Back to school

Anyone else getting some family pressure to go back to school? My wife is in med school and thinks that if I want to avoid the many lay offs to follow in my aviation career that I should go back to school. I hadn't really thought about it much but now that I am going on my first month of unemployment I am going a little crazy with ideas to get back to work. With so many options here in Denver I have no idea what I'd want to or be qualified to go into a masters degree in. I know I don't want an MBA. I was foolish enough once to be a business major... not again. Law of supply and demand. (which I wish they would have covered the first year in detail.)

Anyone else going through the same things? Been there done that?

I would look into a masters in safety. People are always trying to kill themselves.

why do you think a MBA is a bad idea?

A few years ago everyone was going for the Bachelors Degree. Now it's the Masters. Neither group has nearly the number of applicants into programs such as engineering, health, sciences. The vast majority of new applicants to Masters Programs are MBA applicants. The market has far too many applicants to choose from. I'd like to come at it with something that not everyone has.

I agree that the MBA degree has become somewhat watered down in recent years. But compared to the labor market having an MBA still puts you ahead of probaly 90% of applicants. Also I beleive that the reason more people do an MBA is because doing a masters in engineering, health or sciense would be much harder to do if your bachelors wasnt in that field as compared to an MBA. In fact after doing some research right now annually there are only about 100,000 MBA awarded in the united states.

MBA is a safe bet. I think there are plenty of options (accounting/statistics/etc) to choose from whilst pursuing an MBA. A masters degree will nonetheless put you ahead of other people. All depends on your background and what you wanna do. Maybe a degree in MIS?

Cheers

Get an MBA w/ an emphasis in business intelligence. CU offers it--maybe i'll see you there.

Thanks for the advice folks. I am trying to talk Oklahoma State into extending their Active Duty tuition deduction to a lowly reservist. It cuts the tuition by more than 50% which would make my tuition assistance go much further.

That sounds nice!

Well I want to build, maintain and design UAS. As such I have a BS Aeronautics, which is accurate since it isn't good for anything. So I'm getting my MS Engineering online with majors in Engineering Management and Control Systems. About 20K for the whole thing and 1.5-2.5 years. You need to have a plan for what jobs you want, and how diverse that field is, before deciding on a masters. For UAS they either want current clearance or high education/high flight hours. I've been getting nibbles, but no job offers. So I'm getting my masters. It's online since my wife is going for her PhD in Psychology. So when we move it doesn't interrupt my schooling. Online also makes my schedule very flexible. Now if I could only stop procrastinating and get my paper done...

http://www.uwplatt.edu/disted/

Thanks for the link. I will have to check it out. I was recently turned down for a couple flying jobs that I thought the interviews went very well and my need to find something either commutable or local has me looking at many careers outside of aviation. Law enforcement caught my eye and a local town is willing to pay for the academy for those that already have their associate degree. Not quite as glamorous or rewarding as flying is but the pay is great and the benefits are outstanding. To top it off I'd be home every night.

Iam starting a BA in Operations Management with a "for profit" university. I was a freshmen for 3 years in the State University system. The California State University and University of California systems are in a complete mess because of the State budget problems. There are too many students with too few classes available, so a "for profit" college was the only choice. Plus, I can not leave California because many of my established clients are from here. Flying coast to coast and then going to class the next day becomes very demanding so most of my course work will be online. And yea, the college party phrase wore off very quickly.

Have you thought about getting training in something other than a traditional degree? Just a thought.
Seems like the computer networking industry will always have increased growth in some new direction. During the time I worked at my old flying job, when there was down time I would study and take exams for the various technologies available: Cisco,Novell,VMWare, MS etc. I would look at what was in demand at the time then pursue the certifications one at a time. To be honest, I'm glad I did. I got furloughed after 19 years in 2007 and there was nothing in flying that I could secure. Although I am now trying to crawl my way back to a pilot's seat, I'm glad I had those Certs to fall back on. Not to undermine traditional education, it seems like a time to be thinking a little out of the box from others.

Best of luck to you..

I am trying to get sent to the academy by one of the local police agencies. Seems that Police Officer is one of those decent paying jobs that many folks overlook. It's a few months down the road for selection but it seems they are in need of fresh folks with no previous police experience. Still wanting to get into a cockpit but I think the LE career fits me a lot better than a typical office job.

Side Note: I can barely send email and check facebook. It'd take me some serious time to get set up in computer programming/networking/design

You could always go run a nuclear power plant.

I tried to be a cop once, almost.