is a Master's degree worth it?

Question

I read many things about it. I know holding a masters degree sounds good and that shows that you work hard for it. But, is it worth all the money and time you spent on it.

Now that you work, do you make the money that you thought you can make with your degree. Will you have chosen a different path?
I have a bachelor's degree ( foreign degree), and I am thinking about getting a Master's in counseling (difficult) or an associates degree ( practical, less school work).
Please help me. I think about it all day long.

Answer 1

You may not see doing a masters degree worth it in the beginning when comparing the pay checks compared to the time and money you spend doing the masters degree. Things you also have to look into are that with a master you can move up faster than a person with a B.S. A person with a BS and years of experience will move up and get a pay increase over those years, but when you get a Masters your schooling will counts as experience and you will be looked on as a better candidate for the promotion than the person with the BS.

Someone once told me that no mater how much time I put into this job with my BS when a person comes in with a higher degree they will be my boss.

Been the boss means a lot more money but more responsibilities.
Is it worth it money wise? Yes it is, your return on your investments into a higher degree will allow you to make more money over your life span (It will at less double your income over your life time).

Answer 2

It certainly depends on the degree, but I can tell you that my masters DEFINITELY paid off. I got my BA in English and got a job as a tech writer for a software company. My company had a tuition reimbursement program, so I was able to complete my entire M.S. degree in Instructional Design while working and the company paid for the whole thing. I can tell you that I was able to get awesome job offers while I was still going to school just by having the the "M.S. in progress" on my resume. Granted, my degree was specialized, but it opened a lot of doors.

Depending upon what job you want, a masters may be helpful (or ever required). An MBA is almost a requirement to get most high-level leadership jobs in big companies (V.P. level, etc). My advice is to get your masters after you have had some work experience and not before.

Definitely pursue a masters instead of an associates degree. It will be worth it in the long run.

Answer 3

Hello! Online degrees are being accepted more and more by employers. Some employers may tell you they prefer that you choose an online program from a school that is AACSB and other employers may tell you they accept online degrees as long as the school is accredited. I have an online MBA from UOP. My employer paid for this degree so they thought an online degree from just an accredited institution was fine. In my situation, I am 45 years old and pretty much established in my field. My reason for obtaining the MBA was for job advancement at my current employer. My undergard is Chemistry (Univ. of Mich) and I do not foresee branching off into the finance or business world. In your case, it seems like you want to pursue a position in the business world. This is just an opinion - but I would go for an online MBA that is AACSB accredited. The business world looks for and respects degrees that are from institutions that are AACSB accredited. Hope this helps and good luck!

Answer 4

well what do you want to do once you graduate? will you need a Masters to do this? If so, then get your masters. since you have a bachellors degree already, the uni that you apply to may take that into consideration letting you skip ahead a year or two, saving you time and money.

hope this can help!

Answer 5

Hi! I'd definitely recommend going on! GO FOR IT! There is no end to learning! It increases your joy and continually increasing understanding of self/life/world!! This has to be the goal--money is only a side-product! I was ADD, having been switched from left-to-right handed in 1st Grade. My speech and confidence collapsed into a chronic state of actue stuttering, embarrassment and shame. The only way I made it through college was with a form of "auto-hypnosis" (cramming the night before; setting the alarm for 3 a.m., going over the material in a semi-conscious state. Then rushing off to school and regurgitating the material perfectly. In those days, thinking and analysis weren't a part of the educational scene, so I made off with A's. I ended up with a French Major by default and with no teacher training!

LIFE has a wonderful way of leading us to our GOOD!! AND I believe we are all needed in this world. Sorry to make this so long--but you struck a cord!! I answered an add in Kansas City for a "language major". Got the job, was sent to Arlington, VA and landed in the new Vietnamese section (because of my French) of the now National Security Agency. I was just a "decoding clerk". This was before computers (1953) and there were PhD's breaking the high escelon codes. My work was boring, but LIFE intervened! Next to my desk was an Airman who was breaking the low escelon codes and he let me try my hand at breaking some easy ones. WHAT A HIGH when I broke my first one!! I'd race through my quota of decoding and then start on some of the harder simple codes he had. AGAIN, LIFE intervened when he was restationed and I was given his desk!! That experience was probably the first time I had really used my mind and I LOVED IT!

My husband was in the service, so we moved on. He went back to school at UC Berkeley after the service and due to my lack of preparation for working, had to take anything I could get based on a worn-out French degree! Clerking; ***'t buyer for 2 yrs and a miserable failure at that! I finally got a student loan after the divorce, and went to Berkeley and got a teaching credential--a one yr graduate program on top of the BA.

