Updated 23 September 2016
This information was originally posted at the end of the article
is a degree necessary to teach English abroad? I decided to copy and paste it here in order to make it easier to find.
More and more places are requiring a college degree. Gone are the days of the backpacker teacher where you could waltz into a language school and get a job. Places are requiring degrees, transcripts, criminal background checks, and more paperwork than before.
Having a degree will open up more doors for you as well. In addition, you're more likely to get a good paying job with great benefits. However, time and money are an issue, especially if you're older and / or have a family. The information below will help you finish your degree as quickly and cheaply as possible. The universities below are accredited and cater to mature students. Most of them are U.S. universities, but there are also ones from the U.K., Canada, and for people living in Asia and Europe.
Free courses are available online at
Academic Earth,
Class-Central,
Coursera,
EdX,
Lynda,
Skill Crush,
U of People,
Udemy, and
Udacity.
How to Get a College Degree
If
you plan to make teaching English your career and would like to be able
to save for retirement you will probably need a degree. Distance study
and courses for mature students are making it easier for everyone to get
a college education. The US Department of Education has recently released a study that shows that
students who study online perform better. If money's an issues, check out the Art of Manliness, which has some good info about
Testing Out: How to "Moneyball" Your Way to a Debt-Free College Degree.
- Outside credit by examination. You can take tests such as ACE, ECE, and CLEP.
- The college's credit by examination. Each college might have exams that you can take.
- AP. Theses courses are studied during high school but you don't have to be in high school to take the exams.
- DANTES (DSST). These are usually for people in the military.
- Subject specific exams. Criminal Justice/Police Proficiency Examinations, and Medical Terminology Examination are some examples. Wilbur Wright College is one college that accepts these.
- Applicable certifications. Military credits, Foreign
credentials, Certified Child Development Credentials, Emergency Medical
Services (paramedic certification), and Licensed/Practical Nursing
certifications are just a few that may be accepted.
- Life experience. Some schools will give you college
credit if you have documented work or volunteer. You may have to create a
portfolio to document your experience.
If money's an issue you could go through a community college for two years, then transfer. Try
Clovis Community College, New Mexico. In the USA, regional accrediation usually is better than national, though not always. Here are some that you might want to look at.
On-campus Programs Aimed Towards Mature Students
In addition to the colleges and universities above, try these.
Other Useful Sites Mainly for the USA
Famous People Without a Degree
There
are plenty of people who have been able to become successful despite
the fact that they don't have a degree. Keep in mind that there are also
plenty of underemployed, jobless, unsuccessful people who don't have a
degree as well.
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Barbra Streisand
- Ben Franklin
- Bob Dylan
- Bill Gates
- Dave Thomas
- David Ben Gurion
- David Sarnoff (NBC mogul)
- Debbie Fields
- Dustin Hoffman
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Ernest Hemingway
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Helena Rubenstein
- Henry Ford
- Jane Fonda
- Jesse Ventura
- John D. Rockefeller
- Larry Ellison (Oracle's founder)
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Madonna
- Malcolm X
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Michael Dell
- Peter Jennings
- Ray Kroc (McDonald's founder)
- Richard Leakey
- Robert Redford
- Rosie O'Donnell
- Rush Limbaugh
- Steve Jobs
- Thomas Edison
- Thomas Watson (IMB founder)
- Tom Hanks
- Walt Disney
- Walter Cronkite
- Warren Beatty
- Woody Allen
- Wright Brothers
Writing a Cover Letter for a Job that Requires a BA
I found this in
Cool Careers For Dummies. While in some cases you won't get hired without a degree, for example,
it's an immigration requirement, in other cases your experience might
outweight the fact that you don't have a degree. You have everything to
gain and nothing to lose.
Dear Ms. Hirer,
When
you’re inundated with applications, it’s tempting to weed out those
without a degree, but I believe I’m worth a look precisely because I
don’t have a degree.
I considered getting a BA, but
after talking with a number of BA holders and examining the courses I
would have to take and their relevance to becoming a good software
marketing manager, I concluded that four years could be more profitably
spent.
I contacted directors of marketing at leading
Silicon Valley software companies and offered to work for them for free
in exchange for their mentoring. I figured that was cheap tuition for
the on-target learning I would receive. A marketing manager at HP took
me on. After three months, I felt I had learned about as much from him
as I could, whereupon I made a similar arrangement with a director of
marketing at Cisco Systems.
In these apprenticeships, I
was deeply involved in a number of projects similar to those mentioned
in your ad, specifically internet marketing and managing a national
consumer branding campaign. In addition, I attend American Marketing
Association conferences, read the best articles and books recommended by
the AMA, and spend much of my commute time listening to relevant books
on DC. To get the bigger picture, I even read a couple of books by
leading academics.
But now comes the moment of truth.
In choosing a self-directed education over a traditional one, I believe I
prioritized substance over form. Now the question is: Will you
interview me?
I hope that you’ll appreciate my having
developed an outside-the-box learning plan, that I was assertive enough
to make it happen, and persistent enough to see it through to
completeion without a professor and deadlines forcing me to do so.
Perhaps more important, in working at the right handof top software
marketing executive, I learned a tremendous amount about how to do the
job well.
I recently discussed my self-education with a
BA holder from Stanford and he said that I probably learned more of
real-value than he did.
I’m hoping you will call me for
an interview, but as with any good employee, I won’t just wait
passively. If I haven’t heard from you in a week, I will take the
liberty of phoning to follow up.
I’m enclosing samples of the deliverables I produced during my work at
HP and cisco. Thankyou for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Christopher Wah
Also published in the
Turkish University Press.
