Professional Certificate from a University/College.?

Question

A quick background:
I was a pre med major for 4 of my 5 yrs with my main major being in engineering. After taking the MCAT and all the prep classes (did well on it), I realized that it might not be the thing for me. I switched gears during my 5th and final year and had more of a focus in the environmental area of engineering (which is what I was focused in when I started college).

Now after taking some time off I've realized that I would like to continue pursuing that field with some added education. I'm not 100% sold on a master's program yet so I thought that I would do a professional certificate program and if all goes well then transfer my credits into a masters program.

My question to you all is do you think that obtaining a graduate certificate is a cerditable advance in education from an employer's view point? Also, is it feasable to acknowledge such a certificate as being a step ahead of other canidate?

I want to make sure I'm not over emphasizing this.

Answer 1

A graduate certificate is a valid way to add education to your credentials. Especially if it's complimentary but different from your undergrad.

Be careful about the idea of transferring. Most programs will transfer a certificate into their own master's but graduate credit transfer from college-to-college can be severely limited and is often maxed at 6 hours.

A 15-18 hour certificate program is not a bad idea for someone in the situation you describe. Especially if from a well respected school or in a high demand career area.

I hold a couple of these and they have been very useful to me. One is in technical writing and the other in editing.