I work 50 hours per week hard labor. How the fuck do I go back to school? I want to do something like environmental science, ecology, marine biology, mycology for my bachelor’s and from there I’m not sure but I can’t keep breaking my body like this. I’m in the US, have no support network, and worried about how much everything costs and how to thread the needle of housing, food, tuition, loans, etc after quitting my job.
Do you intend to work in one of those fields after going to university? If so I think careful research is required to select a path that offers any prospects. Especially if you will accrue a bunch of debt.
negative nancy
Almost everyone I have known who is in university seems to be constantly complaining about it. To leftists, the universities seem to be excessively corporatized and exploitative. The exceptions I can think of are people who went to university to learn a specific job like engineer or nurse. For those who make it through, they get what they want. Out of the zillions of university attendees who went for a subject they found interesting (not for a specific career destination), I can only think of 1 who had extremely good things to say about it. They attended a very small, elite private US university. (They weren’t from a rich family but were able to utilize very good class drag to get the schooling funded. From my observations, class drag and middle-upper class connections are essential to university.) I have also known a couple of people who skipped straight into a Masters on the basis of personal experience but you have to be a charming smarty pants and have good connections for that.
The other ones, best case scenario, get trapped in precarious or dead end jobs that weren’t what they wanted to do or create constant ethical dilemmas for them. (E.g. went to school for math because math is cool, now finding all the work is with weapons manufactures etc) But so many people drop out part way through with only a mountain of debt.
I feel like you need to have some insider information to even select an institution and degree path that won’t waste your time.
I have tried doing evening courses on a much more casual basis than a degree and found it was too much after work and I couldn’t manage it.
What about a college course in a less physically strenuous career? Maybe in a program who’s credits are accepted at university where you could complete a degree at a later time.
At any rate the first basic step would be to go to some university websites and click around on them. Here is a page of a random university about financing a degree. They all have pages like this that’ll help you get the lay of the land. They all have a phone number you can call to ask questions, like guidance counselors. BEWARE these are basically salespeople. They can be way overly optimistic about how plausible it could be. If there is a student union or other such organization you could try contacting them, walking into their office etc and just ask for advice.
Honestly, I think that being a therapist might be the ultimate move but in my state you need a master’s to get licensed so my undergrad would just be something I want to learn and could fall back on. I love helping people and would orient myself towards ND and queer folks because that’s also what I am. Other than that I could see myself getting really into field work because I love being outside.
hmmm if you want to be a therapist, a BSc in marine biology might be a bit circuitous.
There are probably other job titles you could access that help people without doing a full masters.
If you haven’t done so yet, request a paper copy of course catalogues from some institutions (colleges and universities) nearby or elsewhere if you want to move. Just flip through them to get an idea of what’s available. You can get into health, education, or administrative with 6-12 months of training. There are all kinds of jobs. Have you thought about Disability Support Worker? It might be up your alley and the training is shorter. There are also various lengths of social work education programs from 6 months to MA. Firefighter? It’s a growth industry… But you have to be around cops all the time.
You can also try looking at it from the opposite angle… check out job postings where you want to live and consider education to match the job you want. Look at job websites for municipalities, schools and other institutions where unionization is likely.
When switching careers, consider how likely you are to get a union job.