I'm exploring M&A as a career switch path. One way is to go to a good law school, make partner at a good M&A law firm, and proceed from there.
That may not be very accessible in mid-career.
Another way I've heard about is to get an MBA in finance. I've also heard that audit is a good way to go - that would depend on getting hired as an auditor.
This link mentions another credential: http://www.icaew.com/index.cfm/route/164292/icaew_ga/en/Qualifications/CFq/Corporate_Finance_qualification
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Georgetown BS in Finance - a life-changer?
Jenny Sullivan Sanford, the now-apparently-estranged wife of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who has been getting a lot of favorable press, has an interesting entry in her bio: http://jennysanford.com/.
Her education was a BS in Finance from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business: http://msb.georgetown.edu/prospective/undergraduate/programs/finance/.
That's it - no law degree, no Harvard MBA.
With that, prior to meeting Mark Sanford, she ended up rather quickly becoming an Mergers and Acquisitions VP investment banker at a major NYC investment house. I could be wrong, but that usually means you get rich fast.
I don't know what her other connections might have been (not Mark Sanford - this was prior to meeting him), but this suggests that GU/MSB may have some strong mojo magic for networking and making the right connections. The bio mentions her career matter-of-factly, but this is really quite remarkable. There aren't a lot of BS degrees that put you in this kind of power track.
Not exactly a midcareer move, but worth a thought.
Her education was a BS in Finance from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business: http://msb.georgetown.edu/prospective/undergraduate/programs/finance/.
That's it - no law degree, no Harvard MBA.
With that, prior to meeting Mark Sanford, she ended up rather quickly becoming an Mergers and Acquisitions VP investment banker at a major NYC investment house. I could be wrong, but that usually means you get rich fast.
I don't know what her other connections might have been (not Mark Sanford - this was prior to meeting him), but this suggests that GU/MSB may have some strong mojo magic for networking and making the right connections. The bio mentions her career matter-of-factly, but this is really quite remarkable. There aren't a lot of BS degrees that put you in this kind of power track.
Not exactly a midcareer move, but worth a thought.
Friday, November 27, 2009
More good advice
See http://www.bestcareer-4you.com/hot-jobs-for-a-career-change-part-1-of-3.php
Hot Jobs For A Career Change Part 1 Of 3
Trends Magazine has compiled a list of the hottest new jobs for the twenty-first century. Most of them are hot because of emerging technologies and the need for people who know about those new technologies. These jobs can be very lucrative to the person who is lucky enough to secure employment in these areas. Here they are:
-Experience Designer:
These individuals work in the retail industry, creating the essence and aura of a store. Experience designers go beyond the look of a place, creating a unique experience in which shoppers can immerse themselves. From cellular boutiques to the American Girl doll store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, the shops created by an experience designer are often considered works of art; mini universes unto themselves.
Experience designers are involved in every aspect of creation — from choosing accent colors on walls to slanting the windows in the right direction. The next time you go into a boutique and you feel as if you’ve just had an "experience" — you have, and someone went to a lot of trouble to make you feel at home.
-Medical Researcher:
It’s no news that what’s on the forefront of medicine is on the forefront of America’s collective mind. Researchers of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and the developers of prosthetics are the most coveted titles in the healthcare industry. With the aging baby boomer population, the need for cures and treatment plans is both paramount and profitable.
Major developments aren’t only taking place in medicine, but also in the way doctors file medical records. Individuals with the know-how and creative juice to mix tech with medicine can expect seven figure salaries in the year ahead.
-Web Designer:
What’s new about web designers – We already know they have cool jobs, working as the creative arm behind highly trafficked websites. But Trendsresearch.com reports that the profession is still in its adolescent phase, and for 2007 it’s going to be a new era of web design. Monster.com charts a 26 percent growth rate in this field for the past year, which will continue to blossom for the coming year.
With the advent of new flash technology, companies are looking for people who know how to implement this into their web presence since so many people rely on the Internet for information. Being a web designer is definitely one of the hottest jobs around and some companies will also let you work from home!
-Security Systems Engineer:
Monster.com reports that individuals in the protective services industry can expect a rise in demand and salary for 2007. Advances in Vegas-Casino like security systems and satellite maps are helping to wire the world for defense.
Individuals with a head for engineering and computers can easily expect a six-figure salary in this industry. From sonar imaging to keystroke identification, keeping our country and our world safer has never been easier or more profitable.
-Urban Planners:
From the Hong Kong International Airport Residential Tower to suburban "McMansion" sprawl, individuals in residential planning and development can expect a lot of work in the coming year. Urban Planners must meet the demand for real estate that’s both decadent and practical. Prefab one-level homes engineered for the aging baby boomer population are changing the face of suburban America, and boosting the demand for urban planners.
-Viral Marketers and Media Promoters:
Not to be confused with someone in advertising or public relations, a viral marketer knows how to build an audience from nothing with little more than rumor and excitement. Known for such coups as My Space’s Lonelygirl15 and the Blair Witch Project, Viral Marketers begin "contagious" campaigns that spread largely through word of mouth. They now have a foothold in American advertising due largely to the Internet.
-Talent Agents:
As Clint Eastwood would say, "These days, everyone is famous." And as fame and fortune grows for performers and athletes, a new arena opens for their managers, promoters, and general go-to guys.
Although these titles may speak for themselves, duties for those fortunate enough to get close to the stars often include things like latte retrieval and limo reservations. Yet, next to the celebrities themselves, these positions are some of the most competitive in the entertainment industry as well as in the most demand.
-Buyers and purchasing agents:
Trend forecasters predict that 2007 could be a make-or-break year for the retail industry, specifically the department store. Much of the department store’s fate lies in the hands of the buyers and purchasing agents.
These individuals are in charge of store inventory and make decisions on item color, size, quantity, and country of origin. With the recent boom of the retail industry, these jobs are often hard to come by and can be very lucrative if store profitability increases.
-Art Directors:
From Broadway to movie sets, any job that involves paint, lights, cameras, and action is in demand, especially within the 20-30 demographic. Now perceived as the ultimate career for inspired artists with an affinity for pop culture, art directors, set directors, and stage production directors clamor for the top positions that call for hands-on creative genius with a couture designer’s eye.
-News Analysts, Reporters, and Bloggers:
The Internet has created a new realm for reporters and writers, who previously only saw their names and ideas in print. Now, publications with an online division often hire three levels of correspondents: print news writers, online news writers, and bloggers.
Although most personal blogs aren’t profitable enough to stand alone as businesses, writers can use their increasing popularity as another gateway for their voices to be heard.
There is also a list of jobs that are in the biggest demand these days compiled by the folks at CNN Money. There is high demand for workers in the following fields:
-Accounting – Thanks to Enron and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, those who have a few years of corporate auditing experience working for a large public accounting firm can negotiate a sweet package for themselves when they change jobs.
That applies whether they’re leaving the accounting firm to go work for a corporation or if they’re seeking to return to the public accounting firm from an auditing job at an individual company.
College graduates with an accounting degree but not yet a CPA designation might make between $35,000 and $45,000 a year, or up to $50,000 in large cities like New York. After a couple of years they can command a substantial pay hike if they move to large company as an internal staff auditor or to a smaller company as controller. At that point, their salary can jump to anywhere from $50,000 to $75,000.
The expectation is that they will obtain their CPA designation.
If they choose to return to a public accounting firm as an audit manager after a couple of years at a corporation they can earn a salary of $70,000 to $85,000.
-Sales and Marketing
– The healthcare and biomedical fields offer some handsome earnings opportunities for those on the business side.
Business development directors, product managers and associate product managers working for medical device makers, for instance, can do quite well for themselves if they develop a successful track record managing the concept, execution and sales strategy for a medical device before jumping ship.
Typically, they have an MBA in marketing plus at least two to three years’ experience on the junior end to between five and eight years’ experience at the more senior levels. That experience ideally will be in the industry where they’re seeking work.
An associate product manager might make a base salary of $55,000 to $75,000. A product manager can make a base of $75,000 to $95,000, while a business development director may make $120,000 to $160,000. Those salaries don’t include bonuses.
The business development director seeking a vice president position could boost his base to $150,000 to $200,000 — depending on whether the new company is a risky start-up or established device maker.
-Legal -
Intellectual property attorneys specializing in patent law and the legal secretaries who have experience helping to prepare patent applications are highly desirable these days.
The most in demand are those lawyers with not only a J.D. but also an advanced degree in electrical and mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, biotechnology, pharmacology or computer science. Even those patent lawyers who just have an undergraduate degree in those fields have a leg up.
Patent lawyers working for a law firm might make $125,000 to $135,000 to start or about $90,000 if they work for a corporation that’s trying to get a patent or to protect one they already have. With a couple of years’ experience, they can expect a 10 percent jump or better when they get another job.
Legal secretaries, meanwhile, might make $65,000 at a law firm or $55,000 at a corporation. Should they choose to move to a new employer, they can command close to a 10 percent bump in pay.
-Technology -
Two tech jobs in high demand these days are .NET (dot net) developers and quality assurance analysts.
Developers who are expert users of Microsoft’s software programming language .NET can make between $75,000 and $85,000 a year in major cities. If they pursue a job at a company that seeks someone with a background in a given field (say, a firm looking for a .NET developer experienced in using software related to derivatives) they might snag a salary hike of 15 percent or more when they switch jobs.
Those who work in software quality management, meanwhile, might make $65,000 to $75,000 a year and be able to negotiate a 10 percent to 15 percent jump in pay if they switch jobs.
-Manufacturing and Engineering
– Despite all the announced job cuts in the automotive industry, quality and process engineers, as well as plant managers certified in what’s known as "Lean Manufacturing" techniques, are hot commodities.
The same applies to professionals in similar positions at other types of manufacturers.
One lean manufacturing technique is to use video cameras to capture the manufacturing process. A quality engineer will analyze the tapes to identify areas in the process that create inefficiencies or excess waste, both in terms of materials and workers’ time.
Process and manufacturing engineers might make between $65,000 and $75,000. With a certification in lean manufacturing and a few years’ experience, they can command pay hikes of between 15 percent and 20 percent if they choose to switch jobs.
A plant manager making between $90,000 and $120,000 may expect to get a 10 percent raise or more.
Many of the salaries quoted here are based on working in larger cities as opposed to smaller towns; however, it is certainly possible to garner wages such as these when you are working in an industry where there are shortages of knowledgeable individuals. There’s no question that these job fields are lucrative and need workers that can not only perform the job, but do it well.
Hot Jobs For A Career Change Part 1 Of 3
Trends Magazine has compiled a list of the hottest new jobs for the twenty-first century. Most of them are hot because of emerging technologies and the need for people who know about those new technologies. These jobs can be very lucrative to the person who is lucky enough to secure employment in these areas. Here they are:
-Experience Designer:
These individuals work in the retail industry, creating the essence and aura of a store. Experience designers go beyond the look of a place, creating a unique experience in which shoppers can immerse themselves. From cellular boutiques to the American Girl doll store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, the shops created by an experience designer are often considered works of art; mini universes unto themselves.
Experience designers are involved in every aspect of creation — from choosing accent colors on walls to slanting the windows in the right direction. The next time you go into a boutique and you feel as if you’ve just had an "experience" — you have, and someone went to a lot of trouble to make you feel at home.
-Medical Researcher:
It’s no news that what’s on the forefront of medicine is on the forefront of America’s collective mind. Researchers of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and the developers of prosthetics are the most coveted titles in the healthcare industry. With the aging baby boomer population, the need for cures and treatment plans is both paramount and profitable.
Major developments aren’t only taking place in medicine, but also in the way doctors file medical records. Individuals with the know-how and creative juice to mix tech with medicine can expect seven figure salaries in the year ahead.
-Web Designer:
What’s new about web designers – We already know they have cool jobs, working as the creative arm behind highly trafficked websites. But Trendsresearch.com reports that the profession is still in its adolescent phase, and for 2007 it’s going to be a new era of web design. Monster.com charts a 26 percent growth rate in this field for the past year, which will continue to blossom for the coming year.
With the advent of new flash technology, companies are looking for people who know how to implement this into their web presence since so many people rely on the Internet for information. Being a web designer is definitely one of the hottest jobs around and some companies will also let you work from home!
-Security Systems Engineer:
Monster.com reports that individuals in the protective services industry can expect a rise in demand and salary for 2007. Advances in Vegas-Casino like security systems and satellite maps are helping to wire the world for defense.
Individuals with a head for engineering and computers can easily expect a six-figure salary in this industry. From sonar imaging to keystroke identification, keeping our country and our world safer has never been easier or more profitable.
-Urban Planners:
From the Hong Kong International Airport Residential Tower to suburban "McMansion" sprawl, individuals in residential planning and development can expect a lot of work in the coming year. Urban Planners must meet the demand for real estate that’s both decadent and practical. Prefab one-level homes engineered for the aging baby boomer population are changing the face of suburban America, and boosting the demand for urban planners.
-Viral Marketers and Media Promoters:
Not to be confused with someone in advertising or public relations, a viral marketer knows how to build an audience from nothing with little more than rumor and excitement. Known for such coups as My Space’s Lonelygirl15 and the Blair Witch Project, Viral Marketers begin "contagious" campaigns that spread largely through word of mouth. They now have a foothold in American advertising due largely to the Internet.
-Talent Agents:
As Clint Eastwood would say, "These days, everyone is famous." And as fame and fortune grows for performers and athletes, a new arena opens for their managers, promoters, and general go-to guys.
Although these titles may speak for themselves, duties for those fortunate enough to get close to the stars often include things like latte retrieval and limo reservations. Yet, next to the celebrities themselves, these positions are some of the most competitive in the entertainment industry as well as in the most demand.
-Buyers and purchasing agents:
Trend forecasters predict that 2007 could be a make-or-break year for the retail industry, specifically the department store. Much of the department store’s fate lies in the hands of the buyers and purchasing agents.
These individuals are in charge of store inventory and make decisions on item color, size, quantity, and country of origin. With the recent boom of the retail industry, these jobs are often hard to come by and can be very lucrative if store profitability increases.
-Art Directors:
From Broadway to movie sets, any job that involves paint, lights, cameras, and action is in demand, especially within the 20-30 demographic. Now perceived as the ultimate career for inspired artists with an affinity for pop culture, art directors, set directors, and stage production directors clamor for the top positions that call for hands-on creative genius with a couture designer’s eye.
-News Analysts, Reporters, and Bloggers:
The Internet has created a new realm for reporters and writers, who previously only saw their names and ideas in print. Now, publications with an online division often hire three levels of correspondents: print news writers, online news writers, and bloggers.
Although most personal blogs aren’t profitable enough to stand alone as businesses, writers can use their increasing popularity as another gateway for their voices to be heard.
There is also a list of jobs that are in the biggest demand these days compiled by the folks at CNN Money. There is high demand for workers in the following fields:
-Accounting – Thanks to Enron and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, those who have a few years of corporate auditing experience working for a large public accounting firm can negotiate a sweet package for themselves when they change jobs.
That applies whether they’re leaving the accounting firm to go work for a corporation or if they’re seeking to return to the public accounting firm from an auditing job at an individual company.
College graduates with an accounting degree but not yet a CPA designation might make between $35,000 and $45,000 a year, or up to $50,000 in large cities like New York. After a couple of years they can command a substantial pay hike if they move to large company as an internal staff auditor or to a smaller company as controller. At that point, their salary can jump to anywhere from $50,000 to $75,000.
The expectation is that they will obtain their CPA designation.
If they choose to return to a public accounting firm as an audit manager after a couple of years at a corporation they can earn a salary of $70,000 to $85,000.
-Sales and Marketing
– The healthcare and biomedical fields offer some handsome earnings opportunities for those on the business side.
Business development directors, product managers and associate product managers working for medical device makers, for instance, can do quite well for themselves if they develop a successful track record managing the concept, execution and sales strategy for a medical device before jumping ship.
Typically, they have an MBA in marketing plus at least two to three years’ experience on the junior end to between five and eight years’ experience at the more senior levels. That experience ideally will be in the industry where they’re seeking work.
An associate product manager might make a base salary of $55,000 to $75,000. A product manager can make a base of $75,000 to $95,000, while a business development director may make $120,000 to $160,000. Those salaries don’t include bonuses.
The business development director seeking a vice president position could boost his base to $150,000 to $200,000 — depending on whether the new company is a risky start-up or established device maker.
