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Correspondence Course Review

K

KevinIRR

New Member
KevinIRR said:
The correct way to look at this is net present value of each point. I'll show that each retirement point for mid-30s E-6 is worth about $75. Not bad if you can crank them out quickly.

Each point you earn, by completing a course, entitles you to a life annuity beginning from when you turn age 60 until the day you die. I'll show a simple example below for a 38 year old E-6 in the IRR. Let's ignore the survivor benefit, because that complicates things (it reduces the payout to the retiree in exchange for a potentially longer payout to the spouse).

Payment is adjusted for inflation, so no discounting of future payments is necessary (If I promised you $100 every year for the next 20 years, the fair value now would be less than $2,000, but if we adjusted the $100 payment for inflation, the fair value now may be about $2,000).

Life expectancy now of healthy non-smoking 38yo = 84yrs; this means we assume 24 years of payment for point earned today.

Base monthly pay for E-6 (2015 table) = $3,724
Monthly retirement pay for one point ($3,724 / 360 x 0.025) = $0.26
Net value of point earned today (24 yrs x 12 months x $0.26) = About $75
Click to expand...

Could include effective tax rate in the equation, too. If I'm in a higher tax now than I expect to be in my 60s, 70s, and 80s, there's an even stronger case to do retirement points instead of taking a second job.

A high earner in California could have incremental state + federal + salary taxes of around 50%. Each dollar of top line income may result in $0.50 or less in the pocket. But in retirement, you will most likely pay less tax for a number of reasons (and moving to a tax-free state will certainly help, but might not be necessary).

Therefore, the current value of series of post-retirement life annuity payments that sum up to $75 may be equivalent to about $150 today, because of tax. To put $75 in my pocket now, I need to earn about $150. Or I can earn a retirement point and get myself some income deferred until the lower-tax future.
 
RHINOWSO

RHINOWSO

"Yeah, we are going to need to see that one again"
None
JKO has proven pretty easy if you have subject area knowledge, the biggest issue is a good number of the "approved" courses are no longer available, so that's half the battle to find one that is still available, worth points, and worth your time to complete.
 
Sam I am

Sam I am

Average looking, not a farmer.
pilot
Contributor
FYI...if you're interested in the JKO foreign language courses (I've taken French and half way through Spanish) they're under Curriculum...not courses. The courses are 20 pts each and offer decent ROI in regards to time.
 
BirdDog

BirdDog

New Member
pilot
RHINOWSO said:
JKO has proven pretty easy if you have subject area knowledge, the biggest issue is a good number of the "approved" courses are no longer available, so that's half the battle to find one that is still available, worth points, and worth your time to complete.
Click to expand...

Indeed - I took your advice and did the Link 16 course. Not too bad at all if broken up over time. FWIW - I highly recommend the Joint Fires Observer for 5 points, as this is actually interesting stuff you can follow and digest.

Sam I am said:
FYI...if you're interested in the JKO foreign language courses (I've taken French and half way through Spanish) they're under Curriculum...not courses. The courses are 20 pts each and offer decent ROI in regards to time.
Click to expand...

Thanks SIA - I'm actually going to target those for FY-17.
 
S

shift_DAWG

Member
Sam I am said:
FYI...if you're interested in the JKO foreign language courses (I've taken French and half way through Spanish) they're under Curriculum...not courses. The courses are 20 pts each and offer decent ROI in regards to time.
Click to expand...

Great find, thanks!! I was really frustrated that I couldn't find those "whale" courses.

I took HS Spanish and lived in Germany for a while; hopefully I can leverage that into a good 40 points. Thanks again for the info!
 
atmahan

atmahan

... facility for offence.
I'm finding the language courses on MarineNet are pretty good and easy once you get into a rhythm of things.

There are around 15 different languages and each one comes in 4 Courses.

Courses 1, 3, and 4 are worth 4 Points (they have 3 Modules each).

Course 2 is worth 6 Points (this one has 4 Modules, which is why it is worth more Points).

Courses #1 are impossible to finish so don't bother unless you are familiar with the language (there are questions on the tests that are not even in the lectures!, plus songs you must memorize and mouse-unfriendly HAND-cursive writing exercises) but you can skip The #1's and jump right into Modules 2, 3 and 4 for a total of 14 Points per Language.

Each Module introduces you to 15 sentences in the Language that you are taking with interesting topics such as: House Searches, Things to Ask People at Checkpoints, Land Navigation, etc.

There are 6 Tasks per Module where you basically have to match the English translation of the 15 sentences in different ways. Each Task is broken up into 3-5 sub-sections.

But all 6 Tasks are of the exact format in all the 2, 3, and 4 Modules of all the Languages that I have done so far (and I have done a lot!), so you can get into a rhythm of things.

There is one test per Module where you are asked to translate 4 of the 15 Sentences, and you are allowed only 1 wrong answer. If you get more than 1 wrong, you must repeat 3 of the Tasks before taking the Test again. If you pay close attention you will always pass the tests. :)

All the Sections in all the Tasks in all the Modules of Courses 2, 3 and 4 are video based (you watch/hear someone talk in the language and translate what they say in the exercises).

Once you get into a rhythm of things, you can get it down to around 5-10 minutes per Task, which comes out 25-45 minutes per Module, so 1-2 hours per Course.

I started these Courses in November and started sending them in December but have still not seen them appear in my Points Capture (I just called today)!

ATMahan
 
atmahan

atmahan

... facility for offence.
Sorry, some of the info above is incorrect. Each Tasks (not Module) introduces you to 15 sentences and its 5 Tasks per Module, with 6 Steps per Tasks. It seems like a lot but you can break it down. I personally aim for 3 Tasks per day which is around 30 minutes total per day.

Whoever created these Courses reused the same sentences, so you are basically doing the same sentences over and over but in different languages.
 
Sam I am

Sam I am

Average looking, not a farmer.
pilot
Contributor
atmahan said:
Whoever created these Courses reused the same sentences, so you are basically doing the same sentences over and over but in different languages.
Click to expand...

What you're describing sounds veeeeeerrrrrry similar to JKO. It's all about the rhythm...if you can spell rhythm without help, you can pass JKO foreign language courses.
 
Randy Daytona

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Recently did the Naval Space Course from NETC. Little bit dated (said I could order the video on reel to reel, VHS or BetaMax), but other than that it was surprisingly interesting. If you are looking for a course that you actually might enjoy and be informative at the same time, this might be one.
 
Flash

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Randy Daytona said:
Recently did the Naval Space Course from NETC. Little bit dated (said I could order the video on reel to reel, VHS or BetaMax), but other than that it was surprisingly interesting. If you are looking for a course that you actually might enjoy and be informative at the same time, this might be one.
Click to expand...

Was this guy the 'instructor'?

140228_2749627_Harry_Caray__Space__the_Infinite_Frontier_anvver_2.jpg
 
Randy Daytona

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Taking a break from JKO and NETC - trying some FEMA courses. Just did 0001 - Emergency Manager (1 point) - it is a slog but only 19 more points to go for the year.
 
snake020

snake020

Contributor
Anyone know how long it's taking to process certificates these days? Last year mine were posted within three weeks. This year I submitted at the start of May and they still haven't hit.
 
Duncan Idaho

Duncan Idaho

I like cheese.
None
snake020 said:
Anyone know how long it's taking to process certificates these days? Last year mine were posted within three weeks. This year I submitted at the start of May and they still haven't hit.
Click to expand...
The most recent classes I had recorded took about 9 months.
I'm still waiting on things from January, February, and March of this year.
 
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