Got a job teaching Kinders in Emeryville, CA on the Bay! Had 40 little kids from that industrial area, who had no pre-school experiences. I had no aides, no volunteers and I soon learned that I was on my own! One kid was no doubt developmentally delayed AND hyperactive and could destroy any kind of good group activity! I referred him to the psychologist--I hate to say, an LOL with white hair. She took him to her office and they soon returned hand-in-hand smiling!! "Why, he is just a WONDERFUL child! You must have a personality conflict!" And that was it!

I was determined to get to some better understanding of group dynamics! I soon realized that the class was a HOT BED of sibling rivalry dynamics!! Each little kid trying to rework their "pain" and make it come out good! I resorted to what is now known as "IT" (translating information into graphics). This is a NATURAL for kids, as they us IT ALL the time, drawing and trying to master their world!

I started by getting them to symbolize FEELINGS! They came up with a "tear", fist for anger, etc! Saddness, joy etc. They were marvelous!! THEN I'd make algebra-type problems--Draw a "mama", then a little child; then add a new baby and get from the kids what all the possible FEELINGs that little child might have. Overwhelmingly, it was sadness, mixed with anger. etc. Sometimes joy, but that came with kids who had a larger spacing between sibs.-------Then I started role-playing classes for what was called back then, as "non-achievers". A graduate student and I set up a study with an reading teacher taking a behavioral count in her class of behaviors disruptive to the child's learning. Then a student helped me in the class and we audio-taped the plays and then took word-counts. We FOUND at the end of the 8 wks, that words INCREASED dramatically! What was primarily non-verbal communication became verbalized. The reading teacher found a dramatic decrease in disruptive behrs in her class! DYNAMITE! I also had the opportunity to take an intensive week's training with Zerka Moreno, the co-founder with her husband in developing PsychoDrama--the only American developed form of psychotherapy, I think.

As I saw myself--but mostly was able to see the kids' dynamics more clearly--they were constantly replaying old painful dynamics in the classroom. Untreated, this went on the rest of their lives and the more disruptive and violent their lives had been the bigger the drop-out numbers! Which, of course contributed to adult problems, criminal, unemployment as they were unable to hold a job due to their acting-out in any group.

Well, after another divorce "( I went back again for an MA in Guidance and Counseling as I'd become fascinated with human behavior, esp in the classroom. I then got a job as a therapist
with very troubled adolescent teenaged young women in a locked psychiatric treatment facility in Kansas City, MO. Psychodrama helped turn a lot of their lives around. After all these years, I still hear from a few--not in a dependent way, but as a friend.

Through that period, I also worked on an Ed. Specialist degree. Mostly because I loved learning more. But I had to string it out over many years and felt too "out-of-date" re current research and didn't take the boards. But I'd gotten what I wanted out of the classes. I then got a better paying job with more challenge working with severe acting-out adolescent guys, 14-19 yrs of age. They had been kicked out of all campuses, so the district created a special Special Ed for this group rather than to have to send/pay for treatment facilities. The guys would have nothing to do with role-playing, so finally hit upon getting them to diagram their behavior. CJ Jung writes that diagramming prevents "the human pain"...that to go up a notch on Piaget's Cognitive Stages to the Concrete Operational stage of verbalizing (from the Pre-Concrete of diagramming) brought us back to experience our emotional pain in life.------The guys LOVED IT! And I didn't realize it then, but we were using IT (Information Technology) way before it's time! Then as the guys became more desensitized to their early experiences, they were able to verbalize and then to go up a notch to Piaget's Formal Concrete stage and to compare their behavioral dynamics to the Family of Origin DYNAMICS and to discover WHY they had developed the deviant bhrs that they had!! Using Glasser's Basic Emotional Needs (Belonging, Power, Freedom and Fun) and employing Bernes' Games People Play a the VEHICLE with which to implement the obtaining of their Needs, they were able to see the SENSE behind their behavior!! In this very PROCESS of discovery, the found that they were beginning to meet their NEEDS through positive interaction with the 3 adults in the class! (me, and two terrific teachers for the 8 students!!) It really takes that kind of ratio to be effective!!

WELLLL...I guess I'd better go on and write that book that's been bugging me all these years!! AGAIN, not for money, but the JOY of DOING/CELEBRATING! And NO, I'd NEVER CHOOSE another path than the one I had!!! I went on, remarried and had a terrific daughter--who now has 3 terrific children!!! THIS is another GIFT of LIFE!!

TRUST IN LIFE and what it brings you!! I could be wrong, but I SURE WOULDN'T PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN!!! I would have probably jumped off a cliff is I had to work the rest of my life at unfulfilling jobs!!
Good Luck!