How to start a letter

I agree with Shane Dunaway that the NFL should start a farm league, like baseball does. It’s the only way “minor league” pro-football will survive.

First of all, they have the money to back it and weather the bad times.

Secondly, there are athletes who go to college just to get a chance to be an NFL star and make money while playing the sport they love. They should have this option to bypass college to achieve that goal. How many college athletes have to be tutored all the way through college taking courses they are not interested in or really are not academically college material?

An NFL farm league would solve this problem for both the athlete and colleges. It makes no sense that the NFL has not already done this.

Billy E. Price

Ashville

Here lately you cannot turn the TV on without hearing a story about porch pirates â€" those people who steal packages from your porch.

It’s all over the news, yet UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service will consistently drop off packages at the doorstep and porch.

But, the carriers never ring the doorbell or knock to alert the person inside that they have a delivery on the porch. Some do, but many don’t.

I can’t tell how many mornings I have walked outside to find a package left on my porch all night long. And, I was home when it was delivered.

It should be standard policy to ring the bell or knock when a package has been dropped off.

Sierra Club needs to start living in the real world of threats to our environment

Re: "Newsom must call for a California Summit on Wildfires" (Editorial, Nov. 13):

A California summit on wildfires should be priority one for our new governor.

What better way to use some of our budget surplus than to implement a better forest management plan. All federal and state forests in California are at high risk of catastrophic fire. The powerful Sierra Club needs to start living in the real world of threats to our environment. Fire is not good, is not cleansing and does not lead to a new natural cycle when the forests are in this catastrophic condition. It fought a good battle to stop clear-cutting of old-growth redwoods and should be commended but, as in many of its causes, it's gone too far.

It needs to take its head out of the ashes and smell the smoke and realize better forest management is the only way to get in front of this and stop this total destruction of our national treasures.

Jeff MillerDanville

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Here lately you cannot turn the TV on without hearing a story about porch pirates â€" those people who steal packages from your porch.

It’s all over the news, yet UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service will consistently drop off packages at the doorstep and porch.

But, the carriers never ring the doorbell or knock to alert the person inside that they have a delivery on the porch. Some do, but many don’t.

I can’t tell how many mornings I have walked outside to find a package left on my porch all night long. And, I was home when it was delivered.

It should be standard policy to ring the bell or knock when a package has been dropped off.

You've found a killer new job and it's time to bid farewell to your current gig.

First, sit down with your boss and let him or her know that you're leaving. (Here's how to do that.)

Then, it's time to put your departure in writing. Whether it was an awesome company or one that you're totally dying to leave, you'll need to write a resignation letter.

But how do you write a resignation letter? It doesn't need to be a summary of your entire employment history, job coach Lea McLeod told Business Insider's Áine Cain in 2017. "It needs to be simple, straightforward, and to the point," McLeod said.

It's really just a "formality" after you've had the initial conversation with your boss, Tim Vipond, CEO of the Corporate Finance Institute, told Business Insider.

"It would be quite awkward if you just emailed them or gave them a letter without talking to them first," Vipond said.

So, keep the letter brief. You can provide feedback on the company in a one-on-one with your boss or coworkers.

You'll need to include the following for a stress-free offboarding process:

Your name

Your job title

A notice of resignation

Your end date (usually two weeks from the date of the letter)

The following are optional, but good to include if you want to maintain the relationship with your old employer:

Information on how you'll train or help recruit your replacement

A thank you to your boss and the team

[unable to retrieve full-text content]For families who determine an appeal is the best route, here are tips on how to write a successful financial aid appeal letter: Start by calling the financial aid office. Include specific examples. ...

Almost everyone needs a letter of recommendation at some point…for scholarships, job applications and graduate school. In order to ask for a letter of recommendation, you need to start this process way before you actually need a letter. Get to know your professors! Engage in class. Take your work seriously. Be the student that professors want to help.

Assistant professor Patrick File calls this networking, and says most media jobs require lots of it. "Developing a relationship with a key faculty member or two who you like or admire is a huge factor in being successful generally in college, but it also makes it easier to ask for that letter when you need it."

Professors like File get many requests to write letters. Here are our tips for making your next request a successful interaction:

1. Choose professors who know your work. You should have taken at least one class, if not two, from the professor, and you should have had some face-to-face conversations. Or, you could have worked with the professor closely on an out-of-class project or event. However, you know the professors, they should have had a chance to see you do good work.

Associate dean Donica Mensing says this is important when considering which professor to ask for a letter. "It's a pleasure to write letters for students who show up, are engaged in learning, work hard and care about the quality of their work. If a student skated through a class, was absent a lot or produced average work, it's very difficult to say much in a recommendation letter that would be helpful."

