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The following article was published in the Charleston Post & Courier's Business Major, a featured monthly column in the Business Review Section on November 19, 2001. Improving Prospects In A Recession EconomyBy DOROTHY P. MOORE Special to The Post and Courier Business Major For several very good reasons, downturns in the economy are quickly followed by a dramatic increase in the number of people returning to schools, colleges and universities to upgrade their credentials in the more competitive job markets. If you are thinking along these lines, here is some information that may be useful. In landing a job, education matters. The more skills you have, the better your chances of setting yourself apart from the mass of people who respond to interview questions with answers like "I'll take anything you have" or "I can do anything." Successful job seekers can say, "I have the training to fill your openings in . . ." Earning an associate degree means you are in the top 30% in educational attainment in South Carolina. In the Lowcountry, Trident Technical College with its three campuses and low tuition costs is a good place to start looking. In seeking an associate degree be sure to check that the credits will transfer to an accredited institution just in case you later decide to complete your college education. Measured by income, education is the best investment one can make. Annual average earnings in 1999 (the most recent Bureau of the Census statistics) for people who had completed high school was $24,572. For those with a bachelor's degree, it was $45,678. In separating yourself from competitors, the more education, the better. According to Bureau of the Census figures for 2000, 84 percent of all adults and 88% of young adults (ages 25 to 29) in the U. S. have completed high school. The college completion rates (26% of all adults and 29% of young adults) are substantially lower. In South Carolina, 79 percent of adults 25 or older have a high school degree or its equivalent, but only 16 percent have a bachelor's degree. And only 7.2 percent hold a graduate or professional degree. If you are setting out or in the middle of an educational program, here are some things to keep in mind. There is a reason employers complain that the people they hire can't compose a memo, compile a report, or otherwise communicate using the written word. If you can show a prospective employer you have them you will be ahead of the game. If you are an undergraduate, the best way to move ahead of your competitors is to let them pick the easy stuff so they can get by with as little work as possible. Never tell them to disregard all the current nonsense that describes education as a "product" to be delivered to the "consumer." The analogy is transparently false. If you are buying an automobile, as a consumer, you want the best value. That means making a choice after considering the tradeoffs between the most desirable features and their costs. You are looking for the best possible automobile while paying the lowest possible price. In the academic world, you want to be sure that this consumerism does not equate to getting the highest possible grade ("A") for the lowest level of effort. Where the analogy fails is that a course is not something presented to a group of students as a finished product. A course is a presentation of a field of knowledge the understanding of which requires student effort. Get a step ahead of your competitors by remembering that getting a college education is a job and a very important one. Also be sure that all the courses you take lead you toward a successful career. The degree-granting ceremony, commencement, is just the beginning. Learning is a lifelong journey. Here's why. Several years ago The Wall Street Journal printed an extraordinary study comparing future trends in the job market with educational enrollments. The average employee, it said, could expect to have as many as seven different positions during their working lifetime. Four of these jobs did not yet exist but would in the future due to technological changes. This may be a great time for you to be expanding your educational expertise to develop some of these future options. Math counts a lot more than people think. In landing high paying jobs, mathematics skills separate successful applicants from "ordinary" ones. Half of the new jobs, the same Journal article said, would be extremely high paying because they relied on statistical and math skills beyond calculus, which most people don't have. Lesson: Advancement beyond the basic math courses pays off in rich dividends. For women, knowing what's going on in the career fields can help you plan ahead. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the most recent figures on graduation rates (1997-1998) show women earned 56 percent of all the bachelor's degrees, 57 percent of all master's degrees, and 42 percent of all doctoral degrees awarded. But many of these degrees are concentrated in fields where women already predominate; 74 percent of all bachelor degrees in psychology and 69 percent in English language and literature were earned by women but only 18 percent in engineering. In the fields of business, women should look beyond the bachelor's degree. Women have narrowed the gap at the bachelor's level, earning 43 percent of all degrees awarded in business and marketing, but still lag behind in graduate work with 39 percent of the master's degrees and 31 percent of the doctoral degrees. The figures appear to represent choices and not perceptions of program difficulty or readiness. By contrast, during the same period, women earned 42 percent of the degrees awarded in medicine, 44 percent of the law degrees, and 67 percent of the degrees in veterinary medicine. Here are some basics for anyone thinking of postgraduate degree in a business field. An almost endless number and variety of institutions award the Master of Business Administration, the most common postgraduate degree. Because the salaries offered graduates vary widely depending on the type, credentials, and prestige of the program, look the schools over carefully. Graduates of the top 10 or top 20 MBA programs command the highest salaries and greatest variety of offers. These full time programs are also costly; both in tuition and income forgone for the two years completion of the work takes. For those who simply cannot afford to take two years from work to concentrate on a degree program or whose firms do not have a tuition support bill, a part-time MBA can be the answer. Several indicators of quality are important here: Many of the published guides to graduate schools strongly urge prospective students to consider only programs accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business International. There is a good reason. These are schools, which have met the carefully structured criteria for course offerings, quality of faculty, and availability of resources as determined by the national organization's lengthy review process. Information on their standards and criteria can be found on the Internet at http://aacsb.edu. An extremely useful data base for searching and ranking all AACSB-accredited MBA programs in the United States by criteria you specify can be found at the web site http://unicorn.us.com/guide. Changes in your present work environment or opportunities for advancing your career will present themselves. An important tool for your consideration is the acquirement of training that will enhance your prospects. For some, this may be improving writing and communication skills. For others, it may mean enhancing mathematical or technological skills. And for some, this means taking up degree-granting programs. The added skills and learning will set you apart from your competitors. For Questions/Comments about this site, contact dot.moore@comcast.net. Site designed by Jackye Cocoros. |