Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 173 - Do You Need Another Degree?

October 26, 2022 Kitty Boitnott
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 173 - Do You Need Another Degree?
Show Notes Transcript

Many teachers who talk with me while mulling their career options wonder if they need to return to school for another degree in a new area. Most of the time, my best advice is  "no." You don't need a new university or college degree, even though you may need training in a new area.

If you decide you need training, do your "due diligence" and make sure you get trained with a reputable and/or accredited program.

Consider WHO you want to become in your next career and HOW you can best become who you wish to be professionally.

Speaker 1:

Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout? Or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started a dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is Kitty Boyt not. I'm a career transition and job search coach, and I specialize in helping burnout teachers just like you deal, not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day to day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for teachers in transition. In some episodes I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes, I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track? These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is Kitty Boyn. Welcome to Teachers in Transition. Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition, the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is Kitty Boyt, not. I'm a heart centered career transition and job search coach who specializes in working with burnt out teachers who are ready for our career change but don't know how or where to begin. If you've listened to this podcast before you know that I alternate topics each week. I'm a certified stress management coach in addition to being a trained and experienced career transition coach. So one week I'll talk about career transition strategies and tactics, and on alternating weeks I talk about stress management strategies. This week I will be talking about career transition, and specifically I want to speak to the who, what, and how you want to go about reinventing yourself in your next career. More specifically, I want to urge you not to go back to school as in getting another degree, but perhaps considering getting some new training as opposed to going back to a college or university. I think it is possible for you to be overeducated. And in fact, in my own experience, when I was transitioning out of education back in 2013, I quickly discovered that I was overeducated and underqualified for many of the types of jobs that I thought I might have an interest in or an aptitude for. I finally decided to go into coaching because it seemed like a natural transition from what I had been doing in my previous career and with a doctorate in educational leadership. It made sense that I reach out to teachers. Since I know the teaching community and I understand teachers, I love teachers, I love working with teachers, and so going into coaching and making teachers, my primary niche was a perfect fit for me. Uh, I did get trained as a career transition and job search coach. I took training with an internationally renowned career coach who owns her own international business, and I worked with her company for 14 months as an independent coach consultant after taking her training. So I am pro training, but not so much pro going back to school. Many of the people that I talk to on a regular basis are mulling over their options and wondering should they go back to school to get another degree perhaps in curriculum and instruction or administration? If you have a particular desire to be an administrator, then I wouldn't discourage you from going back to get that endorsement. But if you're just looking for a general additional master's degree, I don't recommend that you go back. You're going to be pricing yourself, Sorry about the, you'll be pricing yourself out of the market if you have too many graduate degrees. So be mindful of not pricing yourself out of the market. A bachelor's is just fine. Uh, one master of fine. You don't need multiple master's degrees. And if you do decide on a career that you need specific training for, do go back and get it. Perhaps vocational training or specific training. I have a client, for example, who has decided to become a coder, uh, either for a hospital or for an insurance company. She needed to learn the codes and she is undertaking a course that is teaching her all of the codes that she would need to know if she worked in a hospital billing, uh, department or for an insurance company. If you need that kind of training, then do your due diligence and know that you're getting the right kind of training. I talked to a young woman about a year ago who had gotten trained as a coder and was disappointed to find that the particular training that she'd got was not accredited and not accepted in the line of work that she was particularly looking for. So she was bumping into brick walls everywhere she went. Don't spend money on a program that's not accredited or certified or, uh, recognized as being a legitimate type of training that you can use as you move forward into your next career. So the how, the what and the who of what you need to think about. How do you wanna go about making your career transition? What is it that you want to move into and who do you want to become in your next career? Those are questions that you also need to mull over and think deeply about as you transition out of the classroom and into a new career. Don't go back to school. Don't, don't rack up any more student debt than you have to do. Go back for training if specific training if you need to, for example, graphic design, if you wanna be a graphic designer or if you wanna go into curriculum design, you may have to do some graphic coding. So become aware of the kinds of skills that you need in your new career and then be careful about where you go to get that training. Take care and I'll see you again next week. This is Kitty Boyt, not with Teachers in Transition. If you would like to make an appointment about your specific situation in your, to answer questions that you might have about your particular career transition, make an appointment@teachersintransition.com slash calendar. If you would simply like to email me your questions, you can do that at kitty boy knot boyt coaching.com. I will be happy to answer any emails that you may send. Please review and rate this podcast so that other people can find it more easily. And if you have specific topics that you'd like me to cover, send me those so that I know what to address that might be more helpful to you. Have a great week and I'll hope to see you next week. So there you have it, an episode of Teachers in Transition. I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to Teachers in Transition so that you can be alerted of future episodes and let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode. I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at Kitty Boy knot@boyknotcoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm Kitty Boy Knot and this is Teachers in Transition.