Ask the professors if they are willing to write a letter for you. Some are not, for a variety of reasons. If they say yes, ask them what they will say about you. Alison Gaulden, lecturer and internship coordinator, recommends letting your professors know what skills you'd like them to highlight, especially if you have multiple requests to different mentors out at once. "Tell the mentor what you'd like to highlight and if you have others covering some character or skill trait so they can adjust to make sure they say something different."

2. When you make your request, provide all the information necessary for the professor to write a strong letter. Include in your email or in your face-to-face request:

The complete name of the person/job/school/scholarship you are applying to along with an address

The deadline by which the letter is due and where to send it (i.e. an upload URL or email address)

Your reason for applying – this can be a statement you wrote to accompany the application or a short explanation of what you hope to gain

A current resume

A reminder of what classes you took from the professor and when

3. Think ahead! Ideally, give professors three to four weeks to write a letter. Do not ask for letters on short notice unless it is a real emergency. Assistant professor Patrick File says this is one of the most common mistakes.

4. And last, but certainly not least, remember to thank your professors! Letters take time. Recognizing professors' work is not only gracious but makes them more likely to say yes in the future. If you get into an internship or program thanks to professors' letters, be sure to let them know!

It may seem intimidating to ask for a letter of recommendation, but quality letters are crucial to your success in college and the professional world. Whether you're applying for an internship, a job or maybe even graduate school, your professors are here to help, and they want to help!

Figuring out how much college will cost can be complicated, especially when some schools blur the lines between loans and grants.

College websites and promotional materials publish sticker prices, which can easily top $65,000 a year at a private college or $25,000 a year for an in-state public school. But most families will pay far less. Need-based financial aid awards often cut a school's sticker price in half for families who qualify. And non-need-based aid further reduces the costs for stellar students.

Still, how much any financial aid award will shave off your bill remains a mystery until after your child has been accepted. Then, within about two weeks, you'll receive a letter summarizing the types, sources and amount of financial aid being offered. Many of the letters, however, are missing important information or make financial aid awards appear more generous than they are.

Lawmakers are considering proposals that would standardize the letters and require schools to show cost and aid information in a more consumer-friendly way. Legislation that includes new rules for financial aid letters is likely to pass this year, says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of SavingforCollege.com. But even if that happens, changes to the award letters won't reach families for another one to three years.

If your child is headed to college before then, you'll need to examine the costs on your own. Start by calculating the full annual cost of attendance for each school that has accepted your student. You can't always take the listed costs at face value because colleges often exclude from award letters some expenses or underestimate how much students will spend on things such as textbooks and transportation.

Use the highest estimated book expense. You should also adjust transportation expenses for each school to reflect how far -- and how often -- your student will likely travel for school breaks. Then add up the cost of tuition, fees, room and board, books and supplies, and transportation to determine the sticker price for one year.

Next, decipher the aid. Most colleges group different types of financial aid under the same umbrella. It can be difficult to tell which items are scholarships and grants and which are loans. Ask the financial aid office if the award is likely to shrink in future years, or visit www.collegenavigator.gov to see how the average awards for first-year students compare with those of all undergraduates.

To see how much each school will cost your family, subtract the gift aid your student was awarded from the estimated cost of attendance. This is the amount your family is expected to contribute from savings, income or loans to cover costs for one year. If your student has been accepted at more than one school, make your own chart to compare each school's costs and offers, or use the tool at www.consumerfinance.gov.

(Kaitlin Pitsker is a staff writer at Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. Send your questions and comments to moneypower@kiplinger.com. And for more on this and similar money topics, visit Kiplinger.com.)

(c) 2019 Kiplinger's Personal Finance; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

As our Legislature and our governor in their wisdom have decided that one needs no license nor any training to possess and use lethal weapons, I cannot help but wonder why Sen. Nathan Dahm and Gov. Kevin Stitt are stopping with this?

Should we not allow unfettered driving (perhaps under the notion of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness")? How many 16-year-olds would indeed be so much happier not to have to pass driving tests?

Why not have licenseless doctors, nurses, architects, engineers, dentists, barbers and beauticians?

Why the double standard? We can hardly argue that we must license these professions in order to protect the public when we've decided that any fool with no training can have a gun.

And clearly automobiles, while they can be deadly, do have some other use besides primarily the taking of life (note that hunting rifles and shotguns do have legitimate uses; I don't think we can say that about handguns, AK 47s or the like).

How would Stitt and Dahm like an unlicensed surgeon cutting them open? Or an unlicensed engineer designing the beams over their heads?

If not, please do explain.