. Frederick Douglass Following the Civil War Following the end of slavery in America, Frederick Douglass continued to be an advocate for equality. He spoke out on issues related to Reconstruction and the problems faced by newly freed slaves. In the late 1870s President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Douglass to a federal job, and he held several government posts including a diplomatic posting in Haiti. Douglass died in Washington, D.C. in 1895.