Frequently Asked Questions
In this section, we have compiled some of the frequently asked questions that we’ve received over the years. If there’s something that we missed, please reach out and a member of our staff will get in touch with you.
WHAT KIND OF CERTIFICATION WILL I RECEIVE?
This is one of the questions we hear most often. Since you can register individually for many different combinations of classes, we can give you documentation of completion at any time for any of the classes you take throughout the year.
Our training, especially our advanced classes, is academically on a high level, comparable to what is learned in TCM or ND school or in university botany classes, but we cannot create “certified herbalists” because that category does not legally exist. So we do not offer certification as an herbalist because it might confuse people. There is no such thing as a “licensed herbalist” in the U.S. Herb schools like ours train people to take care of themselves and loved ones, but we do not confer any certification to practice medicine. Since most of the herbal medicine practiced over human history has been done by family members, we like to think of folk herbalism schools as training to be amazing grandmas and grandpas!
If you are looking to use herbs in a professionally licensed medical practice, you can become a Naturopathic physician, a Licensed Acupuncturist, a Nurse Practitioner or one of the other medical professions that can prescribe herbs to patients. (And: you can still take our classes! We have had many health care professionals study with us because they didn’t get quite enough herbal education in their other schooling. Naturopaths who want to learn how to identify and harvest wild plants, Acupuncturists who want to learn local plants, etc…)
CAN I TAKE A FULL COURSE IN HERBALISM?
We used to only offer a single year-long course. The Herbalist Training Program ran for thirteen years, from 2007 to 2019. Since then we have broken up our curriculum into chunks so that you can take just the classes you are most interested in. Of course, you can sign up for all of them if you want! We offer significantly discounted rates for people taking complete series of classes, like our Complete Plant Medicine series and our Complete Spring Excursions packages.
When you sign up for longer series of classes you get a lot of extra time and attention from instructors and build community with other students over the year as you get to know the other people doing the whole series as well.
DO YOU OFFER PAYMENT PLANS, WORK TRADE, OR DISCOUNTED TUITION?
Since our curriculum is divided into individual classes, most of our offerings are inexpensive. (At this time there is no $2900 full-year tuition to deal with) We have also discounted almost all of our courses across the board since the pandemic began.
We also reduce the tuition for our classes when you sign up for complete series. So you kind of get a price reduction in exchange for dedication and commitment.
If you are interested in plant walks, hikes and excursions, there are now many to choose from and you can select the ones that fit your budget.
If there is a class that you are very interested in taking and economic factors make it hard for you to afford, contact us individually about it and we will let you know if we have any promotions coming up that could help in that specific case.
IF I MISS A LIVE ONLINE CLASS CAN I GET THE RECORDINGS?
If you are registered for one of our Live Online classes and you happen to miss one of the four live meetings of the class because of special circumstances, we can provide you with the audio recording. We cannot share the video recordings of live classes at this time.
If you are primarily interested in listening to recordings of our classes rather than attending live sessions, we are working on that! Some recordings of classes will become available in 2022 for streaming.