-Legal -
Intellectual property attorneys specializing in patent law and the legal secretaries who have experience helping to prepare patent applications are highly desirable these days.
The most in demand are those lawyers with not only a J.D. but also an advanced degree in electrical and mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, biotechnology, pharmacology or computer science. Even those patent lawyers who just have an undergraduate degree in those fields have a leg up.
Patent lawyers working for a law firm might make $125,000 to $135,000 to start or about $90,000 if they work for a corporation that’s trying to get a patent or to protect one they already have. With a couple of years’ experience, they can expect a 10 percent jump or better when they get another job.
Legal secretaries, meanwhile, might make $65,000 at a law firm or $55,000 at a corporation. Should they choose to move to a new employer, they can command close to a 10 percent bump in pay.
-Technology -
Two tech jobs in high demand these days are .NET (dot net) developers and quality assurance analysts.
Developers who are expert users of Microsoft’s software programming language .NET can make between $75,000 and $85,000 a year in major cities. If they pursue a job at a company that seeks someone with a background in a given field (say, a firm looking for a .NET developer experienced in using software related to derivatives) they might snag a salary hike of 15 percent or more when they switch jobs.
Those who work in software quality management, meanwhile, might make $65,000 to $75,000 a year and be able to negotiate a 10 percent to 15 percent jump in pay if they switch jobs.
-Manufacturing and Engineering
– Despite all the announced job cuts in the automotive industry, quality and process engineers, as well as plant managers certified in what’s known as "Lean Manufacturing" techniques, are hot commodities.
The same applies to professionals in similar positions at other types of manufacturers.
One lean manufacturing technique is to use video cameras to capture the manufacturing process. A quality engineer will analyze the tapes to identify areas in the process that create inefficiencies or excess waste, both in terms of materials and workers’ time.
Process and manufacturing engineers might make between $65,000 and $75,000. With a certification in lean manufacturing and a few years’ experience, they can command pay hikes of between 15 percent and 20 percent if they choose to switch jobs.
A plant manager making between $90,000 and $120,000 may expect to get a 10 percent raise or more.
Many of the salaries quoted here are based on working in larger cities as opposed to smaller towns; however, it is certainly possible to garner wages such as these when you are working in an industry where there are shortages of knowledgeable individuals. There’s no question that these job fields are lucrative and need workers that can not only perform the job, but do it well.
Discernment of vocation
Interesting viewpoint and tips from a liberal Christian perspective:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/articles/contemplatingcareerchange.html
Ten Practical Tips When Considering a Career Change
There are hundreds of great career tips, any one of which could be life changing, so picking just ten is daunting. With that said, here are my top ten …
1. Take career assessments. Some of them are simple and free (www.careerkey.org). Others are multi-faceted, and require some financial investment (CareerDirect® Guidance System for $100 from www.crown.org). You can also find good career assessments through local counselors and colleges, many of which use well used standards such as the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, Myers-Briggs for personality profiling, and Self-Directed Search.
2. Elect a board of advisors. Ask input from your family, friends and fellow workers as well as trusted career advisors and experts. Ask those who know you well how they would describe your abilities, interests, personality and values, as well as your "blind spots." What do they see as work God has prepared for you? For more info, go to www.CareerTIP.net and enter key word "advisor."
3. Inventory all your life experiences. Include school and education, work experiences, personal interests and hobbies, and community and church activities. Circle the things you did best and liked most, especially activities that were meaningful to you. Contrast and compare what you have discovered in tips one through three. Are there recurring themes, interests, abilities and/or values? For more info, go to www.CareerTIP.net and enter keyword "sweet spot."
4. Explore the wide world of work fast and free. The internet is great for learning about careers of all kinds. Some helpful sites are America's CareerInfoNet at www.acinet.org, Occupational Outlook Handbook at www.bls.gov/oco, Career Guide to Industries at www.bls.gov/oco/cg, and Occupational Information Network at http://online.onetcenter.org/.
5. "Netweave" through personal referrals. Whether exploring career direction or looking for a particular job, how much better is it to have a personal referral? Would you believe 42 times? That's 4,200% better! Why? You are good by association with the person who referred you. So, start making connections by helping others. For more information, checkout www.netweaving.com.
6. Educate your gifts. Michael Jordan could jump high, but it didn't mean much until he learned how to play basketball. Talent alone is not enough; knowledge and skill are required. Stay current on fast-changing technologies to remain employable and live a life of continuous learning. To find opportunities for more education, degrees, certifications and classes, checkout www.petersons.com and the American Association of Community Colleges at www.aacc.nche.edu/.
7. Take courses on career planning and job search techniques. Find a CareerOneStop Center near you by typing your zip code into www.servicelocator.org. For a Christ-centered approach, consider a Crossroads Career® Explorer Course. For more info, go to www.crossroadscareer.org.
8. Lose financial weight. If you have debt and cost of living which makes it hard to afford a career change, then it's time to deal with the money issue. Wonderful resources are available to help you decrease your dependence on dollars and increase your freedom to change careers. Check out Crown Financial Ministries at www.crown.org.
9. Plan on working after retirement. Sound like an oxymoron? Forty-eight percent of people who have retired work at least part time. Eighty percent of the soon-to-be-retiring baby-boomers plan on working. For more info, go to www.CareerTIP.net and enter keyword "retire."
10. Generate a positive attitude. Motivational speaker Zig Zigler writes that 85% of the reason people get jobs and get ahead in those jobs is a positive attitude. Exercise forgiveness to free you from hurts from the past, and practice love of others to overcome fear of the future.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/articles/contemplatingcareerchange.html
Ten Practical Tips When Considering a Career Change
There are hundreds of great career tips, any one of which could be life changing, so picking just ten is daunting. With that said, here are my top ten …
1. Take career assessments. Some of them are simple and free (www.careerkey.org). Others are multi-faceted, and require some financial investment (CareerDirect® Guidance System for $100 from www.crown.org). You can also find good career assessments through local counselors and colleges, many of which use well used standards such as the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, Myers-Briggs for personality profiling, and Self-Directed Search.
2. Elect a board of advisors. Ask input from your family, friends and fellow workers as well as trusted career advisors and experts. Ask those who know you well how they would describe your abilities, interests, personality and values, as well as your "blind spots." What do they see as work God has prepared for you? For more info, go to www.CareerTIP.net and enter key word "advisor."
3. Inventory all your life experiences. Include school and education, work experiences, personal interests and hobbies, and community and church activities. Circle the things you did best and liked most, especially activities that were meaningful to you. Contrast and compare what you have discovered in tips one through three. Are there recurring themes, interests, abilities and/or values? For more info, go to www.CareerTIP.net and enter keyword "sweet spot."
4. Explore the wide world of work fast and free. The internet is great for learning about careers of all kinds. Some helpful sites are America's CareerInfoNet at www.acinet.org, Occupational Outlook Handbook at www.bls.gov/oco, Career Guide to Industries at www.bls.gov/oco/cg, and Occupational Information Network at http://online.onetcenter.org/.
5. "Netweave" through personal referrals. Whether exploring career direction or looking for a particular job, how much better is it to have a personal referral? Would you believe 42 times? That's 4,200% better! Why? You are good by association with the person who referred you. So, start making connections by helping others. For more information, checkout www.netweaving.com.
6. Educate your gifts. Michael Jordan could jump high, but it didn't mean much until he learned how to play basketball. Talent alone is not enough; knowledge and skill are required. Stay current on fast-changing technologies to remain employable and live a life of continuous learning. To find opportunities for more education, degrees, certifications and classes, checkout www.petersons.com and the American Association of Community Colleges at www.aacc.nche.edu/.
7. Take courses on career planning and job search techniques. Find a CareerOneStop Center near you by typing your zip code into www.servicelocator.org. For a Christ-centered approach, consider a Crossroads Career® Explorer Course. For more info, go to www.crossroadscareer.org.
8. Lose financial weight. If you have debt and cost of living which makes it hard to afford a career change, then it's time to deal with the money issue. Wonderful resources are available to help you decrease your dependence on dollars and increase your freedom to change careers. Check out Crown Financial Ministries at www.crown.org.
9. Plan on working after retirement. Sound like an oxymoron? Forty-eight percent of people who have retired work at least part time. Eighty percent of the soon-to-be-retiring baby-boomers plan on working. For more info, go to www.CareerTIP.net and enter keyword "retire."
10. Generate a positive attitude. Motivational speaker Zig Zigler writes that 85% of the reason people get jobs and get ahead in those jobs is a positive attitude. Exercise forgiveness to free you from hurts from the past, and practice love of others to overcome fear of the future.
Practical and not-so-practical counsel from Richard Bolles
Richard Bolles and the What Color Is Your Parachute books have been around for a while: http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/.
They sell for around 18-19 bucks a copy and the market must perceive value in them despite their being a pricey, large-ish volume which doesn't fit well in a briefcase or vest pocket. Whether because of the value of their counsel or because they are entertaining or both, they continue to sell well.
I find the Parachute books hard to read. Maybe that's partly because I think a basic premise of them is seriously, annoyingly wrong. The Parachute books encourage one to navel-gaze until one finds one's perfect vocation. I think for many people, as a practical matter, the perfect vocation isn't discernible within the finite bounds of a human lifetime - it ain't there, they'll never find it, and they'll never get off their backside and engage with life "until they find themselves." I know far too many people who are inclined that way, and Parachute unfortunately validates that inclination.
Perfection is the enemy of the good enough. A career strategy has to be part of a life strategy. For such people, the key can be to find a job you don't hate too much which enables you to arrange your life the way you want it.
That all said, Bolles makes a very useful observation about A Philosophy Of Work, p. 56 of the 2006 edition, viz:
1. The typical job these days is best viewed as a temp job. ...
2. The typical job these days is best viewed as a seminar.. ...
3. The typical job these days is best viewed as an adventure. ...
4. The typical job these days is best viewed as one where the satisfaction lies in the work itself. ... [goes off the track a bit - gets a little masochistic]
5. You need to approach any job with the philosophy that it can be transformed. ... [Maybe. But also check out what Peter Drucker says about "widowmaker" jobs.]
They sell for around 18-19 bucks a copy and the market must perceive value in them despite their being a pricey, large-ish volume which doesn't fit well in a briefcase or vest pocket. Whether because of the value of their counsel or because they are entertaining or both, they continue to sell well.
I find the Parachute books hard to read. Maybe that's partly because I think a basic premise of them is seriously, annoyingly wrong. The Parachute books encourage one to navel-gaze until one finds one's perfect vocation. I think for many people, as a practical matter, the perfect vocation isn't discernible within the finite bounds of a human lifetime - it ain't there, they'll never find it, and they'll never get off their backside and engage with life "until they find themselves." I know far too many people who are inclined that way, and Parachute unfortunately validates that inclination.
Perfection is the enemy of the good enough. A career strategy has to be part of a life strategy. For such people, the key can be to find a job you don't hate too much which enables you to arrange your life the way you want it.
That all said, Bolles makes a very useful observation about A Philosophy Of Work, p. 56 of the 2006 edition, viz:
1. The typical job these days is best viewed as a temp job. ...
2. The typical job these days is best viewed as a seminar.. ...
3. The typical job these days is best viewed as an adventure. ...
4. The typical job these days is best viewed as one where the satisfaction lies in the work itself. ... [goes off the track a bit - gets a little masochistic]
5. You need to approach any job with the philosophy that it can be transformed. ... [Maybe. But also check out what Peter Drucker says about "widowmaker" jobs.]
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Patent agent - more on career switch pathway
The attractive aspect of this, if you have a science or engineering degree - or maybe even if you don't (see e.g. http://www.oppenheimercommunications.com/Patents/PatentAgentCareers.shtml for a technical writer's story)?
It's one 100-question multiple guess exam and bang, you have a new credential which opens new doors - not many one-shot career-changer projects like that.
Maybe. Wonder why more people aren't doing this?
One attractive aspect would be that some credentials actually REDUCE your practical options. (Law degrees are infamous for this if you get interested in a job as a non-attorney.) But I don't think a patent agent license would do that.
One review course, the PLI course, is pretty expensive, about $2800. 10% discount if you're IEEE, taking it down to about $2500.
According to Oppenheimer, he did it without such a course. But you'd still have to prepare.
It's one 100-question multiple guess exam and bang, you have a new credential which opens new doors - not many one-shot career-changer projects like that.
Maybe. Wonder why more people aren't doing this?
One attractive aspect would be that some credentials actually REDUCE your practical options. (Law degrees are infamous for this if you get interested in a job as a non-attorney.) But I don't think a patent agent license would do that.
One review course, the PLI course, is pretty expensive, about $2800. 10% discount if you're IEEE, taking it down to about $2500.
According to Oppenheimer, he did it without such a course. But you'd still have to prepare.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Supply chain - a career switch path?
"Supply chain management" is a term you hear a lot now with globalized and outsourced production. It's a new buzzword.
This seems to split the interdisciplinary seam between engineering and business. It might show up in systems engineering, engineering management, or logistics.
Supply chain management has become a big issue with the H1N1 flu vaccine. It's hard to get it right now! Producing H1N1 vaccine has run into problems, but distributing it may be the supply chain weak link.
Like a lot of vaccines, it needs to be carefully refrigerated from production to injection, in a "cold chain" with a managed chain of custody showing that it's been kept in the correct temperature range. It can't get too warm or too cold - there are reports of thousands of hard-to-produce doses being lost.
See http://www.wptv.com/mostpopular/story/Vaccine-ruined/jXS5Vw6cmk6CG6quQ9opBw.cspx
(What kind of equipment and skills would this take? There are medical-grade refrigerators and freezers. Do you also need medical-grade truck drivers and medical-grade custodians and building guards?)
Here's one school that suggests supply chain management as a career switch path:
http://www.umsl.edu/divisions/business/mbaonline/phd/overview.htm
This seems to split the interdisciplinary seam between engineering and business. It might show up in systems engineering, engineering management, or logistics.
Supply chain management has become a big issue with the H1N1 flu vaccine. It's hard to get it right now! Producing H1N1 vaccine has run into problems, but distributing it may be the supply chain weak link.
Like a lot of vaccines, it needs to be carefully refrigerated from production to injection, in a "cold chain" with a managed chain of custody showing that it's been kept in the correct temperature range. It can't get too warm or too cold - there are reports of thousands of hard-to-produce doses being lost.
See http://www.wptv.com/mostpopular/story/Vaccine-ruined/jXS5Vw6cmk6CG6quQ9opBw.cspx
(What kind of equipment and skills would this take? There are medical-grade refrigerators and freezers. Do you also need medical-grade truck drivers and medical-grade custodians and building guards?)
Here's one school that suggests supply chain management as a career switch path:
http://www.umsl.edu/divisions/business/mbaonline/phd/overview.htm
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Law as a career switch?
I've discussed this before on this blog - I'm not sure how well law works as the destination of a career switch. The traditional path of going to law school is a tough, expensive educational campaign, even tougher if you're trying to do it part-time while full-time employed.
The campaign to become a lawyer doesn't end with finishing law school and passing the bar exam somewhere. The people who become superstar lawyers seem to have started young in a big law firm - not old and by themselves. I'm told that environment is pretty cutthroat - most of them don't last at those firms. But that seems to be the beginning of how they "make their bones" and establish credibility in the field.
Does law ever work as part of an interdisciplinary mix of credentials or as an off-label credential (e.g. get the law degree but use it as an entree to do something else, as can happen with e.g. advanced science, engineering or business credentials)?
I'm hard put to say. While cases can be found where people seem to have done this (e.g. policy analyst who has a law degree), those jobs can usually also be accessed by someone without a law degree. I don't think it would make sense to get a law degree and take the bar exam to get one of those kinds of jobs - there might be other, easier ways of accessing them.
An exception to all of the above, viewing law purely as a credential investment, might be patent law. One way to approach that, also discussed previously, is for a person with the necessary science or engineering background to start out by becoming a patent agent, which doesn't require a law degree.
Law seems to be a field where correct credentials are taken very seriously.
That all said: here is an amusing website which seems to have identified some loopholes for online paths to law degrees: ttp://www.lawschoolbible.com/dc_bar_option.htm.
There are also several states which still allow "apprenticeship" or "reading law" in law offices as a non-law-school pathway to becoming a lawyer: see
http://www.lawyersatisfactionblog.com/2009/04/becoming-a-lawyer-without-need.html
or
http://www.lawschool.com/noneed.htm
I think it's great that these pathways exist, but they sound impossible for already-employed people. And most shortcut websites end up pointing you back to Concord Law School.
