Career Paths

Welcome. In returning to college myself, and speaking to other friends about their plans for college, or changing jobs, I decided to make a reference page for the links to these career paths that have helped others. Hope this helps. Best of luck on your journey.

NOTE: Before you register for any program, consider looking at the social media. Search for reviews on youtube. Ask questions. Learn as much as you can before spending money on any program. I took several of the programs here myself. I will note that in the descriptions.

Certification in 3 days:

Certified Life Coach: https://www.certifiedlifecoachinstitute.com/   I took this program and cannot recommend it highly enough. They have a great youtube channel also. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTHNzcL8R8Oq9HGHB4i5qYg 

Certified Paraprofessional (teaching assistant) Texas: https://esc13.net/services/paraprofessional-certification  Click on 'Register Now' to see what classes are available. Class is called Paraprofessional Virtual Institute. Right now the cost is $285. While many of us are more than qualified to be a teaching assistant, schools that get certain funding from certain programs, the program requires any assistants they hire to be certified. I did this program. I really liked it! I am not in their district. I was able to take it anyway, so I imagine if you are in Texas, you can take it online. Can you take it if you are outside of Texas? no idea. 

Dental Assistant Training 9 -12 weeks: https://dallasdentalassistantschool.com/  I haven't done this one, but I think I have 2 friends which have children who did. I'll see if I can get some info and opinions on it. 

Substitute Teacher Training  https://www.region10.org/programs/substitute-teacher-training/online-courses/  25 online courses 40-60 minutes each. I haven't done this one yet but I will be doing it a little later this year.

Fast/ inexpensive/ easier?  Bachelor's Degree::

There are many fine schools, SNHU was the best choice for me.  https://www.snhu.edu/  Lots of online degrees and one of the least expensive options. There are lots of videos about SNHU, I found this one to be very interesting.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6b9u7oIs0k  So I enrolled. Not long after enrolling in SNHU I joined several Facebook groups for SNHU students.  VERY helpful. After reading some of the posts, I read one about Sophia. https://www.sophia.org/  Many SNHU students take classes with Sophia that transfer into SNHU. Sophia offers mostly general education courses, that you can take online, for 79$ a month membership. I usually hate monthly memberships but this one rocks! I took 3 courses in one month for 79 dollars. I cancelled the membership before the month was out.  Then I waited a few days, maybe a week, then signed into Parchment.com to send the transcript from Sophia to SNHU.  Once I was taking a class through SNHU, a class through a local community college and 2 through Sophia all in the same month. 7 classes total through Sophia (2 months) for a total of $158.00 and the 1 class with local community college at $150.  Those 8 classes taken that way I feel saved around 7 thousand dollars.  SNHU requires me to take 10 classes through them in order to get a bachelors degree through them. 

I found these 2 videos.  Her teaching Journey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dliCiJiWeIE  and her ITeach review video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg5wvIhBvMo&t=76s  The main notes from her videos is that if I wanted to become a teacher (elementary, middle or high school) I'd have to start back all over in college, or get a Bachelors in General Studies and then go into an alternative certification program for teaching credentials. https://www.iteach.net/  and  https://www.teachersoftomorrow.org/texas/  are the 2 programs I began looking into. When I asked my SNHU advisor to change from BA in Communications to general studies (with a concentration in comm.) I saw that I could graduate sooner, take more classes faster and cheaper with Sophia, and only end up taking 10-11 classes with SNHU. Which really kept the cost down. I have gotten some pell grants and student loans, and I recently got documents mailed to me about my student loans. Right now both of my student loans together are less than $3,200.00 and I have less than 7 months left to graduate. I will have taken a total of 10 classes with SNHU, I'll have to post what the total cost of that comes out to be when I get that figure.   6 classes left. (2 classes per term)

SNHU shows here https://www.snhu.edu/tuition-and-financial-aid/online  that it is $320 per credit hour which means $960 per class. So 10 classes should end up being around $9,600.00 which even if it does end up being that is still an incredible deal! But it probably won't be that much because I got pell grants also.  I haven't had to buy any books for the classes I have taken with SNHU or Sophia yet. One class with SNHU I had to sign up for Adobe photoshop/graphic design stuff for a while, 17$ a month, not bad.

Main reason I like SNHU:: I have had some small quizzes that usually aren't worth a great deal of points, it's mostly writing a lot of papers, a lot! (one more time) It is a lot of writing. But, I would much rather write a lot of papers than study for hours on end trying to memorize things for test, find out you memorized the wrong thing, or freak out because your don't test well.... I'd much rather spend time on writing a paper or working on a project so I can show my work. Get graded on my efforts and how I can apply myself and do the best job I can on a project. Search and find all the resources available to help me produce a good product. Not be graded on the fact that I randomly remembered in the moment that the answer is C. I'd rather be judged on the good work I can do, on the final product I can present, the results I can achieve, than on the hopes that my memory is working at 100% that day.  Sorry.  Bit of an issue for me.

The average person graduates with student loans of around $36,000    https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt-by-year

Average cost of college per year ? https://www.collegedata.com/resources/pay-your-way/whats-the-price-tag-for-a-college-education 

If you don't know what to do try getting a BA degree in General Studies at a local college or SNHU  https://www.snhu.edu/admission/academic-catalogs/coce-catalog#/programs/4ymsQEIte  Why? Because 63-65 of those credits are free electives (meaning can be any classes at all) That's 21  3 credit classes you can take through Sophia.  Here is the link that lists the Sophia classes and how they transfer to SNHU.  https://snhu.sophia.org/   So you could take 21 classes through SNHU for $960 each, or take 4-5 classes per month in Sophia (I've seen students take 7+ classes per month) and pay 79 bucks a month. Difference of SNHU $20,160 (and over 1.5 years)  and 6 months of Sophia at $474.00.  If you get a BA degree in general studies and then later decide you want to get another degree, you will already have all of those credits. Or just get a gen. studies degree and go get the masters. 

MASTERS DEGREE inexpensive / fast?

Possible issues with those Sophia classes is if you want to go into a master's program that looks at the classes in your Bachelor degree and doesn't accept Sophia classes. So, I looked at the Sophia partner list. https://www.sophia.org/transfer-credits/college-and-university-partners/   That's when I learned about WGU. WGU classes can be available as a subscription service too.  Around $3,700.00 (?) per 6 months, then take all the classes you can within that 6 month period. Can you really get a masters degree in less than 6 months paying less than 4 grand? Yep.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHWtCB-SOA&t=1s  She is a teacher that got her master's degree through WGU in under 6 months for less than 3 grand.  In districts I have been looking at, teachers that have a master's degree get paid 1-2 thousand more a year than teachers who do not.  https://www.wgu.edu/

ALTERNATIVE TEACHER CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS (Texas, iTeach has some in other states too) 

Texas Teachers of Tomorrow:  website - https://www.teachersoftomorrow.org/texas/   I will be applying to this program soon.

                       TT detailed review video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFg4IByRJMA 

iTeach  site  https://www.iteach.net/    iTeach review  https://www.iteach.net/   

240 Tutoring is a company many use to study for content exams. https://www.240tutoring.com/ 

Substitute Teacher Training:  https://www.region10.org/programs/substitute-teacher-training/option-2-online-courses/