Next steps in midcareer grad school guerrilla theatre - gathering transcripts and taking inventory

I used to think that getting copies of college transcripts for your own use was close to worthless, because they aren't "official" copies which can be sent anywhere as part of an application. But they are useful for some purposes.

Specifically, working deals out. Unless you're headed for some nice canned after-hours program (which is generally limited to masters' degrees), you'll need to negotiate.

And you'll need to find someone on a university faculty to negotiate with. Some professor somewhere will need to decide that you can be an asset to her or his program. You'll need to agree on a "Program of Study", which is a contract between you and the school - representatives of the school and department actually sign off on the POS and there is an actual signed document which you will need to keep a copy of in your important papers.

Chances are, if you're contemplating a midcareer graduate school move, you've had a few stabs at after-hours graduate school already, maybe even gotten a graduate degree of some sort already. It's best if the Program of Study for your newly contemplated program is a shorter path, taking work you've already done into account, than a longer one. You don't want to start all over again if you can help it. The "unofficial transcript" (photocopy of the one you ordered from your school) can be a way for you to inform this kind of negotiation.

How do you find someone to negotiate with? That's the tricky part.

Mid-career graduate school pathways

This is meant to be a constructive discussion, brainstorm, and source of ideas, observations, and lessons-learned about pursuing and successfully obtaining graduate school credentials, particularly earned doctorates from accredited institutions, whilst full-time employed.

First observation with some questions: Lots of part-time and distance master's degree programs of many types, often terminal degrees which lead no further. Also nondegree and partial degree ("certificate") variants, which may be a package of 4-5 graduate courses which could count towards a degree but are packaged as a "certificate" of accomplishment in some field - they could also be a head-start towards a traditional degree at that school.


Questions:

- If you want to get a master's-degree-type credential, there are usually a lot of choices, depending on your field of interest. Why so many programs - supply meeting demand? Are they profitable in some sense for universities to offer?

- What generates the demand - need for credentials by workers, or need for skills by employers? Personal fulfillment? Career change? Re-inventing oneself?

- Degrees appear to run to types
- education/counseling
- business - MBAs and variants
- engineering and related fields (IT, applied science)
- other?

- Who does these and why?

- Who pays for them?

- What are the "high leverage" types of degrees, if any? Are any part-time master's degrees truly life-changing or career-changing? What occupational improvements do they lead to, if any?