So if you want to get a law degree as a way of opening a door to something else, generally there seem to be more efficient ways to do it.
But law is not impossible as a career switch.
The campaign to become a lawyer doesn't end with finishing law school and passing the bar exam somewhere. The people who become superstar lawyers seem to have started young in a big law firm - not old and by themselves. I'm told that environment is pretty cutthroat - most of them don't last at those firms. But that seems to be the beginning of how they "make their bones" and establish credibility in the field.
Does law ever work as part of an interdisciplinary mix of credentials or as an off-label credential (e.g. get the law degree but use it as an entree to do something else, as can happen with e.g. advanced science, engineering or business credentials)?
I'm hard put to say. While cases can be found where people seem to have done this (e.g. policy analyst who has a law degree), those jobs can usually also be accessed by someone without a law degree. I don't think it would make sense to get a law degree and take the bar exam to get one of those kinds of jobs - there might be other, easier ways of accessing them.
An exception to all of the above, viewing law purely as a credential investment, might be patent law. One way to approach that, also discussed previously, is for a person with the necessary science or engineering background to start out by becoming a patent agent, which doesn't require a law degree.
Law seems to be a field where correct credentials are taken very seriously.
That all said: here is an amusing website which seems to have identified some loopholes for online paths to law degrees: ttp://www.lawschoolbible.com/dc_bar_option.htm.
There are also several states which still allow "apprenticeship" or "reading law" in law offices as a non-law-school pathway to becoming a lawyer: see
http://www.lawyersatisfactionblog.com/2009/04/becoming-a-lawyer-without-need.html
or
http://www.lawschool.com/noneed.htm
I think it's great that these pathways exist, but they sound impossible for already-employed people. And most shortcut websites end up pointing you back to Concord Law School.
So if you want to get a law degree as a way of opening a door to something else, generally there seem to be more efficient ways to do it.
But law is not impossible as a career switch.
Brain Rules - interesting book...
...that I haven't actually read yet, but hope to soon.
See http://www.brainrules.net/
or
the NPR show Parents' Journal, where I first heard of it:
http://www.parentsjournal.com/radioshow
Here's a quick summary from the Brain Rules website:
The brain is an amazing thing. Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know.
How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget—and so important to repeat new knowledge?
See http://www.brainrules.net/
or
the NPR show Parents' Journal, where I first heard of it:
http://www.parentsjournal.com/radioshow
Here's a quick summary from the Brain Rules website:
The brain is an amazing thing. Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know.
How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget—and so important to repeat new knowledge?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
More on Life Coaching - podcast
Interesting interview of one David Wood on Michael Senoff's Hard to Find Seminars website:
http://find.hardtofindseminars.com/category/experts/david-wood/.
Actually, the interview was pretty hard to find on that website, too. I found it through iTunes searching against "coach".
The audio was also pretty marginal. If Michael Senoff wants attract people to those podcasts, he should invest a bit in improving that.
David Wood also has a visually appealing website at http://www.life-coaching-resource.com/.
With an unregulated, not heavily-credentialed, subjectively evaluated field, there's a lot of potential for fraud in life coaching, so I don't know if this guy was on the level or not. But he gave at least one interesting response to a question: What is the difference between psychotherapy and life coaching? Answer: Psychotherapy is like getting someone with broken legs to where they can walk. Life coaching is like getting a person who can walk to where they can run a four-minute mile.
So David Wood thinks the two are related. An obvious corollary, which they never pursued, would be that a person with some background in psychotherapy should be off to a good start if they wanted to consider life coaching. They did claim that "psychotherapists" generally need a license, whereas "life coaches" generally don't in most or all US states.
In fact, as mentioned in earlier posts, "psychotherapists" generally don't need a license either.
David Wood did mention that there were now university programs in life coaching. That's a new one - it will have to be the subject of a later post.
Jargon alert: something that seemed to come up a lot on the Senoff website was "HMA" consulting. HMA stands for Hidden Marketing Asset. Hadn't heard that one before today.
http://find.hardtofindseminars.com/category/experts/david-wood/.
Actually, the interview was pretty hard to find on that website, too. I found it through iTunes searching against "coach".
The audio was also pretty marginal. If Michael Senoff wants attract people to those podcasts, he should invest a bit in improving that.
David Wood also has a visually appealing website at http://www.life-coaching-resource.com/.
With an unregulated, not heavily-credentialed, subjectively evaluated field, there's a lot of potential for fraud in life coaching, so I don't know if this guy was on the level or not. But he gave at least one interesting response to a question: What is the difference between psychotherapy and life coaching? Answer: Psychotherapy is like getting someone with broken legs to where they can walk. Life coaching is like getting a person who can walk to where they can run a four-minute mile.
So David Wood thinks the two are related. An obvious corollary, which they never pursued, would be that a person with some background in psychotherapy should be off to a good start if they wanted to consider life coaching. They did claim that "psychotherapists" generally need a license, whereas "life coaches" generally don't in most or all US states.
In fact, as mentioned in earlier posts, "psychotherapists" generally don't need a license either.
David Wood did mention that there were now university programs in life coaching. That's a new one - it will have to be the subject of a later post.
Jargon alert: something that seemed to come up a lot on the Senoff website was "HMA" consulting. HMA stands for Hidden Marketing Asset. Hadn't heard that one before today.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Health Care Career Switch - Physician's Assistant
Physician's assistant is a possible pathway to a career switch if you have a science undergraduate degree. Kettering is one example of a school offering a career switch path:
http://www.kcma.edu/academics/pa/index.html
"Whether you’re a high school student exploring your health care career options, or you’re a college graduate seeking a career change, Kettering College’s PA program can work for you. Through Kettering College’s bachelor’s degree in human biology, non-degree holders can take the necessary prerequisite courses both to earn an undergraduate degree and to advance seamlessly into KCMA’s Master of Physician Assistant Studies. Students already possessing a bachelor’s degree in any basic science or any health care-related field can jump right in to the master’s program, provided they have the appropriate prerequisites."
This link gives a real-life case study:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/pf/career_switch.moneymag/index.htm
And for those of you who, like I was, were wondering just what the final difference between a PA and a nurse practitioner is, these links may or may not help you. From the viewpoint of someone who has encountered them both as a patient, it doesn't seem like much, but they reach similar roles through different educational pathways with different cultures - a NP starts out with a BSN in nursing and gets more training; a PA typically goes straight to PA school for a bachelor's or master's degree.
It's interesting that health care has such stovepiped, parallel, mutually hostile pedagogical pathways for being licensed to work on patients.
I didn't even try to get at some of the other credentialed terms like paramedic, EMT, etc. - those are probably different yet again.
https://career.berkeley.edu/Article/070209a-jv.stm
http://medinfo.ufl.edu/pa/program/faq.htm
http://www.ultimatenurse.com/forum/f14/physician-assistant-nurse-practitioner-1190/ [some gut reactions from the field, not written by college deans selling their programs]
http://www.wapa.org/pdfs/np-pa_chart.pdf
Pros and cons questions:
-Would this be a $100000 credential for a $50000 job? (It seems like an MD or OD degree is a $1m credential for a $10m job.) Of course, money isn't everything. I don't think PA studies can be a part-time pursuit and it sounds like real work. Full-time school can be very expensive for midcareer people, both with school costs and with foregone income.
-After all this, you're forever professionally defined as an "assistant" to someone. Of course, we all have bosses, superiors, etc. But it seems like having it in the credential's name would rankle. No way a physician will ever consider you as an equal on any level - professional or social - I would think. Doctors and nurses have had generations to work out their respective roles and mixture of deference and dominance, like officers and enlisted persons in the Army - and even then, there's friction. This is newer and the respective roles are even less clear.
-Also, how will near-peers like the nurses - and NP's - regard you?
-Helping heal people - wonderful!
-Regular hours - if you get them.
-Not the same legal liability as a physician (though anyone anywhere can be sued - I would carry professional liability insurance if I were in this field).
-Also not the same money as a physician.
http://www.kcma.edu/academics/pa/index.html
"Whether you’re a high school student exploring your health care career options, or you’re a college graduate seeking a career change, Kettering College’s PA program can work for you. Through Kettering College’s bachelor’s degree in human biology, non-degree holders can take the necessary prerequisite courses both to earn an undergraduate degree and to advance seamlessly into KCMA’s Master of Physician Assistant Studies. Students already possessing a bachelor’s degree in any basic science or any health care-related field can jump right in to the master’s program, provided they have the appropriate prerequisites."
This link gives a real-life case study:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/pf/career_switch.moneymag/index.htm
And for those of you who, like I was, were wondering just what the final difference between a PA and a nurse practitioner is, these links may or may not help you. From the viewpoint of someone who has encountered them both as a patient, it doesn't seem like much, but they reach similar roles through different educational pathways with different cultures - a NP starts out with a BSN in nursing and gets more training; a PA typically goes straight to PA school for a bachelor's or master's degree.
It's interesting that health care has such stovepiped, parallel, mutually hostile pedagogical pathways for being licensed to work on patients.
I didn't even try to get at some of the other credentialed terms like paramedic, EMT, etc. - those are probably different yet again.
https://career.berkeley.edu/Article/070209a-jv.stm
http://medinfo.ufl.edu/pa/program/faq.htm
http://www.ultimatenurse.com/forum/f14/physician-assistant-nurse-practitioner-1190/ [some gut reactions from the field, not written by college deans selling their programs]
http://www.wapa.org/pdfs/np-pa_chart.pdf
Pros and cons questions:
-Would this be a $100000 credential for a $50000 job? (It seems like an MD or OD degree is a $1m credential for a $10m job.) Of course, money isn't everything. I don't think PA studies can be a part-time pursuit and it sounds like real work. Full-time school can be very expensive for midcareer people, both with school costs and with foregone income.
-After all this, you're forever professionally defined as an "assistant" to someone. Of course, we all have bosses, superiors, etc. But it seems like having it in the credential's name would rankle. No way a physician will ever consider you as an equal on any level - professional or social - I would think. Doctors and nurses have had generations to work out their respective roles and mixture of deference and dominance, like officers and enlisted persons in the Army - and even then, there's friction. This is newer and the respective roles are even less clear.
-Also, how will near-peers like the nurses - and NP's - regard you?
-Helping heal people - wonderful!
-Regular hours - if you get them.
-Not the same legal liability as a physician (though anyone anywhere can be sued - I would carry professional liability insurance if I were in this field).
-Also not the same money as a physician.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Becoming a Patent Agent
This is a possible career switch path for someone with the right degree. To become a patent attorney, you have to become an attorney, meaning law school and the bar exam. To become a patent agent, you don't. You do have to take an exam.
A little info is at http://www.theinstitute.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.130a3558587d56e8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=institute_level1_article&TheCat=1004&article=tionline/legacy/inst2008/feb08/educationEPP.xml&;jsessionid=h5dpKyghQkMGVL59ywkVNTy5vLzrGpRfX2CD7Lc7M1gpn8RkjnLG!-143611134!2121372814:
Consider Becoming a Patent Agent
Discount on U.S. Patent Bar Exam Course
BY JASON LADAY
While most engineers may be focused on obtaining patents through their own work, many overlook the possibility of becoming U.S. patent agents. Engineers and other scientific professionals are uniquely qualified to become patent agents because of their technical background. And their expertise is sought after by both law firms and corporations.
The main difference between patent agents and patent attorneys is that with their law degrees attorneys can practice law outside the patent office. However, both agents and attorneys must sit and pass the Patent Registration Exam, which tests one’s knowledge of patent law as well as U.S. Patent and Trademark Office policies. Those who become full-time patent agents can go to work at patent law firms.
For those interested in becoming an agent, the IEEE has collaborated with the Practicing Law Institute (PLI) to offer a 10 percent discount on its patent bar review course. This course helps prospective patent agents prepare for the Patent Registration Exam, better known as the patent bar exam. PLI is a nonprofit organization that provides continuing education courses for lawyers but has recently expanding its reach to others.
“Our patent bar review course is the first in existence to our knowledge,” says the institute’s training services director, Mark Dighton. “Until recently we have focused on lawyers and law students but want to reach out to engineers who are interested in becoming patent agents.”
One of the main requirements to sit for the patent bar exam is an undergraduate degree in engineering or other hard science, including chemistry, biology, physics, or computer science. According to PLI, the average lawyer or law student has no significant advantage over an engineer with no legal experience in taking the exam because the test is more about knowing procedural details than actual patent law.
“Engineers often decide on becoming patent agents because it broadens their career opportunities,” Dighton says. ”It’s diverse and fascinating work and keeps you on the cutting edge of the engineering profession.” Patent agents are sought after by law firms and corporations.
COURSE DETAILS The review course can be taken on your own at home or in a classroom with a teacher. All students receive a set of written materials, including practice books and an audio CD of all lectures. Those taking the home study route will also receive DVDs replicating the live lectures and question reviews.
The live courses are a series of five-day lectures and exercises that last 10 hours each day. Courses are scheduled throughout the year in Boston; Chicago; Costa Mesa, Calif.; Houston; New York; San Francisco; and the Washington, D.C. area.
According to PLI, those planning to take the exam should set aside at least 150 to 200 hours of study, in chunks of three to four hours at a time spread over a month or two. Ideally, one would take the course sometime in the middle of this period, continuing to review the material even after the course has ended. Course materials must be returned after the exam.
For more information on PLI, the Patent Bar Review Course, and the Patent Bar Exam, visit http://www.pli.edu/barreview/patentbar/engineer_corner.asp
Also see http://inventors.about.com/od/patentattorneys/ht/patent_agent.htm
and
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/attorney.htm.
I don't know any patent agents, don't know what they do day-to-day, who hires them, how business comes to them, etc. It would be interesting to get some stories about how this has worked out for people as a career shift.
A little info is at http://www.theinstitute.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.130a3558587d56e8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=institute_level1_article&TheCat=1004&article=tionline/legacy/inst2008/feb08/educationEPP.xml&;jsessionid=h5dpKyghQkMGVL59ywkVNTy5vLzrGpRfX2CD7Lc7M1gpn8RkjnLG!-143611134!2121372814:
Consider Becoming a Patent Agent
Discount on U.S. Patent Bar Exam Course
BY JASON LADAY
While most engineers may be focused on obtaining patents through their own work, many overlook the possibility of becoming U.S. patent agents. Engineers and other scientific professionals are uniquely qualified to become patent agents because of their technical background. And their expertise is sought after by both law firms and corporations.
The main difference between patent agents and patent attorneys is that with their law degrees attorneys can practice law outside the patent office. However, both agents and attorneys must sit and pass the Patent Registration Exam, which tests one’s knowledge of patent law as well as U.S. Patent and Trademark Office policies. Those who become full-time patent agents can go to work at patent law firms.
For those interested in becoming an agent, the IEEE has collaborated with the Practicing Law Institute (PLI) to offer a 10 percent discount on its patent bar review course. This course helps prospective patent agents prepare for the Patent Registration Exam, better known as the patent bar exam. PLI is a nonprofit organization that provides continuing education courses for lawyers but has recently expanding its reach to others.
“Our patent bar review course is the first in existence to our knowledge,” says the institute’s training services director, Mark Dighton. “Until recently we have focused on lawyers and law students but want to reach out to engineers who are interested in becoming patent agents.”
One of the main requirements to sit for the patent bar exam is an undergraduate degree in engineering or other hard science, including chemistry, biology, physics, or computer science. According to PLI, the average lawyer or law student has no significant advantage over an engineer with no legal experience in taking the exam because the test is more about knowing procedural details than actual patent law.
“Engineers often decide on becoming patent agents because it broadens their career opportunities,” Dighton says. ”It’s diverse and fascinating work and keeps you on the cutting edge of the engineering profession.” Patent agents are sought after by law firms and corporations.
COURSE DETAILS The review course can be taken on your own at home or in a classroom with a teacher. All students receive a set of written materials, including practice books and an audio CD of all lectures. Those taking the home study route will also receive DVDs replicating the live lectures and question reviews.
The live courses are a series of five-day lectures and exercises that last 10 hours each day. Courses are scheduled throughout the year in Boston; Chicago; Costa Mesa, Calif.; Houston; New York; San Francisco; and the Washington, D.C. area.
