A local college is offering the opportunity to get a free certificate. Classes start this week, and I'm already enrolled in the Informatics program (which will last until May). The thing is...earlier today I got a job (after half-a-year of looking for one). It sounds like I'll be working 8 hours on the same day that most of my homework is due. I'm getting worried that the combined workload of classes and the job will be too much stress, and won't leave me with enough free time for personal and freelance projects. A bit of background...I already have a bachelors degree in Fine Arts. I graduated back in May. I signed up for the Informatics certificate because I thought it might look good on a resume, since Fine Arts degrees aren't exactly the most useful degrees. Since I didn't have a job (and honestly didn't anticipate getting one anytime soon), I thought "might as well take the opportunity for some free education". I don't have a huge interest in Informatics...I really just wanted the certificate to boost my resume. I feel like Informatics tends to be more impressive than Fine Arts. I'd be willing to stick with it, if I'm sure that it would actually boost my resume significantly. This is what I'm hoping people here can answer. Would seeing "Certificate in Informatics" on a resume impress future employers? Or would it just be a waste of time and effort to stick with the program?
School is more important than a job. Get that certificate. It'll help you get into a good job and IT is the future. Everything will become more computerized and one day you'll have a problem without computer knowledge that goes beyond using excel and Word.
Nice to know! After thinking on it more, I decided to contact the job and ask whether it would be possible to cut down the amount of hours on that day. Unfortunately that won't be possible. At the moment I'm really looking for a job with shorter shifts...I'm also doing some freelance work/personal projects, and don't want all my time consumed. And this job isn't exciting enough for me to be willing to make too many sacrifices. I appreciate the opportunity, but I'm only willing to bend so much. So I ended up declining the job. It's a bit disappointing, but I'm sure another opportunity will come along. At least I learned that I need to to be firm about my hours upfront. I really should have made it clear at the interview what hours I'm willing to work. I didn't want to sound pushy...after all, they're supposed to be interviewing me (not the other way around, lol). But it's probably better to sound pushy than to blindly say yes to hours I'm not comfortable working.
These decisions depend on what you want to do professionally and what your needs are. I gather you can afford to continue attending school while hunting for a job with less hours and more to your liking. Whenever you have the chance, keep educating yourself. As life gets more complicated, you won’t be able to.
The trap with certificates is that there are a million of them and many employers will only consider a specific brand/type, which is, coincidentally I'm sure, different from the brands/types accepted by other places you might seek employment (what I'm getting at is that they don't want it to be transferable). When I was struggling to find a job ~15 years ago, all I heard was how my software engineering degree wasn't good enough and that I need this or that certificate I'd never heard of. I was about ready to go to a vocational school when I finally had an interview with somebody that understood what they were doing vs running down a checklist they didn't understand. In the years that followed, I've picked up several certificates that neither enhanced my skills nor mattered one damned bit to anybody I've interviewed with. In my view, most of them are a total scam. The only reason I would even consider this certificate you're talking about is that it's free (besides the cost of losing those work hours). The way I read what you said about having finally landed a job after a long search, if it came to choosing one over the other, I personally wouldn't give up the job.
If the choice is accepting a job or getting a free cert...take the job. I don't know why this is even a question. Both is good, but turning down a job for it is ridiculous. Some weird little cert isn't going to pay the bills.
Hey, I used to work full time, did college courses in the evening, and every moment in between was taking care of my 3 infant children while my ex (with real mental illnesses) would yell and create horrible issues (and yes, I ended up with full custody), but I stuck to it so to have the ability to state on paper that I had some college... I never finished the program, but it was still enough to open the door to being able to say that I "did this and that". I've also survived by being good at what I do and learning as I go and becoming an expert at anything I get into. (heck I just changed job a few weeks ago for an interim position that is nothing I've ever really done but learning as I go...) All this to say: Where I'm at, all certificates for anything is golden, regardless if it's possibly useless, so I would say "buckle up" and get it done. Honestly, it's amazing how much I've been able to apply any learning opportunity in ways that I didn't think would have been worth anything... "knowledge is power" isn't just for Saturday morning cartoons! If I was young again, I'd freaking milk every course I could and should have done and maybe be closer to where I should be today.
Yeah, that's a good point. My dad always says he wants to go back to college, but just doesn't have the time or money. At the moment I still live with my parents and don't desperately need a job, so I didn't want to pass up the opportunity for some free education. Especailly at the expense of a job that isn't even what I'm really looking for. Thanks for your advice. I actually already turned down the job, because I don't want to pass up the free education. The opportunity might not happen again. If the job was more appealing to me I'd probably have chosen that over the certificate, but it's a retail job and I didn't really like the hours anyway. Aside from cutting into my homework time, it would also consume my entire Sunday (which is one of the few days I have to spend with my dad, because of his work schedule). I'm hoping to find another job soon. Jobs are hard to come by right now, but there has to be something a bit more appealing out there. Thankfully I'm not desperate for money at the moment, so I'll keep looking. Wow, working full-time and also taking courses (on top of everything else) sounds painful, lol. It's amazing that you were able to find time to do all that. When I was getting my bachelors degree and going to college full-time, I made a personal rule not to work during those years. Most of the people I knew who tried to do that tended to do somewhat poorly in their classes and seemed unhealthily stressed. But it's impressive to be able to juggle that much, for sure.
I quit my full-time job a year before finishing my Bachelors. But, I was only able to do so because my wife had a great-paying job at the time. One thing older people may not tell you (maybe they’re not even aware) is that for most of us, our brains have deteriorated. Your brain will probably not retain information like it used to or take longer to learn new concepts. Going back to school after a long hiatus is an uphill battle. Most of the time, it is better to do it in one shot. Good luck.
I don't know if I really believe that. The hard part about going back to school is literally going back to school. It's like how hitting a gym on the way home from work is a million times easier than getting back in the car after you've settled down at home. What I think happens is that people learn to be helpless because that's what office politics conditions them to do.
Same here. Had two infants, commuted an hr to college, did a full day of classes, drove back home for another hr, saw my family for a few, and then worked in a factory at night. For years, I was kept running on no sleep, menthol, and energy drinks to survive. But it all works out... kinda. Got my graduate degree... which I am not currently using.... and survived it all with strong scores. It's just a determination/endurance game.
That’s my point. Your brain is deteriorated and out of shape (in those areas, you may keep other parts fit through your daily routine). And, just like it was easier to gain and retain muscle when you were younger, it was easier to learn and retain that new info when you were younger and in the education environment. In my case, office politics play a minor distraction. I think specialization plays a bigger role in slowing-down intellectual development. That’s why I move on to other things once I don’t feel challenged at work.
I don't think you understood what I said at all. It has nothing to do with physically being able to exercise or learn. It's about the hoops you have to jump through to do it. In my case, it's all office politics. Management has written off its staff. There are no opportunities or incentives to learn so people don't. The reason I crapped on the certificate is that it's not work experience, which means it won't help break out of the catch-22 of no-job-because-no-experience-because-no-job. When you've decided that nobody can learn, you limit the pool to people already doing. That certificate represents ability to learn, which goes against the narrative that nobody can learn, and is thus discarded.
