Lora Schwacke - Former CPA on How to be a Successful CPA

Lora Schwacke spent twenty years working for many different companies as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Today, the job market for CPAs is expected to increase by 13% between 2012 and 2022, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Schwacke recommends becoming a CPA to anyone interested in mathematics and finances; here are the steps you need to take to become a CPA:

• Earn a bachelor’s degree in accounting. To earn a license, you have to complete at least 150 classroom hours of education in accounting, depending on the state. Most aspiring CPAs complete about 120 classroom hours as a part of the bachelor’s degree program.
• Consider graduate school. While you don’t need an advanced degree to start working as an accountant or to take the CPA exams, earning a Master of Science in Accounting degree is an excellent way to boost your skills and understanding of accounting and help you complete your classroom hour’s requirement. An advanced degree also puts you on the short list for most companies for higher accounting positions.
• Gain work experience. Before you can be fully certified, you have to accrue at least two years of accounting experience. Get an entry-level job at an accounting firm or in the accounting department of any type of business to fulfill this requirement.
• Take the exams. There are four exams that all accountants have to pass to become a CPA. After you pass the first, you have eighteen months to pass the others.

Lora Schwacke retired after working as a CPA for twenty years in 2004 to work as a substitute teacher.
​

Lora Schwacke - How to be an Effective Substitute Teacher

Lora Schwacke has been a substitute teacher in New Jersey school districts since 2004. She has been in many classrooms, taught many subjects, and dealt with many different students with many different learning styles and needs. She currently works with ESL and special needs students as a long-term substitute at Waldwick High School in Waldwick, New Jersey. Here are a few ways to be an effective substitute teacher every time you take over a strange classroom:

• Get help any way you can. As a substitute teacher, you’ll need help to run the classroom. You have to find the necessary resources you need as soon as you can. In an ideal situation, the regular teacher has prepared the students to help you teach them, and has prepared a detailed lesson plan with notes about all the individual students. That isn’t always the case, and some school administrations are more supportive of substitute teachers than others. Sometimes you’ll need the help of the security guard, the secretary, or even a few of the students themselves to get through a class or a day.
• Make the students aware that you’ll report their behavior to their normal teacher. This will hold all of the students accountable for their behavior and provide an incentive to follow your instructions.
• Study school policies. Most school policies are straightforward, but there can be some differences in expectations for students between schools.

Lora Schwacke has followed these key nuggets of advice and led a successful substitute teaching career for over a decade in New Jersey.
​

Lora Schwacke - Bradley Method Instructor

Lora Schwacke is a Certified Childbirth Educator living in Wyckoff, New Jersey. She wanted to teach the Bradley Method of natural childbirth because she believes that it is the safest and most effective strategy to give healthy birth to healthy children.

The Bradley Method was first developed by Robert A. Bradley in 1947. At the time, general anesthesia was a common method of reducing childbirth pain for women. After witnessing complications resulting from this practice, Dr. Bradley decided to create his own method for natural childbirth that avoided the common side effects of anesthesia and other pain management methods of the day. Dr. Bradley grew up on a farm and witnessed many animals giving natural birth to young. 

He reasoned that humans could do the same thing without danger. He studied what many mammals do naturally during childbirth and applied the same principles to human births. He derived six basic natural birth principles that he applied to his childbirth method: complete relaxation, abdominal breathing, a quiet setting, a dark setting, physical comfort, and closed eyes. 

Today, Bradley Method instructors teach expecting women how to perform these six principles with practice every day in natural pain management techniques. For the Bradley Method to effective, expecting mothers have to practice breathing exercises daily and mind their diet and exercise. The idea is to reduce any possible need for medical intervention because the mother is unhealthy before she starts to give birth. 

Lora Schwacke has been a Bradley Method instructor since 1990, shortly following the birth of her first daughter.