According to PLI, those planning to take the exam should set aside at least 150 to 200 hours of study, in chunks of three to four hours at a time spread over a month or two. Ideally, one would take the course sometime in the middle of this period, continuing to review the material even after the course has ended. Course materials must be returned after the exam.
For more information on PLI, the Patent Bar Review Course, and the Patent Bar Exam, visit http://www.pli.edu/barreview/patentbar/engineer_corner.asp
Also see http://inventors.about.com/od/patentattorneys/ht/patent_agent.htm
and
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/attorney.htm.
I don't know any patent agents, don't know what they do day-to-day, who hires them, how business comes to them, etc. It would be interesting to get some stories about how this has worked out for people as a career shift.
Expediter - only in New York
Only in New York, but talk about a career shift.
Unfortunately, this is only the abstract - you have to subscribe to TNY to get the full article.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1988/02/29/1988_02_29_022_TNY_CARDS_000348892?printable=true
Archive
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
EXPEDITER
by Mark Singer
FEBRUARY 29, 1988
Mark Singer, The Talk of the Town, “Expediter,” The New Yorker, February 29, 1988, p. 22
Read the full text of this article in the digital edition. (Subscription required.)
ABSTRACT: Talk story about Nat Silberman, 49, an expediter at the Dept. of Buildings on lower Hudson Street. It is a fact of life that if you need something done there you get an expediter to do it. The other morning the writer saw Nat waiting to talk to an inspector named Bob Freligh. He told the writer about some of his interesting situations as for example getting a certificate of occupancy for a hospital building which is not yet finished. The garage underneath is finished & the doctors want to park their cars there. Nat was ordained a rabbi 27 years ago and he's also a lapsed architect. Tells about some of the other situations he is dealing with & how he operates.
Unfortunately, this is only the abstract - you have to subscribe to TNY to get the full article.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1988/02/29/1988_02_29_022_TNY_CARDS_000348892?printable=true
Archive
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
EXPEDITER
by Mark Singer
FEBRUARY 29, 1988
Mark Singer, The Talk of the Town, “Expediter,” The New Yorker, February 29, 1988, p. 22
Read the full text of this article in the digital edition. (Subscription required.)
ABSTRACT: Talk story about Nat Silberman, 49, an expediter at the Dept. of Buildings on lower Hudson Street. It is a fact of life that if you need something done there you get an expediter to do it. The other morning the writer saw Nat waiting to talk to an inspector named Bob Freligh. He told the writer about some of his interesting situations as for example getting a certificate of occupancy for a hospital building which is not yet finished. The garage underneath is finished & the doctors want to park their cars there. Nat was ordained a rabbi 27 years ago and he's also a lapsed architect. Tells about some of the other situations he is dealing with & how he operates.
Nursing
From http://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/2009/june/nursing:
Stories from UAB’s Accelerated Master’s in Nursing Pathway
One student was headed toward a career in hospital administration until she heard the call of nursing. Another spent several years in UAB’s research labs but decided she wanted a health-care career with more one-on-one contact. Yet another left a successful career in athletic training, working with some of the Southeast’s most prestigious college-football programs, to forge a new path in nursing.
All of these students joined the first class of the UAB School of Nursing’s Accelerated Master’s in Nursing Pathway for Second Degree Students. The program offers college graduates with bachelor’s degrees—even degrees unrelated to health care—a “fast track” to a master’s degree in nursing and an opportunity to sit for the nursing board exams.
Stories from UAB’s Accelerated Master’s in Nursing Pathway
One student was headed toward a career in hospital administration until she heard the call of nursing. Another spent several years in UAB’s research labs but decided she wanted a health-care career with more one-on-one contact. Yet another left a successful career in athletic training, working with some of the Southeast’s most prestigious college-football programs, to forge a new path in nursing.
All of these students joined the first class of the UAB School of Nursing’s Accelerated Master’s in Nursing Pathway for Second Degree Students. The program offers college graduates with bachelor’s degrees—even degrees unrelated to health care—a “fast track” to a master’s degree in nursing and an opportunity to sit for the nursing board exams.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Genealogy As A Career Switch Option
One career switch option is genealogy. This is an important subject for many reasons, not just personal, although that's a big one too as people become more curious about family history. Families may retain genealogists just because they're interested or to discover potential heirs to a divided estate.
One US-based website with a lot of information: http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/becoming_a_professional_genealogist
That website says that there is such a thing as a "certified genealogist", so there seems to be some credentialing associated with it. There are also academic certificates and degrees in genealogy now.
This UK-based website highlights genealogy as a career-switch path.
Also note this interesting US Government report from as recently as last year, regarding a fee-for-service genealogical program that the Department of Homeland Security was setting up:
"This rule affects professional genealogists and other members of
the public requesting historical records from USCIS. The main source of
genealogy requests comes from individuals doing personal research,
rather than from small entities, such as professional genealogists.
``The Washington Post'' reported that seventy-three percent of
Americans have an interest in their family history, according to a 2005
study conducted by Market Strategies, Inc., a syndicated research firm
based in Livonia, Michigan, and MyFamily.com, an online network of
genealogical tools based in Provo, Utah. ``The Wall Street Journal''
described genealogy as a $200 million per year industry ranging from
individual researchers to multi-million dollar companies.
In addition, the growth of the Internet has spurred interest in
genealogy and a rapidly growing number of hobbyists pursuing genealogy.
According to the ``Occupational Outlook Quarterly'' (Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Fall 2000), a 1997 survey of certified genealogists found
that 57 percent work part-time, 34 percent work full-time, and 9
percent are hobbyists. In 2001, there were over 300 certified
genealogists, and currently, the Association of Professional
Genealogists has 1,600 members worldwide http://www.apgen.org. The
National Genealogical Society notes:
Some professional genealogists are employed as librarians,
archivists, editors or research assistants to established
professionals; others work for genealogical firms. Most, however,
choose self-employment-learning business principles to ensure the
success of their genealogical practice. As with other
entrepreneurial fields, most make the move gradually from their
original field of employment, building a practice--be it a client
base, writing outlets, or some other venue--before moving full-time
into genealogy. Some make this career switch in mid-life. Others
choose genealogy as a second career upon retirement from their first
one. Because genealogical degree programs are still relatively rare,
only a few enjoy the opportunity to make genealogy their first
career. No accurate count exists for the number of individuals
employed as genealogists, full-time and part-time (http://
www.ngsgenealogy.org/articles/profession.cfm)."
One US-based website with a lot of information: http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/becoming_a_professional_genealogist
That website says that there is such a thing as a "certified genealogist", so there seems to be some credentialing associated with it. There are also academic certificates and degrees in genealogy now.
This UK-based website highlights genealogy as a career-switch path.
Also note this interesting US Government report from as recently as last year, regarding a fee-for-service genealogical program that the Department of Homeland Security was setting up:
"This rule affects professional genealogists and other members of
the public requesting historical records from USCIS. The main source of
genealogy requests comes from individuals doing personal research,
rather than from small entities, such as professional genealogists.
``The Washington Post'' reported that seventy-three percent of
Americans have an interest in their family history, according to a 2005
study conducted by Market Strategies, Inc., a syndicated research firm
based in Livonia, Michigan, and MyFamily.com, an online network of
genealogical tools based in Provo, Utah. ``The Wall Street Journal''
described genealogy as a $200 million per year industry ranging from
individual researchers to multi-million dollar companies.
In addition, the growth of the Internet has spurred interest in
genealogy and a rapidly growing number of hobbyists pursuing genealogy.
According to the ``Occupational Outlook Quarterly'' (Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Fall 2000), a 1997 survey of certified genealogists found
that 57 percent work part-time, 34 percent work full-time, and 9
percent are hobbyists. In 2001, there were over 300 certified
genealogists, and currently, the Association of Professional
Genealogists has 1,600 members worldwide http://www.apgen.org. The
National Genealogical Society notes:
Some professional genealogists are employed as librarians,
archivists, editors or research assistants to established
professionals; others work for genealogical firms. Most, however,
choose self-employment-learning business principles to ensure the
success of their genealogical practice. As with other
entrepreneurial fields, most make the move gradually from their
original field of employment, building a practice--be it a client
base, writing outlets, or some other venue--before moving full-time
into genealogy. Some make this career switch in mid-life. Others
choose genealogy as a second career upon retirement from their first
one. Because genealogical degree programs are still relatively rare,
only a few enjoy the opportunity to make genealogy their first
career. No accurate count exists for the number of individuals
employed as genealogists, full-time and part-time (http://
www.ngsgenealogy.org/articles/profession.cfm)."
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Missouri University of Science and Technology EMSE Programs
It's limited for now to US Defense Department employees, but this is a defined online program for MS and PhD which goes beyond the usual "certificate" pablum:
http://emse.mst.edu/defense_acquisition_university/DAU_Home.html.
This will give this school experience with distance programs. Maybe they have resources of a broader nature.
M.S. Degree in Engineering Management
Engineering Management is the art and science of planning, organizing, allocating resources, and directing and controlling activities. The field of engineering management has become recognized as a professional discipline with a critical role in industry, business, and modern society. The M.S. degree in Engineering Management requires 30 credit hours of approved course work. The student gets the same opportunities as on-campus students but with the convenience of the instruction coming to you. The M.S. degree offers excellent preparation for the engineer or technical professional desiring to make the transition to technical manager. AT&L students may transfer approved DAU credit hours (see Missouri S&T Credit Hours for DAU Courses) to Missouri S&T to meet nine of the thirty credits required for the M.S. Engineering Management degree.
All M.S. Engineering Management students take the following four core courses:
EMGT 314 – Management for Engineers & Scientists
EMGT 361 - Project Management
EMGT 352 – Activity Based Accounting & Financial Decision Making
EMGT 365 – Operations Management Science
The remaining six courses are taken from a specialty area which includes the following:
Management of Technology
Financial Engineering
Project Management
Quality
Ph.D. in Engineering Management
A candidate for the Ph.D. in Engineering Management must complete the equivalent of at least three years of full time work beyond the bachelor’s degree. The content of all Ph.D. programs is individually structured by the student in consultation with and approved by the student’s advisory committee. All requirements for the degree must normally be completed within an eight-year period. Ph.D. students must conduct original research under the supervision of a doctoral advisor and successfully defend the dissertation. Special arrangements are made for off-campus students to meet on-campus residences requirements and complete the original research.
Fees
The Defense Acquisition University Program with the Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Department at Missouri S&T provides for reduced fees for the course taken by AT&L personnel. The current fee schedule is $755 per credit hour. This is a substantial discount to the normal non-resident fee for distance students.
Admissions
Admission application and acceptance rules for distance students are the same as those of traditional on-campus students with only slight variations in required forms. Students complete the appropriate forms according to their program choice and submit to Distance and Continuing Education (DCE) along with payment information for the application fee ($50).
Graduate Application
Students may apply for admission to individual courses, certificate programs, or graduate degree programs.
http://emse.mst.edu/defense_acquisition_university/DAU_Home.html.
This will give this school experience with distance programs. Maybe they have resources of a broader nature.
M.S. Degree in Engineering Management
Engineering Management is the art and science of planning, organizing, allocating resources, and directing and controlling activities. The field of engineering management has become recognized as a professional discipline with a critical role in industry, business, and modern society. The M.S. degree in Engineering Management requires 30 credit hours of approved course work. The student gets the same opportunities as on-campus students but with the convenience of the instruction coming to you. The M.S. degree offers excellent preparation for the engineer or technical professional desiring to make the transition to technical manager. AT&L students may transfer approved DAU credit hours (see Missouri S&T Credit Hours for DAU Courses) to Missouri S&T to meet nine of the thirty credits required for the M.S. Engineering Management degree.
All M.S. Engineering Management students take the following four core courses:
EMGT 314 – Management for Engineers & Scientists
EMGT 361 - Project Management
EMGT 352 – Activity Based Accounting & Financial Decision Making
EMGT 365 – Operations Management Science
The remaining six courses are taken from a specialty area which includes the following:
Management of Technology
Financial Engineering
Project Management
Quality
Ph.D. in Engineering Management
A candidate for the Ph.D. in Engineering Management must complete the equivalent of at least three years of full time work beyond the bachelor’s degree. The content of all Ph.D. programs is individually structured by the student in consultation with and approved by the student’s advisory committee. All requirements for the degree must normally be completed within an eight-year period. Ph.D. students must conduct original research under the supervision of a doctoral advisor and successfully defend the dissertation. Special arrangements are made for off-campus students to meet on-campus residences requirements and complete the original research.
Fees
The Defense Acquisition University Program with the Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Department at Missouri S&T provides for reduced fees for the course taken by AT&L personnel. The current fee schedule is $755 per credit hour. This is a substantial discount to the normal non-resident fee for distance students.
Admissions
Admission application and acceptance rules for distance students are the same as those of traditional on-campus students with only slight variations in required forms. Students complete the appropriate forms according to their program choice and submit to Distance and Continuing Education (DCE) along with payment information for the application fee ($50).
Graduate Application
Students may apply for admission to individual courses, certificate programs, or graduate degree programs.
Time harvesting
Ever have an hourish chunk of time, like while waiting for something where you can't leave the location and get back in time, where it's too much to waste but not enough to use productively?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Clutter - dealing with it
I often seem to be dealing with multidimensional clutter. I think it's mostly a problem - a really difficult problem - but maybe sometimes it's an opportunity.
Why all the clutter? Some of it may be my personality type (a Myers-Briggs "P" - we like options and have trouble with closure and throwing things out). Some is lack of time. Some is probably learned behavior.
Also circumstances. For me, there are a lot of ways to categorize clutter. A lot, but not all, is self-inflicted. A lot is also externally imposed - my occupation and personal life create time clutter as well as space clutter. I also came into a number of family artifacts - old photos, furniture, etc. - that something meaningful needs to be done with.
There's a high cost to it - it limits both current operations and future pathways. At the same time, life-as-a brainstorm seems to work well for me, but there's a kind of optimum point past which it becomes a handicap.
With some clutter, there also seems to be a compound-interest factor - it can go from challenging to bad quickly.
Besides resolving to do better and wishing for more hours in the day and a bigger home, I may need better tools. One thing that looked promising was a mailroom literature organizer with mail slots, so that daily mail could be categorized.
One interesting website: http://unclutterer.com/
Why all the clutter? Some of it may be my personality type (a Myers-Briggs "P" - we like options and have trouble with closure and throwing things out). Some is lack of time. Some is probably learned behavior.
Also circumstances. For me, there are a lot of ways to categorize clutter. A lot, but not all, is self-inflicted. A lot is also externally imposed - my occupation and personal life create time clutter as well as space clutter. I also came into a number of family artifacts - old photos, furniture, etc. - that something meaningful needs to be done with.
There's a high cost to it - it limits both current operations and future pathways. At the same time, life-as-a brainstorm seems to work well for me, but there's a kind of optimum point past which it becomes a handicap.
With some clutter, there also seems to be a compound-interest factor - it can go from challenging to bad quickly.
Besides resolving to do better and wishing for more hours in the day and a bigger home, I may need better tools. One thing that looked promising was a mailroom literature organizer with mail slots, so that daily mail could be categorized.
One interesting website: http://unclutterer.com/
Saturday, August 29, 2009
MS in Technology Commercialization
After seeing the Texas program in the Sept Fasttrack and doing some searches, I was stunned: "technology commercialization" as a search term is way hot, especially for life-hack graduate degrees.
Lots of hits, not just in North America. But they ain't cheap. Trying to solve the problem of bang-for-the-buck. I hope there's a lot of bang, because the ones so far all involve a lot of bucks.
Programs:
Univ. of Texas MSTC: http://www.ic2.utexas.edu/mstc/
Unfortunately this is an "elite executive degree" which means it's probably expensive and not very accessible - not factors if you can get an employer to send you and pay for it, but if you're trying to do your own lifehack, not realistic. Candidates learn to identify and evaluate emerging technologies, identify customers and marketing strategies, develop broad, flexible business plans, build a high-functioning management team to drive the new venture, devise approaches for securing funding and manage and protect intellectual property. Also see http://www.uniguru.com/studyabroad/United-States-courses/Master-Science-Technology-Commercialization-course-details/cseid/602082/cid/72181/programs.html for this and other interesting leads.
====
Northeastern Univ. MSTC: http://www.cps.neu.edu/mstc/
Online (good) - $514 per quarter hour. A MSTC degree is 40 quarter hours (? - courses are 3 hours each), so the whole thing ends up costing over $20000. Does anyone else think that's a lot of money? Wonder if you ever make it back. Still, looks interesting and the individual course tuition could be worse.
