Pretty much as written. I want to earn an academic or vocational qualification (e.g. a degree, certificate, certification, etc.) with the least amount of practical effort, or at least a very low amount. Effort, of course, is relative and a matter of personal judgement, but I’d say that a qualification that you can get by taking a one-semester course that it is almost impossible to flunk out of unless you intentionally goof off counts, as well as a qualification you can get by taking an exam for which the average person can pass by studying on their own for three weeks full time.
Stuff that I’m excluding: Taking a trivial amount of additional undergraduate credits and walking away with General Studies Associate’s Degree from the local community college, and the GED (I’m not even allowed to take it!).
The qualification need not have serious practical value, but it needs to be one with at least theoretical or nominal recognition. E.g. a “Registered Taxidermy Assistant” certificate that is theoretically available from City Hall but that almost nobody gets in practice because all the jobs had evaporated by 1910 does count. Something your little sister and a few of her sorority sisters came up with while drunk doesn’t count.
A basic Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) certification requires 40 hours of instruction and a few days of supervised field work.
I’d bet you can find industry certifications in most fields administered by trade associations that require just a one or two day class and (maybe) an exam at the end. How much credence is given to those certifications depends largely on the particular group that operates it.
I’ve taken some computer classes at work that probably fit the bill. A few hours of classroom instruction, no test. Somewhere I have a certificate for completing a class on Excel 2002 that gives me some percentage of a “continuing education credit” with the local community college.
I did not take the class to get a certificate; I took it because I wanted to learn how to use Excel. It served that purpose.
Several people I know (including my husband) have taken the Stanford Machine Learning class here: http://www.ml-class.org/course/auth/welcome and gotten a certificate. Stanford has finished the class for this year and I don’t know if they’ll run it again until next (school) year.
It helps if you have some technical knowhow, but everything is pretty much spelled out. And I understand the tests aren’t super hard, but then again most of my info comes from my husband who is, um, extremely technically oriented, so I’m not sure how accurate that is. Anyway, you can watch the videos at the link and see what you think.
Through the Universal Life Church, you can become an ordained minister, and legally perform weddings, baptisms, and funerals, just by filling out a form online. Does that count as a vocation?
It’s quite easy to become a Level I or even Level II Curling Instructor as certified by the United States Curling Association. Don’t expect your phone to ring off the hook with job offers if you do, but hey, you said you didn’t care about “serious practical value”.
Thank you, robert_columbia, for creating this thread. I’ve thought about the same subject for the past couple of years, but never created a thread because…well, I’m shy, I guess.
For my contribution: you can get a Student Pilot’s Certificate just by passing a basic medical exam, and this would last someone all the way through soloing and beyond, until (or if) you pass your final written and flight exams. Details: http://www.faa.gov/pilots/become/student_cert/
Most community colleges have an EMT program, our local college has a tue thur night for 4 hours each or 9-5 saturdays. Its pretty easy, extremely useful, and combined with a good driving record can get you a decent job.
In my state, it also requires 30 hours of classroom training, 6 hours of behind-the-wheel training, and 30 hours of practice driving with a parent or other licensed driver over 21.
Actually, I think you might not need all that if you are over 18, but that’s what my daughter is doing right now so she can get her license at 16.