Going back to school....?

Why?

 

I started a communications degree right out of high school, but never finished. Instead, I transferred into a two-year journalism diploma and got that. Now I have 10 years experience in print (with some TV and radio experience, too) and I'm going back to get a two-year PR diploma and then I'll finish my degree. All that should keep me somewhat safe and marketable.

I am meeting with the registrar's office this week regarding enrolling in the PR program for September.

 

My Plan B is to get my teaching credential, and teach high school government or history. Right now, the market's not so good, but by the time I get the credential (it'll take about 2 years) all those hippies that went into teaching in the late 60s-early 70s should be retiring.

I should find out within the next couple weeks if I'll need to put that plan into effect.

 

Is anyone worried about holding down your current job and taking 9, 12 or 15 credit hours to get that other degree?

I'd be in that boat - 40 hour work week with wacky hours and then try to get the degree as quickly as possible. Besides the cost (I've only been paying back student loans for seven months), shouldering the work load is my biggest reservation.

 

Starting law school, full-time, later this year.

 

I left for a two-year, cold turkey, second bachelor's in education.

Five years later, I went back for a two-year sprint for a master's.

No regrets.

 

I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I took the LSAT, did reasonably well, and for the last month have been trying to write an essay about why I want to go to law school. I basically decided that, for now at least, I don't. I like my current job too much, and three years of law school and $150K in debt doesn't really excite me at this point in life. If I lose my job in the Great Layoff of 2009, I'll freelance, or bartend, or both.
But I'll probably think about school again next year. Maybe law school. Maybe a PhD, or at least a masters, in economics. Maybe history. I don't know.

 

Do any of you think the computer field and its software is worth looking into?

 

I've been considering going back for a B.Ed after degree but I could never leave writing completely. Every time I've left a full-time gig (after an internship, self-prescribed vacation between jobs, etc.) it's taken all of a week before I feel compelled to re-join the rank and file of the ink-stained Ichiban soldiers. I'd need to have a pretty steady writing job on the side and then I don't feel I'd be any further ahead. I love journalism way too much to just give up on it even if the business is in shambles right now.

Then again, retiring at 57 doesn't seem all that bad either right now ...

 

Depends where you go, what kind of grades you get, etc., etc.

All JDs are not created equally, even JDs at the same law school.

 

it's not totally safe there, either, sadly. mrs. jps' mom is the head of a hospital. pretty big place, one of the biggest/best in the region. she just had to lay off nine last week.

 

For all those going back to school, keep in mind that students loans are immune from bankruptcy protection and that failure to pay means atrocious late payment penalties that make the IRS look benign. I've heard a couple financial adviser types recently say that if you have to take out student loans right now - if you can even get them - they recommend not going back to school, because the job market will probably be worse 2-3 years from now than it is today, and if you can't get a job, you won't be able to pay the loans. I have a friend who is an attorney - graduated from law school at age 45 and financed it all with student loans - whose student loan debt is now over $100,000 and rising (he can't pay) and sees no possibility of ever being able to do so, and a lifetime of liens facing him. Right now, his clients aren't paying - he has more money outstanding this year than he will earn, because his clients just don't have any money. His office recently hired a new attorney (criminal law) and they were absolutely flooded with applicants, most of them refugees from the corporate and financial world, men and women age 35-50 whose world has collapsed.

As an aside, I am stunned by the number of people on this board who seem to think they can go back to school and become college profs. You might be able to teach in a college - as an instructor - for $4-5000 per class with no benefits, but finding tenure track humanties positions is even more competitive than working in journalism.

Nothing is safe now. Nothing.