====
Penn Master of Technology Management: http://www.emtm.upenn.edu/companies/industries/technology_commercialization.html
Probably $expensive$ but Penn is an Ivy League school, so prestigious. Prestige might be worth paying for.
====
Maryland MS in Telecommunications: http://www.telecom.umd.edu/current/OTC.html -- comes out of their Office of Technology Commercialization.
Also see their UMUC Doctor of Management: http://www.umuc.edu/programs/grad/dm/
Requires 48 hours of classes plus research. Fall 2009 tuition is $1087 a credit - the 48 credits will run a cool $52176, assuming the tuition doesn't increase (it will).
====
NIH/FAES: http://www.faes.org/graduate_school.htm
Interesting program if you're in the Washington DC area and can get to NIH (not online), but doesn't lead to a degree; none of FAES's courses do. You can get a 15-credit "certificate" (5 courses) in Technology Transfer. Courses are $345 a credit so that works out to $5175 outlay plus books plus getting there.
If you try to transfer these credits, no guarantees. Most graduate programs won't transfer more than 6 hours (2 courses). Something to consider.
====
Also see http://www.slideshare.net/infoDevSlides/technology-commercialization-handbook .
Lots of hits, not just in North America. But they ain't cheap. Trying to solve the problem of bang-for-the-buck. I hope there's a lot of bang, because the ones so far all involve a lot of bucks.
Programs:
Univ. of Texas MSTC: http://www.ic2.utexas.edu/mstc/
Unfortunately this is an "elite executive degree" which means it's probably expensive and not very accessible - not factors if you can get an employer to send you and pay for it, but if you're trying to do your own lifehack, not realistic. Candidates learn to identify and evaluate emerging technologies, identify customers and marketing strategies, develop broad, flexible business plans, build a high-functioning management team to drive the new venture, devise approaches for securing funding and manage and protect intellectual property. Also see http://www.uniguru.com/studyabroad/United-States-courses/Master-Science-Technology-Commercialization-course-details/cseid/602082/cid/72181/programs.html for this and other interesting leads.
====
Northeastern Univ. MSTC: http://www.cps.neu.edu/mstc/
Online (good) - $514 per quarter hour. A MSTC degree is 40 quarter hours (? - courses are 3 hours each), so the whole thing ends up costing over $20000. Does anyone else think that's a lot of money? Wonder if you ever make it back. Still, looks interesting and the individual course tuition could be worse.
====
Penn Master of Technology Management: http://www.emtm.upenn.edu/companies/industries/technology_commercialization.html
Probably $expensive$ but Penn is an Ivy League school, so prestigious. Prestige might be worth paying for.
====
Maryland MS in Telecommunications: http://www.telecom.umd.edu/current/OTC.html -- comes out of their Office of Technology Commercialization.
Also see their UMUC Doctor of Management: http://www.umuc.edu/programs/grad/dm/
Requires 48 hours of classes plus research. Fall 2009 tuition is $1087 a credit - the 48 credits will run a cool $52176, assuming the tuition doesn't increase (it will).
====
NIH/FAES: http://www.faes.org/graduate_school.htm
Interesting program if you're in the Washington DC area and can get to NIH (not online), but doesn't lead to a degree; none of FAES's courses do. You can get a 15-credit "certificate" (5 courses) in Technology Transfer. Courses are $345 a credit so that works out to $5175 outlay plus books plus getting there.
If you try to transfer these credits, no guarantees. Most graduate programs won't transfer more than 6 hours (2 courses). Something to consider.
====
Also see http://www.slideshare.net/infoDevSlides/technology-commercialization-handbook .
Fast Company Magazine Sept. 2009 issue - Who Needs Harvard?
Very provocative article, for working folk seeking new educational pathways even as they hit the commute at o-dark-thirty. Still on the newsstands for a couple more days, even as August seems to make time stand still for an instant.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html
This excerpt sums it up:
=====
... [H]igher education remains, on the whole, a string quartet. MIT's courseware may be free, yet an MIT degree still costs upward of $189,000. College tuition has gone up more than any other good or service since 1990, and our nation's students and graduates hold a staggering $714 billion in outstanding student-loan debt. Once the world's most educated country, the United States today ranks 10th globally in the percentage of young people with postsecondary degrees. "Colleges have become outrageously expensive, yet there remains a general refusal to acknowledge the implications of new technologies," says Jim Groom, an "instructional technologist" at Virginia's University of Mary Washington and a prominent voice in the blogosphere for blowing up college as we know it. Groom, a chain-smoker with an ever-present five days' growth of beard, coined the term "edupunk" to describe the growing movement toward high-tech do-it-yourself education. "Edupunk," he tells me in the opening notes of his first email, "is about the utter irresponsibility and lethargy of educational institutions and the means by which they are financially cannibalizing their own mission."
The edupunks are on the march. From VC-funded startups to the ivied walls of Harvard, new experiments and business models are springing up from entrepreneurs, professors, and students alike. Want a class that's structured like a role-playing game? An accredited bachelor's degree for a few thousand dollars? A free, peer-to-peer Wiki university? These all exist today, the overture to a complete educational remix.
The architects of education 2.0 predict that traditional universities that cling to the string-quartet model will find themselves on the wrong side of history, alongside newspaper chains and record stores. "If universities can't find the will to innovate and adapt to changes in the world around them," professor David Wiley of Brigham Young University has written, "universities will be irrelevant by 2020."
Wiley doesn't come off immediately as a bomb thrower. He is a 37-year-old member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with five kids. He has close-cropped gray hair, glasses, and speaks softly in a West Virginia accent. But he employs his niceness strategically, as a general in the intellectual vanguard of the transformation of higher education. The challenge is not to bring technology into the classroom, he points out. The millennials, with their Facebook and their cell phones, have done that. The challenge is to capture the potential of technology to lower costs and improve learning for all.
. . .
=====
Sounds like Clayton Christensen's "disruptive technology" applied to the university enterprise, doesn't it...?
Also see http://www.claytonchristensen.com/#book_disrupting for Dr. Christensen's recent book on this new trend.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html
This excerpt sums it up:
=====
... [H]igher education remains, on the whole, a string quartet. MIT's courseware may be free, yet an MIT degree still costs upward of $189,000. College tuition has gone up more than any other good or service since 1990, and our nation's students and graduates hold a staggering $714 billion in outstanding student-loan debt. Once the world's most educated country, the United States today ranks 10th globally in the percentage of young people with postsecondary degrees. "Colleges have become outrageously expensive, yet there remains a general refusal to acknowledge the implications of new technologies," says Jim Groom, an "instructional technologist" at Virginia's University of Mary Washington and a prominent voice in the blogosphere for blowing up college as we know it. Groom, a chain-smoker with an ever-present five days' growth of beard, coined the term "edupunk" to describe the growing movement toward high-tech do-it-yourself education. "Edupunk," he tells me in the opening notes of his first email, "is about the utter irresponsibility and lethargy of educational institutions and the means by which they are financially cannibalizing their own mission."
The edupunks are on the march. From VC-funded startups to the ivied walls of Harvard, new experiments and business models are springing up from entrepreneurs, professors, and students alike. Want a class that's structured like a role-playing game? An accredited bachelor's degree for a few thousand dollars? A free, peer-to-peer Wiki university? These all exist today, the overture to a complete educational remix.
The architects of education 2.0 predict that traditional universities that cling to the string-quartet model will find themselves on the wrong side of history, alongside newspaper chains and record stores. "If universities can't find the will to innovate and adapt to changes in the world around them," professor David Wiley of Brigham Young University has written, "universities will be irrelevant by 2020."
Wiley doesn't come off immediately as a bomb thrower. He is a 37-year-old member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with five kids. He has close-cropped gray hair, glasses, and speaks softly in a West Virginia accent. But he employs his niceness strategically, as a general in the intellectual vanguard of the transformation of higher education. The challenge is not to bring technology into the classroom, he points out. The millennials, with their Facebook and their cell phones, have done that. The challenge is to capture the potential of technology to lower costs and improve learning for all.
. . .
=====
Sounds like Clayton Christensen's "disruptive technology" applied to the university enterprise, doesn't it...?
Also see http://www.claytonchristensen.com/#book_disrupting for Dr. Christensen's recent book on this new trend.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Master of Financial Engineering
Enough off-label entries. I had not heard of this degree before this morning. It includes some cool math stuff, if one is into that. It comes up in career switch searches after you sift through all the usual hits (the same "top 10" you see everywhere).
It seems to be popular in Singapore. Maybe there are some US schools that offer it too. Here's a link to a reading list:
http://www.quantnet.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1336
And an interesting wiki on the broader subject of computational finance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_finance
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Quantitative_Finance for more links and info sources.
It seems to be popular in Singapore. Maybe there are some US schools that offer it too. Here's a link to a reading list:
http://www.quantnet.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1336
And an interesting wiki on the broader subject of computational finance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_finance
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Quantitative_Finance for more links and info sources.
Cash 4 Clunkers
FWIW I'm finding that it's making it more difficult for me to buy a new car, since I don't have a clunker - although I might have an easier time with buying a sub-20 PMG SUV, which doesn't make sense for me for all kinds of reasons.
The dealers aren't giving discounts since they know people are getting $4500.
The dealers aren't giving discounts since they know people are getting $4500.
Garrison Keillor
Is Garrison Keillor better on The Writer's Almanac than he is on Prairie Home Companion?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Life After Music School
A most remarkable article, from Northern Arizona University's French horn department: http://www4.nau.edu/hornstudio/index_files/Page543.htm.
“There is Life after Music School: Three Stories.”
By Marilyn Kloss
What do a flute manufacturer, a hardware engineer, and a software
technical writer have in common? Well, since they are mentioned in this
periodical, you can assume that they are all horn players. But they also all
earned degrees in music and later turned to engineering for earning their
livings in the real world.
Jim Phelan, Bob Moffett, and Marilyn Kloss all attended music schools
intending to become professional horn players. But, in the reality of the
working world, they turned to technical skills for their professions, while still
retaining their love of music and horn playing. Their stories are special
while at the same time typical of those of many amateur musicians.
These three amateur horn players live in the Boston (MA, USA) area and
have known each other for many years. They have each struggled with
the question Of how long to pursue a musical career, and if giving up the
dream, what other career to choose. They have discovered that there
can be another life after music school, that it is never too late to learn
new skills and grow in another direction. ...
=======
If you're fortunate enough to be a musician, my view is that it's not wasted - both on its own merits and because there seem to be broader skills. Rumor has it that music majors are overrepresented in cryptography and medicine.
“There is Life after Music School: Three Stories.”
By Marilyn Kloss
What do a flute manufacturer, a hardware engineer, and a software
technical writer have in common? Well, since they are mentioned in this
periodical, you can assume that they are all horn players. But they also all
earned degrees in music and later turned to engineering for earning their
livings in the real world.
Jim Phelan, Bob Moffett, and Marilyn Kloss all attended music schools
intending to become professional horn players. But, in the reality of the
working world, they turned to technical skills for their professions, while still
retaining their love of music and horn playing. Their stories are special
while at the same time typical of those of many amateur musicians.
These three amateur horn players live in the Boston (MA, USA) area and
have known each other for many years. They have each struggled with
the question Of how long to pursue a musical career, and if giving up the
dream, what other career to choose. They have discovered that there
can be another life after music school, that it is never too late to learn
new skills and grow in another direction. ...
=======
If you're fortunate enough to be a musician, my view is that it's not wasted - both on its own merits and because there seem to be broader skills. Rumor has it that music majors are overrepresented in cryptography and medicine.
Career Switching Articles
Going back to the broader theme of career switching: a lot of people want to (or are forced to) do it, but resources and opportunities are limited.
Interesting observation in this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article http://www.seattlepi.com/business/401235_jobs25.html:
"That's the frustration for Sheri Jacobson, 58, who is weighing the cost of a career transition against her remaining earning years. She was laid off from her job in educational publishing management in December, and her industry is in flux.
"Every place you read recommends the same 10 jobs," she said, ticking off dental hygienists, nurses and software specialists.
"Nursing is always listed as one of the best jobs to consider due to high demand and good wages, as if nursing can be done by anyone who decides to get into it," said Jacobson, who lives in Sammamish. "I don't know about you, but I dread having blood drawn by someone who's qualified but not good at it. Same for IT jobs, always recommended as if we're all cut out to be technical gurus." "
But the article winds up on a more encouraging note, talking of learning to view and repackage your existing skills.
Maybe. The Labor Department has an online tool for matching skills to occupations:
http://online.onetcenter.org/, which also links to other tools.
Interesting observation in this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article http://www.seattlepi.com/business/401235_jobs25.html:
"That's the frustration for Sheri Jacobson, 58, who is weighing the cost of a career transition against her remaining earning years. She was laid off from her job in educational publishing management in December, and her industry is in flux.
"Every place you read recommends the same 10 jobs," she said, ticking off dental hygienists, nurses and software specialists.
"Nursing is always listed as one of the best jobs to consider due to high demand and good wages, as if nursing can be done by anyone who decides to get into it," said Jacobson, who lives in Sammamish. "I don't know about you, but I dread having blood drawn by someone who's qualified but not good at it. Same for IT jobs, always recommended as if we're all cut out to be technical gurus." "
But the article winds up on a more encouraging note, talking of learning to view and repackage your existing skills.
Maybe. The Labor Department has an online tool for matching skills to occupations:
http://online.onetcenter.org/, which also links to other tools.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Psychotherapy, Career Switching and Diversity, and Mixed Credentials
More on this; one example of a career switch or career diversity option in this area is the "Dr. Laura" scenario (see http://www.drlaura.com/about/). The website mentions a California state license for Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor (MFCC).
Dr. Laura's original PhD degree is in an impressively hard science - physiology - but it has little or nothing to do with providing psychotherapy to patients. She might as well have been a chemical engineer.
So this is a career switch case study - and a possible option for others (psychotherapy, if not also becoming famous!).
California apparently changed the name of this license in 1999 to "Marriage and Family Therapist"; see http://www.bbs.ca.gov/consumer/what_is.shtml. I don't know yet if there is an equivalent license in other states.
California has two other professional licenses in this category, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and Licensed Educational Psychologist (LEP). "Psychotherapy" is prominently mentioned in the MFT and LCSW statutory language, but the statute doesn't actually say you have to have one of these licenses to call yourself a psychotherapist in California. I don't know if there have been any court decisions on this in California.
All the licenses require master's degrees of one sort or another. California accredits schools for MFT license preparation; see http://www.bbs.ca.gov/app-reg/mft_schools.shtml. Elsewhere on the site is a list of "approved" schools for MFT; not sure what that means.
They also supply videos on MFT and LCSW licensure at http://www.bbs.ca.gov/app-reg/licensing_QA.shtm.
The above is ONLY for California. I don't know yet what other states do. I've seen the LCSW credential in a lot more states than the others, so it may be more portable between states.
Dr. Laura's original PhD degree is in an impressively hard science - physiology - but it has little or nothing to do with providing psychotherapy to patients. She might as well have been a chemical engineer.
So this is a career switch case study - and a possible option for others (psychotherapy, if not also becoming famous!).
California apparently changed the name of this license in 1999 to "Marriage and Family Therapist"; see http://www.bbs.ca.gov/consumer/what_is.shtml. I don't know yet if there is an equivalent license in other states.
California has two other professional licenses in this category, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and Licensed Educational Psychologist (LEP). "Psychotherapy" is prominently mentioned in the MFT and LCSW statutory language, but the statute doesn't actually say you have to have one of these licenses to call yourself a psychotherapist in California. I don't know if there have been any court decisions on this in California.
All the licenses require master's degrees of one sort or another. California accredits schools for MFT license preparation; see http://www.bbs.ca.gov/app-reg/mft_schools.shtml. Elsewhere on the site is a list of "approved" schools for MFT; not sure what that means.
They also supply videos on MFT and LCSW licensure at http://www.bbs.ca.gov/app-reg/licensing_QA.shtm.
The above is ONLY for California. I don't know yet what other states do. I've seen the LCSW credential in a lot more states than the others, so it may be more portable between states.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Psychotherapist - Pathways to a Career Switch
More on psychotherapist-related credentials and licenses, from
http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/credentials.html
The PT list doesn't claim to be exhaustive. At least one field it does not mention is music therapy.
