Brand New - Want to finish my degree- not sure how this works- Looking for answers...

[faithlyric]

Thanks Mrs.b...If I could waive a magic wand and wake up tomorrow doing something it be another volunteer experience. I worked as a CNA/HHA , social services, and then went into suicide crisis and rape crisis counselor line. A lot of stress. I wound up getting a volunteer opportunity and then volunteered around, lived on an Organic farm, even living in a Buddhist community for 9 months helping them with fundraising (I am catholic but they didn't care and neither did I LOL) That gave me such a travel and volunteer bug. Seriously, I love working with people. Even the job I have now, technical support, I get teased that I work for the customer like it's life and death Maybe that is left over from before. Anyway, that is the main reason why I want to get this degree. I can volunteer for the Peace Corps with a degree. The recruiter said it doesn't even matter what it is in but I HAVE to have at least a bachelors degree
As for work, i am keeping track of the times we are down and not getting paid. I have been for about 2 months now. What will be, will be but it now has become a means to an end now that I see an end in sight. Thanks

[faithlyric]

I did work at a non-profit before and loved it. Several times.

[mrs.b]

Setting the Big3 aside for now (they may be your best bet for the money and time, but not always)...

Have you thought about Anthropology? There is an option for a lot of travel if you go the researcher route. Here's a link of other career options an anthropology degree may open: What You Can Do With a Degree in Anthropology

What about Psychology? There can be good money in that, and by default, you'll be working with and helping people because that's what it is about...and it's incredibly versatile, branching into a ton of different fields.

There are undergraduate degrees available in non-profit management, leadership, organization, philanthropy, and so on to get a paying position in the field you already know you love.

Sociology is a possible direction to open some of those same doors.




Once you know what your perfect career is, you can find the most versatile and cost-effective undergrad degree that meets your logistic needs, then a 2-year degree for the here-and-now to get something fast and cheap to check boxes on jobs while filling in the remaining credits on that perfect Bachelors.

[sanantone]

I have to be honest here. Many college websites and professional organizations will give you a long list of what you can do with your degree, but they don't give you the statistics on your job prospects. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a good website for that. Most undergraduate degrees in the social sciences aren't very marketable. There are a wide array of social service-type jobs one can do with a BA in psychology, but there are so many people with that degree, the market is oversaturated. The job prospects with a sociology degree would be about the same. With a BA or BS in anthropology, the job prospects would be even worse. These are areas where it really takes a graduate degree to do something. The job prospects with a BA in Humanities are terrible. The one thing you can do is go through an alternative teacher certification program after getting a BA, but I must warn that most of the job openings are not in the humanities and social sciences. The demand is in special education, chemistry, physics, math, ESL, and technology education. Some districts have a high demand for foreign language and family consumer science teachers.

Have you thought about getting into special education? I was about to start an alternative teacher certification program until I was accepted to a PhD program. I could have become certified in anything as long as I passed the content exam, but they recommended special education because of my BA in Social Science. That might sound a little odd. You would think they would recommend me for social studies, but social studies in grade school mostly focuses on history, government, economics, and geography. My BA consisted of psychology, sociology, and criminal justice courses. Most of the opportunities I've found with my BA in Social Science were for social service-type jobs in Child/Adult Protective Services and criminal justice agencies (parole/probation or doing casework with offenders). These jobs are highly stressful and can be dangerous.

There is an oversaturation of business degrees in the market, but business degrees are more marketable than most of the social sciences. One can use it in non-profit management as well as countless other types of jobs. Since you work in technical support, have you thought about getting a degree in an IT-related field? There are so many possibilities in non-profits and education. You can use your technical skills to teach others. There are many social service programs that teach the unemployed basic computer skills so that they can increases their chances of finding employment. You can even work overseas and teach computer skills to those in developing countries.

[faithlyric]

I have never thought about IT and teaching computer skills would actually be very rewarding for me. I actually worked for a surge suppressor company and they caught me doing tech support over the phone and said I missed my calling. I always seem to wind up in tech support. I worked for Cox Communications internet, phone, and cable tech support. Now here I am mobile phone tech support LOL. I honestly never thought of it this way. Business degrees scared me right off because it would be horrible for me to just sit in an office every day and that is my mental image when i think of a business degree. What degree would that be (computer science?) and can I get most of it this way....CLEP?

[sanantone]

You can test out of most of the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an area of study in Computer Information Systems at TESC. You might be able to test out of a good portion of Excelsior's Bachelor of Science in Business with a concentration in Management Information Systems. The Big 3 offer other degrees in information technology and computer science. While you can test out of the general education and free elective requirements, most of the IT and CS requirements will have to be taken as online courses. If you want to mix cultural studies with IT, then COSC's Individualized Studies and TESC's Learner Designed Area of Study would be ideal.

If you're looking for a quick associate's that would lead to a job while you're working on your bachelor's, an IT-related degree would be one of the better choices. Just getting a plain associate's in general studies will probably only make you competitive for administrative assistant jobs or qualify you for hire as a police officer. Many jobs in IT will only require an associates in a related field and the COMPTIA A+ certification.

If you're interested in something IT-related, these are the programs offered by the Big 3.

Excelsior
Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (various concentrations)
Bachelor of Professional Studies in Technology Management (various concentrations)
Bachelor of Science in Technology (Computer Technologies)
the business degree with the management information systems concentration I listed above

Charter Oak
Information Systems Studies
Computer Science Studies

Thomas Edison
the business degree I listed above with the concentration in computer information systems
BA in Computer Science
BSAST in Information Technology