Advance Your Career by Teaching What You Love - CareerAlley

Advance Your Career by Teaching What You Love - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. A large number of college students will find they are burned out and ready to graduate by the close of sophomore year. Many students will never complete the bachelors degree they set out to earn. Earning a degree, for some people, is a taxing process, which brings little perceived immediate reward. Nevertheless, there are those who, upon entering college studies, take such a liking to the environment that they wish it would never end. Academia has a culture about it like no other field. Where the end goal is increased learning, students hungry for more knowledge never tire of attending classes, lectures, seminars, and residencies. For the students who enjoy academia, a career as a professor is the perfect option. The road from attending lectures to facilitating them is long, but the reward is great for those with a passion for education. The Journey to Graduate School If youve come to the end of your baccalaureate studies with a high GPA, between 3.5 and 4.0, youll be in good position to apply for graduate studies. During your junior or senior year, you may take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and/or Test of English as Foreign Language, which is TOEFL for non-English speaking or foreign students. These examinations results will be sent to your prospective graduate schools as part of your entrance evaluation for acceptance. If you plan to transition straight from undergraduate studies to graduate studies, youll need to have your applications prepared and mailed by the fall deadlines for the year following your completion of your undergraduate degree. Even if you plan to wait, taking the GRE and TOEFL as a junior or senior is a good idea since the material tested will still be fresh in your mind. Both tests results are good for up to 5 years. Applying to Schools Before completing the GRE and TOEFL, students should narrow down the list of schools to which they plan to apply. Depending on the applicants field of study and his or her financial ability, he or she will want to apply to between four and twelve schools. Some graduate studies programs are larger and less competitive, while others admit only two to five students a year and are therefore very selective. Choosing a Degree Several fields that tend to be competitive are Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA), Law Degrees (JD), and Medical Schools (PhD). MFAs tend to be difficult to gain admission to because the programs range between two and thirty students. Masters of Fine Arts are terminal degrees and may lead to teaching positions at the college level. Both JDs and PhDs are always competitive because the studies are rigorous and available positions for students are limited. Whether a JD, a PhD or an MFA, prospective students should apply for at least a half dozen schools, with twelve being the ideal number. Other programs such as Masters or Doctorate degrees in: English, history, biology, or chemistry tend to have larger student bases and so draw less competition. Youll still need to excel academically, but fewer students fight for the barrier to admission. Passion in Profession Those who spend six to ten years in college obviously have a passion for their field. With that passion, theres an obvious trajectory: remain in Academia. Professors do not simply teach their students the same rote information. Professors continue to study their field. They are required to publish regularly and remain active in the field of their study. Professors form a community among themselves where study continues to flourish and knowledge increase. Any student who has ever dreaded graduation, feeling it is the end of his or her best career should continue on to earn a higher degree in their chosen field in order to teach and learn as a living. Author Bio Ryan Ayers is a writer who created articles in the field of education. This article was written to shed light on teaching as a profession and to encourage further study in this field with an Online Masters in Higher Education. This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search. Visit me on Facebook