Music therapists may be certified (see http://www.cbmt.org), but in general they aren't state-licensed as such - see http://www.cbmt.org/default.asp?page=Certification%20vs.%20Licensure for a possibly out-of-date discussion of certification vs. licensure.
I say "possibly out-of-date" because New York does now license "creative arts therapists" - see http://www.op.nysed.gov/catlic.htm, which explicitly takes in music therapists.
I only mention music therapy for completeness. Becoming one might be a longer path than some options. I'm not sure how accessible it would be to a career switcher who didn't already have an undergraduate music degree - and it does require actual musical proficiency.
Note the last line of the extract below:
"Finally, some therapists don't have formal training, and their services may not be covered by health insurance. Also, not all states require therapists to hold a license."
==========
http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/credentials.html
Therapy Center
Therapists and psychologists and counselors have a range of credentials and licenses. Here are a few you may come across when seeking the right professional.
Academic Degrees
PhD
Doctor of philosophy. This academic degree is earned in four to seven years. Many psychologists, therapists, counselors and coaches hold a doctorate of philosophy. A PhD in psychology teaches theory as well as statistics and data gathering. Many PhDs go on to work in academic settings, as researchers and professors. Psychologists with a PhD are also fully trained in the assessment and treatment of all behavioral conditions, from anxiety and depression to anger and resentment. (American Psychological Association)
PsyD
Doctor of psychology. The PsyD is a terminal degree, like a PhD However, the PsyD focuses on therapy and counseling rather than research. The degree was developed in the late 1960s to address the need for practitioners. In the last 30 years, the PsyD has become increasingly popular. (American Psychological Association)
MA or MS, MC
A master of arts, master of science, or master of counseling can be earned in counseling, psychology or related fields. It usually requires two years of post-collegiate study. Many MA programs also require a thesis. Many counselors and social workers hold a master's degree, and many PhD psychologists earn a master's en route to earning their doctoral degree. (American Psychological Association)
MD
Psychiatrists are medical doctors, who, after completing medical school, receive an additional four years of clinical training in mental health specialties. Psychiatrists treat emotional and mental disorders and are licensed to prescribe medication. These professionals may treat psychiatric disorders with therapy in conjunction with psychotropic medications. (American Psychiatric Association)
DO, Psychiatry
Doctors of osteopathic medicine have the same medical school training and licensing requirements as MD's with an emphasis on the neuromuskuloskeletal system. Some DO psychiatrists perform osteopathic manipulation techniques (OMT) in conjunction with prescribing medication, and traditional therapy. Others may elect to mirror the techniques of the MD above only. (American Osteopathic Association)
MSW
Master of social work. A social worker works with an individual in the context of the wider community. He or she helps those dealing with domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse or foster-care issues, among many others. Social workers often practice therapy on their own or in settings such as schools, clinics, or government agencies. The MSW typically requires two to four years of study. (National Association of Social Workers)
EdD
Doctor of education. Professionals with EdDs practice therapy just as those with PhDs. Many of these professionals are trained in child development and education, sometimes with a focus on educational planning and assessment. Some work as school superintendents, principals or directors of nonprofit organizations. The MEd is a master's level degree in education that typically takes two years to earn. A total of four years of study is usually necessary to receive an EdD (American Psychological Association)
Professional Licenses and Certificates
LCSW or ACSW, LCS, LICSW, CSW
The licensed clinical social worker has a graduate academic degree, has completed supervised clinical work experience and has passed a national- or state-certified licensing exam. This advanced practitioner holds a license that allows him or her to receive health-care insurance reimbursements. (National Association of Social Workers)
LMFT or MFCC
The licensed marriage and family therapist has a graduate academic degree (a 2- to 3-year master's degree or a 3- to 5-year doctoral degree), clinical work experience and has passed a state-certified licensing exam. Most states offer this license. Along with the two- to three-year full-time masters programs with a practicum and internship, LMFTs are required to complete 1,000 hours of individual or family therapy with 100 hours of supervision. This can take one to three years. (American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists)
LP or NCPsyA
The licensed psychoanalyst has obtained his license from the state department of education (requirements vary from state to state). Recipients must have a master's degree or higher, and completed psychoanalytic study in a program deemed qualified by the state DOE. The LP must complete a supervised psychoanalysis program and pass a state-certified examination. (New York State Department of Education)
LPC or LCPC, LMHC, DAC, MFCC
Licensed professional counselor or licensed mental health counselor. A licensing qualification is granted to those who have advanced training, a graduate academic degree, clinical work experience and have passed a state-certified licensing examination. (American Counseling Association)
APRN or APN, ARNPP, MHN
Advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) have a master's degree in psychiatric-mental health nursing. These nurses are eligible to be licensed as therapists. APRNs provide a range of primary mental health care services to individuals, families, and groups, and function as psychotherapists, educators, consultants, advanced case managers or administrators. Many states require certification by a national body prior to practicing. Once licensed, APRNs are authorized to prescribe medications. (American Nursing Association)
ATR, ATR-BC
Registered art therapist. Art therapists are trained in both art and therapy and hold a master's degree in art therapy or a related field. Upon completion of the ATR degree, professionals may seek further certification through the Art Therapy Credentials Board, (ATCB). To obtain certification, the therapist must have postgraduate supervised experience and pass a written examination administered by the board. The ATR-BC credential requires maintenance with continuing education courses to keep standards high. All art therapists work with individuals, couples, families or groups. They often work as part of a team in settings such as community outreach programs, schools, nursing homes, corporations and independent practices. (American Art Therapy Association, Art Therapy Credentials Board)
DMin
The doctor of ministry is an advanced professional degree for those in the practice of ministry. It differs from a PhD in that its focus is on competence in the practice of ministry rather than on advanced academic research. There are different tracks of study: in Pastoral Ministry, for example, degree candidates must first receive a master of divinity or the equivalent, and have at least three years' experience in full-time pastoral ministry. (The Association of Theological Schools)
BCD
Board certified diplomate. This board certification is granted to practitioners—whether they are social workers, counselors, psychologists, among other mental health professionals. These individuals have demonstrated a high level of competency and experience in their field.
ABPP
Board certification by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). Certification assures that specialists have successfully completed the educational, training, and experience requirements, including an examination designed to assess competency. (American Board of Professional Psychology)
ABFP
Board certification by the American Board of Forensic Psychology (ABFP), or the "Forensic Board." The Forensic Board is an affiliate of the ABPP that offers a Diploma in Forensic Psychology to those psychologists who satisfactorily complete the requirements for achieving Specialty Board Certification. (American Board of Forensic Psychology)
NCC
The Nationally Certified Counselor is the certification issued by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC), an independent organization that grew out of the American Counseling Association (ACA). The NBCC is an independent certification body. NBCC and ACA work together to further the profession of counseling. The ACA concentrates on membership association activities such as conferences, professional development, publications and government relations. The NBCC focuses on promoting quality counseling through certification. NBCC's flagship credential is the National Certified Counselor (NCC). It also offers specialty certification in several areas: school counseling: the National Certified School Counselor (NCSC); clinical mental health counseling: the Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC); addictions counseling: the Master Addictions Counselor (MAC). (National Board of Certified Counselors)
Finally, some therapists don't have formal training, and their services may not be covered by health insurance. Also, not all states require therapists to hold a license.
http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/credentials.html
The PT list doesn't claim to be exhaustive. At least one field it does not mention is music therapy.
Music therapists may be certified (see http://www.cbmt.org), but in general they aren't state-licensed as such - see http://www.cbmt.org/default.asp?page=Certification%20vs.%20Licensure for a possibly out-of-date discussion of certification vs. licensure.
I say "possibly out-of-date" because New York does now license "creative arts therapists" - see http://www.op.nysed.gov/catlic.htm, which explicitly takes in music therapists.
I only mention music therapy for completeness. Becoming one might be a longer path than some options. I'm not sure how accessible it would be to a career switcher who didn't already have an undergraduate music degree - and it does require actual musical proficiency.
Note the last line of the extract below:
"Finally, some therapists don't have formal training, and their services may not be covered by health insurance. Also, not all states require therapists to hold a license."
==========
http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/credentials.html
Therapy Center
Therapists and psychologists and counselors have a range of credentials and licenses. Here are a few you may come across when seeking the right professional.
Academic Degrees
PhD
Doctor of philosophy. This academic degree is earned in four to seven years. Many psychologists, therapists, counselors and coaches hold a doctorate of philosophy. A PhD in psychology teaches theory as well as statistics and data gathering. Many PhDs go on to work in academic settings, as researchers and professors. Psychologists with a PhD are also fully trained in the assessment and treatment of all behavioral conditions, from anxiety and depression to anger and resentment. (American Psychological Association)
PsyD
Doctor of psychology. The PsyD is a terminal degree, like a PhD However, the PsyD focuses on therapy and counseling rather than research. The degree was developed in the late 1960s to address the need for practitioners. In the last 30 years, the PsyD has become increasingly popular. (American Psychological Association)
MA or MS, MC
A master of arts, master of science, or master of counseling can be earned in counseling, psychology or related fields. It usually requires two years of post-collegiate study. Many MA programs also require a thesis. Many counselors and social workers hold a master's degree, and many PhD psychologists earn a master's en route to earning their doctoral degree. (American Psychological Association)
MD
Psychiatrists are medical doctors, who, after completing medical school, receive an additional four years of clinical training in mental health specialties. Psychiatrists treat emotional and mental disorders and are licensed to prescribe medication. These professionals may treat psychiatric disorders with therapy in conjunction with psychotropic medications. (American Psychiatric Association)
DO, Psychiatry
Doctors of osteopathic medicine have the same medical school training and licensing requirements as MD's with an emphasis on the neuromuskuloskeletal system. Some DO psychiatrists perform osteopathic manipulation techniques (OMT) in conjunction with prescribing medication, and traditional therapy. Others may elect to mirror the techniques of the MD above only. (American Osteopathic Association)
MSW
Master of social work. A social worker works with an individual in the context of the wider community. He or she helps those dealing with domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse or foster-care issues, among many others. Social workers often practice therapy on their own or in settings such as schools, clinics, or government agencies. The MSW typically requires two to four years of study. (National Association of Social Workers)
EdD
Doctor of education. Professionals with EdDs practice therapy just as those with PhDs. Many of these professionals are trained in child development and education, sometimes with a focus on educational planning and assessment. Some work as school superintendents, principals or directors of nonprofit organizations. The MEd is a master's level degree in education that typically takes two years to earn. A total of four years of study is usually necessary to receive an EdD (American Psychological Association)
Professional Licenses and Certificates
LCSW or ACSW, LCS, LICSW, CSW
The licensed clinical social worker has a graduate academic degree, has completed supervised clinical work experience and has passed a national- or state-certified licensing exam. This advanced practitioner holds a license that allows him or her to receive health-care insurance reimbursements. (National Association of Social Workers)
LMFT or MFCC
The licensed marriage and family therapist has a graduate academic degree (a 2- to 3-year master's degree or a 3- to 5-year doctoral degree), clinical work experience and has passed a state-certified licensing exam. Most states offer this license. Along with the two- to three-year full-time masters programs with a practicum and internship, LMFTs are required to complete 1,000 hours of individual or family therapy with 100 hours of supervision. This can take one to three years. (American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists)
LP or NCPsyA
The licensed psychoanalyst has obtained his license from the state department of education (requirements vary from state to state). Recipients must have a master's degree or higher, and completed psychoanalytic study in a program deemed qualified by the state DOE. The LP must complete a supervised psychoanalysis program and pass a state-certified examination. (New York State Department of Education)
LPC or LCPC, LMHC, DAC, MFCC
Licensed professional counselor or licensed mental health counselor. A licensing qualification is granted to those who have advanced training, a graduate academic degree, clinical work experience and have passed a state-certified licensing examination. (American Counseling Association)
APRN or APN, ARNPP, MHN
Advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) have a master's degree in psychiatric-mental health nursing. These nurses are eligible to be licensed as therapists. APRNs provide a range of primary mental health care services to individuals, families, and groups, and function as psychotherapists, educators, consultants, advanced case managers or administrators. Many states require certification by a national body prior to practicing. Once licensed, APRNs are authorized to prescribe medications. (American Nursing Association)
ATR, ATR-BC
Registered art therapist. Art therapists are trained in both art and therapy and hold a master's degree in art therapy or a related field. Upon completion of the ATR degree, professionals may seek further certification through the Art Therapy Credentials Board, (ATCB). To obtain certification, the therapist must have postgraduate supervised experience and pass a written examination administered by the board. The ATR-BC credential requires maintenance with continuing education courses to keep standards high. All art therapists work with individuals, couples, families or groups. They often work as part of a team in settings such as community outreach programs, schools, nursing homes, corporations and independent practices. (American Art Therapy Association, Art Therapy Credentials Board)
DMin
The doctor of ministry is an advanced professional degree for those in the practice of ministry. It differs from a PhD in that its focus is on competence in the practice of ministry rather than on advanced academic research. There are different tracks of study: in Pastoral Ministry, for example, degree candidates must first receive a master of divinity or the equivalent, and have at least three years' experience in full-time pastoral ministry. (The Association of Theological Schools)
BCD
Board certified diplomate. This board certification is granted to practitioners—whether they are social workers, counselors, psychologists, among other mental health professionals. These individuals have demonstrated a high level of competency and experience in their field.
ABPP
Board certification by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). Certification assures that specialists have successfully completed the educational, training, and experience requirements, including an examination designed to assess competency. (American Board of Professional Psychology)
ABFP
Board certification by the American Board of Forensic Psychology (ABFP), or the "Forensic Board." The Forensic Board is an affiliate of the ABPP that offers a Diploma in Forensic Psychology to those psychologists who satisfactorily complete the requirements for achieving Specialty Board Certification. (American Board of Forensic Psychology)
NCC
The Nationally Certified Counselor is the certification issued by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC), an independent organization that grew out of the American Counseling Association (ACA). The NBCC is an independent certification body. NBCC and ACA work together to further the profession of counseling. The ACA concentrates on membership association activities such as conferences, professional development, publications and government relations. The NBCC focuses on promoting quality counseling through certification. NBCC's flagship credential is the National Certified Counselor (NCC). It also offers specialty certification in several areas: school counseling: the National Certified School Counselor (NCSC); clinical mental health counseling: the Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC); addictions counseling: the Master Addictions Counselor (MAC). (National Board of Certified Counselors)
Finally, some therapists don't have formal training, and their services may not be covered by health insurance. Also, not all states require therapists to hold a license.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Becoming a Psychotherapist As A Career Switch
One potential career switch might be to that of "psychotherapist". Here, as with many fields, terminology and exact title is important.
This is not to impugn the field or practitioners of it at all - but as best I've been able to determine, "psychotherapists" do not have to be credentialed or licensed as such in the US; see e.g. http://www.aboutpsychotherapy.com/Tcredentials.htm - this New-York-centric webpage has a detailed list of titles -
or http://www.mentalhealthchannel.net/psychotherapist.shtml - which oddly uses the term "licensed psychotherapist" - possibly an oxymoron - will research further.
This relative lack of barriers-to-entry suggests some potential for a mid-career switch. Contrast with clinical "psychologists" who treat patients, who do generally have to be specifically credentialed and licensed, and with "psychiatrists", a medical specialty which requires an MD degree and licensure - not an easy career switch.
Despite the apparent lack of formal government license requirements for "psychotherapists", there may be informal professional standards or gateway credentials which are "best practice" for entering the field, or which clinical employers expect to see. See the Washington Post article
Becoming A Psychotherapist In Two Years Or Less for a practical discussion.
Other related fields may be "social worker", which also requires credentialing and licensing. A more researched taxonomy with links will follow later.
One wonders if this field may somehow converge with "life coaching", a not-unrelated field for which "private credentials" seem to be evolving.
Credentialing and licensing for "psychotherapists" as such seems to be more formalized in Canada than in the US; see http://www.ccpex.ca.
Also see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/603929.html for more information on credentials and licensing. If there isn't one already, this would be a ripe area for the Dummies books to do a Becoming A Psychotherapist For Dummies book - the welter of degrees, credentials, and licensing is a bit confusing.
This is not to impugn the field or practitioners of it at all - but as best I've been able to determine, "psychotherapists" do not have to be credentialed or licensed as such in the US; see e.g. http://www.aboutpsychotherapy.com/Tcredentials.htm - this New-York-centric webpage has a detailed list of titles -
or http://www.mentalhealthchannel.net/psychotherapist.shtml - which oddly uses the term "licensed psychotherapist" - possibly an oxymoron - will research further.
