To educate or not to Educate. . .
I have really been given a lot of thought to getting my master's degree. I have thought about this decision many times before as some of you know. I continually go back and forth between whether or not it is worth it. Last Friday I was talking with some girls from work who are also interested in getting their Master's degrees and we decided to talk to our chief financial officer and find out approximately what the pay differentiation would be. We found out if would be an almost $10,000 a year pay increase...just to continue the job we are doing now. Whoa. So school would definitely pay for itself in two years. The problem we find here in rural missouri is the lack of resources for obtaining a Master's degree. If you want a Master's in anything besides business, english, or eduation, you have to drive at least an hour and a half if not longer. So i have started looking into MU's Master of Social work program. In the long run I would not want to continue in the Mental Health field but would like to maybe be a guidance counselor in the schools or head up an organization. I would more than likely be licensed to counsel but I don't really want to. Now I need to find out when the classes are offered, if I could continue to work full time or if I would need to move down to part time and take out more loans. Unfortunately, I will have to take out some loans to help pay for school, but I figure it's a good return on my money...hopefully. Anyways, if any of you have some thoughts or ideas, please feel free to post! These are just some of my crazy thoughts for the day!:) Stay tuned tomorrow for the results of week three!!
posted by Sam at 8:28 AM
6 Comments:
Look into the master's in social work program in KC... geez, I can't remember what school it is... i want to say UMKC. I looked at it last year and I remember it being very affordable.
The good thing about the proximity of Mizzou is that if you only have class one or two days a week, you can actually commute to school from Kirksville. A few months ago, I was actually considering a move to Columbia and commuting to school in St. Louis myself. That's basically the same thing. If you've got friends in the CoMo area, you could see about spending the night with them one night a week or something.
I think you can do it! if you can take 18 hours of undergrad work your senior year at truman, WHILE working, and graduate early, you can do this!! Or as bj says, "You can do it, put your back into it."
you know what my suggestion is...baylor has a good social work program and an excellent field to practice in.
i think getting your masters is a great idea if you can work it out financially. not only will it pay as far as future income return, but i am a total advocate for education. any time you can be in a learning environment where you are around research and things that will stretch your thinking, it will be great.
also: with having so much "field" experience, education at this point will be that much better!
GO FOR IT!
Yeah, i e-mailed the MU person today to ask for more info on it. I would probably commute from Kville,seeing that I just bought a house and only own like $800 on it...(but paid out like 1600 in interest since June...i hate being an adult!)Also, a few other girls from work are interested so we might be able to car pool. And actually I do have a friend who lives in Columbia who actually used to work with me, who's house I could probably bum at it.
I took a graduate class at Truman last spring and had a totally different mindset from undergrad. I think it was great to have worked in the field, or even just worked, because then you can really see how applicable the material is that you are learning! I guess I'm just worried that it will be a lot to juggle between work, loans, payments, school, life, etc.
posting number 2!!!!
grad school is a whole lot of fun!!! baylor sw is set up to only have classes a few days a week so people can commute. one problem you may have with working and social work is when you have your internships. you could probably do one in kville but not with the people you work with. look into the internships offered and what is a possibility because believe me that is where you learning will happen!!! good luck with that
love ya
Sammy
yeah, i kinda sorta checked about the internships (remember it's a little different than Baylors) but they said that they will allow you to do a paid practicum where you are employed but you just have to jump through a bunch of different hoops! You know me, I'm the master of jumping through hoops thanks to Truman! But several of the counselors here did that and still worked at Mark Twain.
So i'm pretty pumped now because I just spoke with a counselor who is my age who just finished her MSW at MU this spring! She said they do classes one day a week to cater to commuters and that it is pretty easy. Too bad I don't have a BSW because they only have to do 3 semesters of work, as opposed to other degrees (such as my lame BS in Psych) who have to do 5 semesters of course work. Anyways! i guess my next step is to start applying for financial aid and to the school!! kind of nervous...kind of nervous...:)
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