Getting Informed about Pursuing Grad School

[pete4454]

Thanks for all the input, everyone! I appreciate it.

[clean]

Pete,
You asked, and the overwhelming answer was 'dont do it'.  Hopefully you have heeded that advice and have moved to more productive uses of your time.

However, IF you are still dreaming, look at the job pages for higheredjobs.com or go to the jobs pages on the Chronicle site.  Those are the first pass places to look.

IF you are not dissuaded by those postings (and the few listing a MA as the minimum qualifications), you may want to look at the public information for state employees salaries. 
These are only from fragments of my memory, and you will have to do some search for 'salaries' or something else, but these papers may still have databases (not necessarily accurate/up to date) for what faculty make.

Thestate.com (in South Carolina)
https://salaries.texastribune.org   (texas)
https://prod.flbog.net:4445/pls/apex/f?p=140:1:::NO:::  (florida)

If you type a state name and 'state employee salaries' something may pop up with a database.

To make use of this you would need to go to the website of the local college and find the faculty members in the discipline of interest and then search their names in the database.  You would need to look up their webpages and bios to see what their degrees are, though, as I suspect few will have only a MA.

The bottom line, I think is this... IF you  want to teach, you may be able to get a teacher's certification in your state with just a BA and the experience you have now.  You will likely need to take 12 or so credit hours of classes over the next few years to keep the certification.  Take a look at what you would make teaching high school now, and compare that to what you would get teaching at a community college AFTER the financial, emotional, and living costs from spending a year of full time study AND  whatever it takes to find employment.  You may find that you would come out ahead financially by teaching high school rather than trying to get a job at a CC.

Also, consider that teaching at a CC is not all that different from teaching high school. The students are not all that older, or mature or motivated, the work load is not all that different (15/18 credit hours a term) and the classes are really not much different (from my memory as a CC student).  I dont want to disparage the CC faculty on this fora (especially as it is new), but INMHO, (as a former CC student) Im not sure that there is a huge difference between being at a CC and "13th grade". 

On a personal note.... Long ago, I earned a MA in order to teach at a CC.  After graduating with my MA I worked for 5 years at a for profit, private college.  I was 'on the board' 38 hours a week, teaching a split shift - 8-12, and back from 6-10, M-F.  I looked for a job at a CC for all of those 5 years.  I interviewed at 4.  I was offered jobs to adjunct at all 4, but in the end, the jobs that I applied for went to a person who was already 'paying their dues' by adjuncting for them.  After 5 years, I went to 'phd school' and earned an advanced degree in a business area and am certainly in the upper half of the salary scale in the university.   

IF you want to get an advanced degree, I suggest an MA or PhD in Accounting.  There are plenty of jobs at both the CC and university level for a PhD and they likely start out earning about twice what a liberal arts degree would pay.  With the MA, you can sit for the CPA credential and while it is not teaching, there are certainly good jobs available.  (And while they are overloaded in 'tax season', by November and December, the workload is not bad at all)

[tuxthepenguin]

IF you want to get an advanced degree, I suggest an MA or PhD in Accounting.  There are plenty of jobs at both the CC and university level for a PhD and they likely start out earning about twice what a liberal arts degree would pay.  With the MA, you can sit for the CPA credential and while it is not teaching, there are certainly good jobs available.  (And while they are overloaded in 'tax season', by November and December, the workload is not bad at all)

Accounting is fine, but there are a number of fields where a graduate degree isn't unreasonable, including statistics, business, economics, computer science, some engineering fields, nursing, and others that I'm sure I'm missing. None of those fields have the high rates of unemployment and low salaries you find in the humanities.

[apl68]

Library and information science is a good Masters' level field.  However, anybody considering it would be well advised to try working in the field first to see whether it's congenial.  You'll have to start at the bottom one way or another anyway.  Might as well start paying your dues first, THEN go for the degree if it looks like it's working.

[pedanticromantic]

IF you want to get an advanced degree, I suggest an MA or PhD in Accounting.  There are plenty of jobs at both the CC and university level for a PhD and they likely start out earning about twice what a liberal arts degree would pay.  With the MA, you can sit for the CPA credential and while it is not teaching, there are certainly good jobs available.  (And while they are overloaded in 'tax season', by November and December, the workload is not bad at all)

Accounting is fine, but there are a number of fields where a graduate degree isn't unreasonable, including statistics, business, economics, computer science, some engineering fields, nursing, and others that I'm sure I'm missing. None of those fields have the high rates of unemployment and low salaries you find in the humanities.

Everyone says accounting is going to be one of the major industries to die in the new AI revolution. I would not recommend accounting.

[hmaria1609]

Library and information science is a good Masters' level field.  However, anybody considering it would be well advised to try working in the field first to see whether it's congenial.  You'll have to start at the bottom one way or another anyway.  Might as well start paying your dues first, THEN go for the degree if it looks like it's working.

Chime!  I was a volunteer and an intern at various times and different library settings during college and library school. When I was hired for my 1st professional library job 4 months after December graduation, I had my MLS in hand.  I was lucky to land where I did.

[mamselle]

I think I recall, too, from friends working as librarians, that it was sometimes possible to get a library job in a position that didn't require an MLS while working on the degree itself.

I think one or two might have offered tiny bits of tuition support as well, but this was 20 or so years ago, no idea whether that's still the case or not: more current practitioners would be better sources now.

M.