This relative lack of barriers-to-entry suggests some potential for a mid-career switch. Contrast with clinical "psychologists" who treat patients, who do generally have to be specifically credentialed and licensed, and with "psychiatrists", a medical specialty which requires an MD degree and licensure - not an easy career switch.
Despite the apparent lack of formal government license requirements for "psychotherapists", there may be informal professional standards or gateway credentials which are "best practice" for entering the field, or which clinical employers expect to see. See the Washington Post article
Becoming A Psychotherapist In Two Years Or Less for a practical discussion.
Other related fields may be "social worker", which also requires credentialing and licensing. A more researched taxonomy with links will follow later.
One wonders if this field may somehow converge with "life coaching", a not-unrelated field for which "private credentials" seem to be evolving.
Credentialing and licensing for "psychotherapists" as such seems to be more formalized in Canada than in the US; see http://www.ccpex.ca.
Also see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/603929.html for more information on credentials and licensing. If there isn't one already, this would be a ripe area for the Dummies books to do a Becoming A Psychotherapist For Dummies book - the welter of degrees, credentials, and licensing is a bit confusing.
Law School and Career Switching - more on Concord Law School Blog
Following up from a comment to the 22 July post, here is a Concord Law School blog.
As mentioned earlier, Concord Law School's website is http://www.concordlawschool.edu.
As a lawyer might say, no endorsement of either CLS or the above blog is implied - like "fair use" in a different context, this is for education and discussion purposes only.
I have several questions about this which I will continue to follow.
The top level question I have is, what is the value of law school in career development in the first place?
I'm known enough attorneys to know that there are many different kinds and flavors of attorney careers in at least several different working environments - that's a topic which deserves its own blog, and probably they're already out there.
But credentials can also have "off-label" value (in the pharmaceutical sense) in developing a career.
Is it possible that a person who has no real intention of becoming an attorney could still find it useful to get a law degree? There are very successful people with law degrees who are not practicing attorneys - by their choice, not necessarily because they got in trouble.
Did the law degree lead to that success or was it a wrong turn? If a person was seeking to model that success, would they want to include law school in the model?
The movie The Great Buck Howard has this as a plot hook where the Colin Hanks/Troy Gable character quits law school to be a writer and ends up being the road manager for the wacky Buck Howard stage magician.
Aside from the character hating law school, did he need to quit law school to do that?
A second and related question: Does having a law degree (or name the degree of your choice) give a person more career options? Or does it actually reduce a person's career options?
A third question is, given that one has decided for whatever reason that a law degree is a worthwhile mid-career/career switch pursuit, about Concord Law School itself and its model of legal education. Law school isn't just about academics. My understanding of first-year law school, even part-time law school, may be wrong, but it is that the usual model is an intensive and intimidating classroom experience which I can't imagine could be simulated in an on-line course - where people are called on at random to stand up and recite cases which hopefully they read beforehand. And lack of attendance is fatal - I've heard things like 4 absences for any reason is auto-flunk. It's like a kind of cultish boot camp to acculturate minds in a certain way.
I'm not at all saying that they can't do it, but I'm wondering how CLS's pedagogy, given that online courses would have to be radically different from the Law 1 classroom experience, would achieve the same result.
As mentioned earlier, Concord Law School's website is http://www.concordlawschool.edu.
As a lawyer might say, no endorsement of either CLS or the above blog is implied - like "fair use" in a different context, this is for education and discussion purposes only.
I have several questions about this which I will continue to follow.
The top level question I have is, what is the value of law school in career development in the first place?
I'm known enough attorneys to know that there are many different kinds and flavors of attorney careers in at least several different working environments - that's a topic which deserves its own blog, and probably they're already out there.
But credentials can also have "off-label" value (in the pharmaceutical sense) in developing a career.
Is it possible that a person who has no real intention of becoming an attorney could still find it useful to get a law degree? There are very successful people with law degrees who are not practicing attorneys - by their choice, not necessarily because they got in trouble.
Did the law degree lead to that success or was it a wrong turn? If a person was seeking to model that success, would they want to include law school in the model?
The movie The Great Buck Howard has this as a plot hook where the Colin Hanks/Troy Gable character quits law school to be a writer and ends up being the road manager for the wacky Buck Howard stage magician.
Aside from the character hating law school, did he need to quit law school to do that?
A second and related question: Does having a law degree (or name the degree of your choice) give a person more career options? Or does it actually reduce a person's career options?
A third question is, given that one has decided for whatever reason that a law degree is a worthwhile mid-career/career switch pursuit, about Concord Law School itself and its model of legal education. Law school isn't just about academics. My understanding of first-year law school, even part-time law school, may be wrong, but it is that the usual model is an intensive and intimidating classroom experience which I can't imagine could be simulated in an on-line course - where people are called on at random to stand up and recite cases which hopefully they read beforehand. And lack of attendance is fatal - I've heard things like 4 absences for any reason is auto-flunk. It's like a kind of cultish boot camp to acculturate minds in a certain way.
I'm not at all saying that they can't do it, but I'm wondering how CLS's pedagogy, given that online courses would have to be radically different from the Law 1 classroom experience, would achieve the same result.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
PICMET 2009 2-6 Aug 2009
Goodness, I wish I could go to this!
Today's the last day: http://www.picmet.org.
They're asking a lot of the right questions.
PICMET '09 To Host Technology Managers from Around The World
The PICMET '09 (Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology) Conference will be held at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon - USA on August 2-6, 2009. This year's theme is "Technology Management in the Age of Fundamental Change."
The world’s leading experts from academic institutions, industrial corporations and government agencies will participate in the discussions. In addition to the paper sessions, keynote presentations, tutorials, panel discussions and special sessions throughout the conference, there will also be several optional activities, including Short Courses on Technology Management preceding the conference. Please visit the PICMET web site (see above) for further information or to reserve a room at the conference hotel.
Today's the last day: http://www.picmet.org.
They're asking a lot of the right questions.
PICMET '09 To Host Technology Managers from Around The World
The PICMET '09 (Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology) Conference will be held at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon - USA on August 2-6, 2009. This year's theme is "Technology Management in the Age of Fundamental Change."
The world’s leading experts from academic institutions, industrial corporations and government agencies will participate in the discussions. In addition to the paper sessions, keynote presentations, tutorials, panel discussions and special sessions throughout the conference, there will also be several optional activities, including Short Courses on Technology Management preceding the conference. Please visit the PICMET web site (see above) for further information or to reserve a room at the conference hotel.
Useful books
This is one that life coaches should read: Ignore Everybody - And 39 Other Keys To Creativity.
Also see author's blog http://gapingvoid.com.
One with related ideas, though in a different vein: Gerry Spence's How To Argue And Win Every Time. Even if you aren't into arguing or litigation, the book makes important points about finding your own voice (or your "power").
Also see author's blog http://www.gerryspence.com.
Also see author's blog http://gapingvoid.com.
One with related ideas, though in a different vein: Gerry Spence's How To Argue And Win Every Time. Even if you aren't into arguing or litigation, the book makes important points about finding your own voice (or your "power").
Also see author's blog http://www.gerryspence.com.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Tuition Discounts, No. 2 - Free Master's Degree?
I need to research this further but this US Naval War College program may amount to a free Master's Degree for those interested and eligible to enroll.
It's based on the US Navy's Professional Military Education program, so
(1) not everyone would be eligible (but probably a larger range of people than active-duty Navy);
and
(2) not everyone would be interested. Still, it's an opportunity that's out there.
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/admissions/fsp.aspx
It's based on the US Navy's Professional Military Education program, so
(1) not everyone would be eligible (but probably a larger range of people than active-duty Navy);
and
(2) not everyone would be interested. Still, it's an opportunity that's out there.
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/admissions/fsp.aspx
Tuition discounts, No. 1
This will be an ongoing brainstorm. One big speedbump in the course of getting more education or a new credential is $$$ cost. Sometimes employers will pay for part-time tuition or books, usually within certain limits.
This is a nice benefit. Employers often like it too. It attracts good employees but in my experience, employees seldom actually use it. Graded courses often seem high-threat to people who have been out of school for a while. It's the exception-that-proves-the-rule for anyone to actually take a graded course or get a degree doing that, so it's cheaper than paying employees more. (There could be and may have been studies on incentives like that - in other spheres, the 401-K fund matches and purchase rebates seem to work that way.)
Sometimes there are restrictions. It also may not be the way to go for a drastic career redirection, especially if your boss needs to sign off on each course and perhaps even justify it up the chain, a setup which can also lead to complications even when the "training" relates directly to what the employer needs.
(On the other hand, noting earlier post, if your employer offers a centrally funded degree program on-site which doesn't require a lot of boss involvement other than kudos when you finish it, you should seriously consider jumping on that. It
But sometimes it's better if your credential project is invisible to your employer. Anyway, you need to think about cost in your credential project and to figure that you may need to may for at least some of it.
Focusing on tuition, even though it's not the only expense: It's good if it can be discounted -- or even free!
One interesting source of information is here is from the Dummies website, http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/finding-college-tuition-discounts-chaching.html, with my comments noted in bold:
Eligibility-based tuition discounts
Colleges often offer to reduce tuition as part of a benefits package or as part of their general policy. For this sort of tuition discount, you can't negotiate for a better deal, and eligibility tends to be strictly defined. You either qualify or you don't. Here are a few examples:
College employees often get tuition discounts. If you're the spouse, child, or (rarely) grandchild of a faculty or staff member, you're often entitled to a tuition discount or a tuition exemption.
Or if you ARE a faculty or staff member - something to consider, and there could be reciprocal benefits, like if you teach at the community college but are doing a PhD at the local state university. "Staff" can also include custodial, campus police, etc. On the other hand, colleges are contracting more of this out, and contractors probably aren't eligible.
Some colleges also offer discounts to alumni and their dependents. Colleges often do this as a way of keeping a tradition alive or rewarding return business. Stanford University, for example, offers a 20 percent tuition discount to alumni returning for Continuing Education courses.
Never heard of this! However, CE, lifelong learning, etc. may not be a credential-builder.
Eligibility may be based on age. Some colleges offer discounts to seniors. Tulane University, for example, offers a 50 percent discount for students aged 60 years and older.
States do too. You generally have to be a state resident and usually "senior" means 60 or over - I haven't found any younger ones, and some are older. Also, some, like Virginia, are means-tested - you almost have to be an unemployed pauper to get the tuition break, which means you may have more pressing matters on your mind. South Carolina seems to have one of the better deals this way.
Discounts may be offered to students with siblings attending the college. Seton Hall University, for example, offers a 10 percent discount to students whose brother or sister attends SHU.
Tuition discounts are often tied to employment. George Washington University in Virginia operates liaison programs with various corporations, offering a 10 percent tuition reimbursement to employees who complete a course of study with them. Like many similar programs, the reimbursement amount is capped at a set figure. In GWU's case, the maximum that can be claimed is $1,000 per year per student.
Reportedly GWU has been the most expensive school in the US for several years running and they don't have a lot of distance offerings. Not sure $1000 a year is a meaningful discount.
Some employee tuition discount programs also apply to the rest of the family. The State of Tennessee offers employees of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government a fee waiver for one course per semester, and tuition discounts of 25 percent on all college courses taken by their dependents. Specific restrictions apply — generally the dependant must be under 24 — but they're easy to follow.
Nice! Get a job with the State of Tennessee.
Programs for state employees and their dependents exist in most states (!!!), so definitely investigate this possibility if your parent, or even your grandparent, works for (or used to work for) the state. While you're at it, don't forget to check on discounts available if your parent works for the city in which a college is located.
NEVER HEARD OF THIS! Something to check out.
Some programs are tied to religious institutions or organizations. At Rosedale Bible College, active ministers and their dependents are offered a 75 percent tuition discount if they're members of the Conservative Mennonite Conference. Ministers outside the Conference receive only a 25 percent discount, and the rate for their dependents falls to 15 percent. Also, several other religious institutions offer discounts to groups.
Some tuition discount programs may not be for college tuition. Instead, discounts for a private school, a daycare, or other similar institution may be offered to the children of those attending or working at a particular college. For example, Children's World Learning Centers offers Johns Hopkins University employees a 10 percent tuition discount on published tuition rates at any of the Children's World Centers.
Some discounts are offered for non-peak school times. Pennsylvania College of Technology has initiated an Early Start program, offering students a 25 percent tuition discount on specific courses if they take them in the summer term, which typically has lower enrollment than the rest of the year.
This is a nice benefit. Employers often like it too. It attracts good employees but in my experience, employees seldom actually use it. Graded courses often seem high-threat to people who have been out of school for a while. It's the exception-that-proves-the-rule for anyone to actually take a graded course or get a degree doing that, so it's cheaper than paying employees more. (There could be and may have been studies on incentives like that - in other spheres, the 401-K fund matches and purchase rebates seem to work that way.)
Sometimes there are restrictions. It also may not be the way to go for a drastic career redirection, especially if your boss needs to sign off on each course and perhaps even justify it up the chain, a setup which can also lead to complications even when the "training" relates directly to what the employer needs.
(On the other hand, noting earlier post, if your employer offers a centrally funded degree program on-site which doesn't require a lot of boss involvement other than kudos when you finish it, you should seriously consider jumping on that. It
But sometimes it's better if your credential project is invisible to your employer. Anyway, you need to think about cost in your credential project and to figure that you may need to may for at least some of it.
Focusing on tuition, even though it's not the only expense: It's good if it can be discounted -- or even free!
One interesting source of information is here is from the Dummies website, http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/finding-college-tuition-discounts-chaching.html, with my comments noted in bold:
Eligibility-based tuition discounts
Colleges often offer to reduce tuition as part of a benefits package or as part of their general policy. For this sort of tuition discount, you can't negotiate for a better deal, and eligibility tends to be strictly defined. You either qualify or you don't. Here are a few examples:
College employees often get tuition discounts. If you're the spouse, child, or (rarely) grandchild of a faculty or staff member, you're often entitled to a tuition discount or a tuition exemption.
Or if you ARE a faculty or staff member - something to consider, and there could be reciprocal benefits, like if you teach at the community college but are doing a PhD at the local state university. "Staff" can also include custodial, campus police, etc. On the other hand, colleges are contracting more of this out, and contractors probably aren't eligible.
Some colleges also offer discounts to alumni and their dependents. Colleges often do this as a way of keeping a tradition alive or rewarding return business. Stanford University, for example, offers a 20 percent tuition discount to alumni returning for Continuing Education courses.
Never heard of this! However, CE, lifelong learning, etc. may not be a credential-builder.
Eligibility may be based on age. Some colleges offer discounts to seniors. Tulane University, for example, offers a 50 percent discount for students aged 60 years and older.
States do too. You generally have to be a state resident and usually "senior" means 60 or over - I haven't found any younger ones, and some are older. Also, some, like Virginia, are means-tested - you almost have to be an unemployed pauper to get the tuition break, which means you may have more pressing matters on your mind. South Carolina seems to have one of the better deals this way.
Discounts may be offered to students with siblings attending the college. Seton Hall University, for example, offers a 10 percent discount to students whose brother or sister attends SHU.
Tuition discounts are often tied to employment. George Washington University in Virginia operates liaison programs with various corporations, offering a 10 percent tuition reimbursement to employees who complete a course of study with them. Like many similar programs, the reimbursement amount is capped at a set figure. In GWU's case, the maximum that can be claimed is $1,000 per year per student.
Reportedly GWU has been the most expensive school in the US for several years running and they don't have a lot of distance offerings. Not sure $1000 a year is a meaningful discount.
Some employee tuition discount programs also apply to the rest of the family. The State of Tennessee offers employees of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government a fee waiver for one course per semester, and tuition discounts of 25 percent on all college courses taken by their dependents. Specific restrictions apply — generally the dependant must be under 24 — but they're easy to follow.
Nice! Get a job with the State of Tennessee.
Programs for state employees and their dependents exist in most states (!!!), so definitely investigate this possibility if your parent, or even your grandparent, works for (or used to work for) the state. While you're at it, don't forget to check on discounts available if your parent works for the city in which a college is located.
NEVER HEARD OF THIS! Something to check out.
Some programs are tied to religious institutions or organizations. At Rosedale Bible College, active ministers and their dependents are offered a 75 percent tuition discount if they're members of the Conservative Mennonite Conference. Ministers outside the Conference receive only a 25 percent discount, and the rate for their dependents falls to 15 percent. Also, several other religious institutions offer discounts to groups.
Some tuition discount programs may not be for college tuition. Instead, discounts for a private school, a daycare, or other similar institution may be offered to the children of those attending or working at a particular college. For example, Children's World Learning Centers offers Johns Hopkins University employees a 10 percent tuition discount on published tuition rates at any of the Children's World Centers.
Some discounts are offered for non-peak school times. Pennsylvania College of Technology has initiated an Early Start program, offering students a 25 percent tuition discount on specific courses if they take them in the summer term, which typically has lower enrollment than the rest of the year.
The Big Obstacles - Cost, Time, and Distance
The "Big Obstacles" to a midcareer graduate school credential project seem to fall into these three buckets:
1. Time
2. Distance (related to time, but not quite the same thing)
3. Cost
Any others?
If your employer offers a fully paid onsite degree program for employees which doesn't require a boss signoff on every course, you should jump on that unless there's a really compelling reason not to. It's the best setup you'll ever get with respect to time, distance, and cost with that employer. Plus usually some bigwig at the employer has invested some credibility in advocating that plan and they'll appreciate you making them look good.
(Note: one doesn't see these so much any more, because they have a notoriously high dropout rate. Usually they start with a lot of people and end up with no completions or just a couple. )
1. Time
2. Distance (related to time, but not quite the same thing)
3. Cost
Any others?
If your employer offers a fully paid onsite degree program for employees which doesn't require a boss signoff on every course, you should jump on that unless there's a really compelling reason not to. It's the best setup you'll ever get with respect to time, distance, and cost with that employer. Plus usually some bigwig at the employer has invested some credibility in advocating that plan and they'll appreciate you making them look good.
(Note: one doesn't see these so much any more, because they have a notoriously high dropout rate. Usually they start with a lot of people and end up with no completions or just a couple. )
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Law School and Career Switching
Didn't say which direction... It seems like I know as many people who are lawyers and are looking to do something else as people on the outside trying to get in. What do you do when you invest in an expensive credential and find out it's just not for you?
For some people, law seems to be a ticket to a high-quality professional life, defined one way or another - the star litigators, the well-paid specialists, the judges, the law professors, etc. For others, the credential actually limits their options.
(I'm told there are stories of medical school graduates who never practiced medicine. But how do you explain that to people? I once knew an Air Force pilot who was like that - he found that all he wanted to do was fly, and that was that. It would take a lot of both courage and sudden self-certainty to be able to do that.)
For most people, the usual first step in becoming an attorney is to go to law school and graduate. Then you have to sit for the state bar exam and pass it. And then that's no instant ticket to heaven. There are probably lots of blogs out there about professional trajectories after that - getting hired, making partner in a firm or not, etc.
There are some states where you theoretically don't have to go to law school to become a lawyer; see http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0603/p13s01-lecs.html. But I suspect that's harder than going to law school would be, which is pretty hard. My father went to law school at night and from what I've seen, that is wretchedly difficult and exhausting.
One distance part-time education provider I've actually heard some good mention of is Kaplan's Concord Law School; see http://www.concordlawschool.edu/. But I'm suspicious. Law pedagogy by its nature doesn't seem like it would work in a distance program.
Would be interesting to hear from some lawyers who successfully entered the field at mid-career and find out how it's gone. The culture of the law firm seems to favor an apprenticeship of the young.
For some people, law seems to be a ticket to a high-quality professional life, defined one way or another - the star litigators, the well-paid specialists, the judges, the law professors, etc. For others, the credential actually limits their options.
(I'm told there are stories of medical school graduates who never practiced medicine. But how do you explain that to people? I once knew an Air Force pilot who was like that - he found that all he wanted to do was fly, and that was that. It would take a lot of both courage and sudden self-certainty to be able to do that.)
For most people, the usual first step in becoming an attorney is to go to law school and graduate. Then you have to sit for the state bar exam and pass it. And then that's no instant ticket to heaven. There are probably lots of blogs out there about professional trajectories after that - getting hired, making partner in a firm or not, etc.
There are some states where you theoretically don't have to go to law school to become a lawyer; see http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0603/p13s01-lecs.html. But I suspect that's harder than going to law school would be, which is pretty hard. My father went to law school at night and from what I've seen, that is wretchedly difficult and exhausting.
One distance part-time education provider I've actually heard some good mention of is Kaplan's Concord Law School; see http://www.concordlawschool.edu/. But I'm suspicious. Law pedagogy by its nature doesn't seem like it would work in a distance program.
Would be interesting to hear from some lawyers who successfully entered the field at mid-career and find out how it's gone. The culture of the law firm seems to favor an apprenticeship of the young.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Free iTunes Courses (no degree, though)
The free iTunes courses at Stanford get a mention in the US News education "paper trail" blog.. Interacting with them, taking tests and getting them graded, etc. is a new feature.
Unfortunately, there's no way I know of to "credentialize" these free iTunes courses - the schools aren't going to turn loose of that without charging for it - but getting the material for review might be useful.
Unfortunately, there's no way I know of to "credentialize" these free iTunes courses - the schools aren't going to turn loose of that without charging for it - but getting the material for review might be useful.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Distance Education - Guam?
The University of Guam is having a distance education workshop.
This idea might be a golden opportunity for UOG to become an affordable virtual US university of the future - and one with a front-row seat on the important Pacific Rim. Roughly half of "distance education" is, well, distance, and Guam has plenty of that. It might be as far away from the US as you can get and still be part of the US. But that shouldn't be a problem. You don't have to go to Phoenix to take courses from the University of Phoenix, and according to one report they have 330,000 students.
Kudos to them for thinking and talking about it. More kudos will follow when they develop some actual distance degree programs. I didn't see anything on their website, and their distance education workshop should be available as a distance offering - didn't see anything about a podcast or webcast. But you have to start somewhere.
This idea might be a golden opportunity for UOG to become an affordable virtual US university of the future - and one with a front-row seat on the important Pacific Rim. Roughly half of "distance education" is, well, distance, and Guam has plenty of that. It might be as far away from the US as you can get and still be part of the US. But that shouldn't be a problem. You don't have to go to Phoenix to take courses from the University of Phoenix, and according to one report they have 330,000 students.
Kudos to them for thinking and talking about it. More kudos will follow when they develop some actual distance degree programs. I didn't see anything on their website, and their distance education workshop should be available as a distance offering - didn't see anything about a podcast or webcast. But you have to start somewhere.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Industrial Design, anyone?
I could see this being a field a person might never know about, depending on what path their lives took, because it's outside many academic tracks:
http://www.collegeboard.com/csearch/majors_careers/profiles/careers/105108.html
Career: Industrial Designers
Calvin Klein may have designed your jeans, but who designed the chair you’re sitting on? Industrial designers work behind the scenes to shape everyday products, from food packaging and appliances to toys and cars.
While their work may not seem glamorous, they serve a very vital function -- and they make better money than most other types of designers, too.
Industrial designers work with engineers to design everyday goods, most of them mass produced.
=====
Neat stuff. So how do you access this field, what credentials do you need, and where do you go to get them? This seems to span fine arts schools and engineering schools.
Here's what the often irksome US News ranking list says - but at least it identifies some. I had not heard of several of these, but that doesn't mean much.
Still to come: how accessible any of this is for a midlife career switcher?
Industrial Design Schools
Fine Arts Specialty Rankings: Industrial Design
Ranked in 2008
1 Art Center College of Design Pasadena, CA
2 Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI
3 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh , PA
4 Pratt Institute Brooklyn, NY
5 Ohio State University Columbus, OH
6 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH
7 Cranbrook Academy of Art Bloomfield Hills, MI
8 California College of the Arts San Francisco, CA
Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY
10 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ
University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
http://www.collegeboard.com/csearch/majors_careers/profiles/careers/105108.html
Career: Industrial Designers
Calvin Klein may have designed your jeans, but who designed the chair you’re sitting on? Industrial designers work behind the scenes to shape everyday products, from food packaging and appliances to toys and cars.
While their work may not seem glamorous, they serve a very vital function -- and they make better money than most other types of designers, too.
Industrial designers work with engineers to design everyday goods, most of them mass produced.
=====
Neat stuff. So how do you access this field, what credentials do you need, and where do you go to get them? This seems to span fine arts schools and engineering schools.
Here's what the often irksome US News ranking list says - but at least it identifies some. I had not heard of several of these, but that doesn't mean much.
Still to come: how accessible any of this is for a midlife career switcher?
Industrial Design Schools
Fine Arts Specialty Rankings: Industrial Design
Ranked in 2008
1 Art Center College of Design Pasadena, CA
2 Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI
3 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh , PA
4 Pratt Institute Brooklyn, NY
5 Ohio State University Columbus, OH
6 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH
7 Cranbrook Academy of Art Bloomfield Hills, MI
8 California College of the Arts San Francisco, CA
Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY
10 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ
University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
Nuclear Engineering Making A Comeback?
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia is apparently setting up a new program in nuclear engineering: http://www.news.vcu.edu/vcu_view/pages.aspx?nid=2904.
This may be an interesting not-so-weak signal of a counter-trend. Not so long ago, universities were shutting down nuclear engineering programs. Including, in the same state, the University of Virginia, just a couple of years ago. I seem to remember that there were once several other schools with research reactors in Virginia, such as Virginia Tech and VMI.
This may be an interesting not-so-weak signal of a counter-trend. Not so long ago, universities were shutting down nuclear engineering programs. Including, in the same state, the University of Virginia, just a couple of years ago. I seem to remember that there were once several other schools with research reactors in Virginia, such as Virginia Tech and VMI.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
More from National Academies
The Summer 2008 issue of the NAS/NAE Issues in Science and Technology's cover theme is adult education, "The Path Not Studied". I haven't read it yet but plan to.
Back issues of this magazine can be obtained from http://www.issues.org/backissues.html.
There is also a podcast of this at
http://media.nap.edu/podcasts/nax73pathnotstu.mp3.
Back issues of this magazine can be obtained from http://www.issues.org/backissues.html.
There is also a podcast of this at
http://media.nap.edu/podcasts/nax73pathnotstu.mp3.
Professional Science Master's Programs
A comment to the last post had three good information links on PSM programs. Here they are:
http://www.sciencemasters.com/
http://www.npsma.org/
http://psm.illinois.edu/
Many thanks to IllinoisPSM!
http://www.sciencemasters.com/
http://www.npsma.org/
http://psm.illinois.edu/
Many thanks to IllinoisPSM!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
National Academies: Professional Science Master's Degree Programs Should be Expanded
http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20080711.html.
REPORT RELEASE: The Board on Higher Education and Workforce announces the release of “Science Professionals: Master’s Education for a Competitive World.”
=====================
Well, when the National Academies talk, you've gotta listen, I guess. But I'm a little suspicious of this. Higher academia has been getting it wrong for years about what skills and credentials are actually associated with the whole picture of technology happening, and they like having second-class citizens to be lab assistants, working in the machine shop, etc. when people with the same credentials could be valued first-class citizens in industry, developing new materials, computers, ships, aircraft, etc. or in technology policy or regulation.
There are a lot of disincentives to go for a long-term graduate degree in the natural sciences - in terms of financial and lifestyle choices. This looks like the academic departments are, in a more kind interpretation, trying to become relevant, or in a less kind one, trying to start a new racket in the booming part-time master's degree market - all those physics and chemistry majors getting master's degrees in engineering and all that mid-career business going to engineering departments, maybe.
This looks like a new kind of bogus second-class-citizen credential to keep more of the academics employed. Some of this academic wampum may be interesting but a lot of it may be difficult for potential employers to decode.
I think it's better to be a first-class citizen in business or industry than a second-class citizen in academia. One should watch this carefully to see how the credential community evolves before investing any tuition in it. If you're a science major, check out engineering, law, or business before going with one of these.
REPORT RELEASE: The Board on Higher Education and Workforce announces the release of “Science Professionals: Master’s Education for a Competitive World.”
=====================
Well, when the National Academies talk, you've gotta listen, I guess. But I'm a little suspicious of this. Higher academia has been getting it wrong for years about what skills and credentials are actually associated with the whole picture of technology happening, and they like having second-class citizens to be lab assistants, working in the machine shop, etc. when people with the same credentials could be valued first-class citizens in industry, developing new materials, computers, ships, aircraft, etc. or in technology policy or regulation.
There are a lot of disincentives to go for a long-term graduate degree in the natural sciences - in terms of financial and lifestyle choices. This looks like the academic departments are, in a more kind interpretation, trying to become relevant, or in a less kind one, trying to start a new racket in the booming part-time master's degree market - all those physics and chemistry majors getting master's degrees in engineering and all that mid-career business going to engineering departments, maybe.
This looks like a new kind of bogus second-class-citizen credential to keep more of the academics employed. Some of this academic wampum may be interesting but a lot of it may be difficult for potential employers to decode.
I think it's better to be a first-class citizen in business or industry than a second-class citizen in academia. One should watch this carefully to see how the credential community evolves before investing any tuition in it. If you're a science major, check out engineering, law, or business before going with one of these.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Selling Your Career Change
Interesting article, partially excerpted below. As always, one size doesn't fit all. Curious about the Salmon book. It doesn't seem to be all that focused on pathways to graduate credentials but I'll have to actually read it before commenting.
http://www.experience.com/alumnus/article?channel_id=advanced_degree_development&source_page=home&article_id=article_1150381503888
Selling Your Career Change: How To Strengthen Your Grad Application
By Experience
In this era of corporate layoffs, evolving economic concerns, so-called downsizing, and the technology boom-and-bust aftermath, it's no surprise that people switch jobs regularly.
More than ever before, people are also completely switching careers--and that offers requires a new education. The reasons for this change are varied: there's more acceptance of "multi-tasking" careers (an actress or musician can also be an author, restaurateur, and clothing designer), more tolerance for career switches, more job skills becoming obsolete (due to new technology and/or a completely new skillset and education), and people are marrying and starting families later than previous generations, which in turns fosters more career experimentation.
Sell the Switch in Your Application
You need to make your unique experience shine on your graduate application, as well as be convincing about your desire and ability to switch the course of your professional track. Here are some tips for creating a successful grad application and forging past experience into a new career path.
Talk the talk. In their book The Mid-Career Tune-Up, Bill and Rosemary Salmon stress how important it is to research, know, and use the jargon of your new pursuit in your application. If you've researched trends, industry experts, future predictions, and the history of the field, you can include this knowledge in your application. For example, if you're a lawyer applying to UCLA's film school, you can mention the ways in which technology has changed filmmaking and mention night courses or seminars in this new technology that you've taken (or even books you've read on the subject). A medical doctor applying to law school could mention current legal issues in medicine that fascinate him, using the legal terminology and issues of current interest.
. . .
http://www.experience.com/alumnus/article?channel_id=advanced_degree_development&source_page=home&article_id=article_1150381503888
Selling Your Career Change: How To Strengthen Your Grad Application
By Experience
In this era of corporate layoffs, evolving economic concerns, so-called downsizing, and the technology boom-and-bust aftermath, it's no surprise that people switch jobs regularly.
More than ever before, people are also completely switching careers--and that offers requires a new education. The reasons for this change are varied: there's more acceptance of "multi-tasking" careers (an actress or musician can also be an author, restaurateur, and clothing designer), more tolerance for career switches, more job skills becoming obsolete (due to new technology and/or a completely new skillset and education), and people are marrying and starting families later than previous generations, which in turns fosters more career experimentation.
Sell the Switch in Your Application
You need to make your unique experience shine on your graduate application, as well as be convincing about your desire and ability to switch the course of your professional track. Here are some tips for creating a successful grad application and forging past experience into a new career path.
Talk the talk. In their book The Mid-Career Tune-Up, Bill and Rosemary Salmon stress how important it is to research, know, and use the jargon of your new pursuit in your application. If you've researched trends, industry experts, future predictions, and the history of the field, you can include this knowledge in your application. For example, if you're a lawyer applying to UCLA's film school, you can mention the ways in which technology has changed filmmaking and mention night courses or seminars in this new technology that you've taken (or even books you've read on the subject). A medical doctor applying to law school could mention current legal issues in medicine that fascinate him, using the legal terminology and issues of current interest.
. . .
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