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Since the Air Force has turned tuition assistance back on, I'm scrambling to get enrolled in a new school. I was in the process of changing schools and programs when the thing got axed, and I want to get signed up for classes now incase something happens and takes it away again.

It's obvious there is a lot of educated folks here in the OT forum, and it made me curious as to what schoolin everyones had.

Mine has kind of been all over the place. I was accepted to Michigan Tech, and University of Michigan, in high school but decided to go the enlisted route in the military instead. I choose to become a weather forecaster and then spent 5 months in a pretty intense training program that awarded me 35 college credits towards meteorology. My first assignment had me take a correspondence course that got me another 8 credits. I was then sent back to school where I picked up another 22 credits in a 3 month period (all this in meteorology). When I was selected for promotion to become an NCO I was sent to a leadership school that awarded 9 credits in leadership and management over 6 weeks. I was then enrolled in another meteorological correspondence course that awarded be 4 more credits. On top of that I've earned a handful of other credits through various training programs the AF has offered me over my career. So I earned 83 college credits from the Community College of the Air Force (fully accredited). In order to complete my Associates Degree through them, I still needed a chunk of general education classes. So I took a bunch of CLEP and DANTES exams. I covered math, history, english, speech, humanities, and leadership and management. Ended up gathering another 36 credits that way, and it allowed me to finish up my Associates degree, earning an Associates of Science in Meterological Technologies.

From there I decided I did not want to push for a higher degree in weather since it would involve a lot of higher math, and quite frankly I hate higher math. So I searched around for some online schools, ended up selecting to go to Trident University International, since they were a very military friendly school, and spent the next year working on a degree for Environmental Health. After taking 6 classes with them, I got fed up with the course material, decided they didn't have any other degree programs that I was interested, and decided to move to the American Military University. Going to be working on a degree in Environmental Science with a focus in Wish and Wildlife Management.

So, again, what has everyone else got going for them?

I am inbetween schools as well, but I'm heading back to the first one that I did real classes for: AMU for a BA in Military HIstory, focusing on Early European history.


I am actually trained as an electronics and computer repair person for the army, but I also hate all that math, so I decided to not pursue a EE degree.

Are you asking like, what we have relative to your experiences for the purpose of advice, or just a general chat about what schooling we have?

 Ouze wrote:
Are you asking like, what we have relative to your experiences for the purpose of advice, or just a general chat about what schooling we have?

Just a general chat. I'm currently sitting here with about 5 minutes of work to do on an 8 hour shift.

 djones520 wrote:
Just a general chat. I'm currently sitting here with about 5 minutes of work to do on an 8 hour shift.

Our tax dollars hard at work it's OK, in a few minutes I'll be doing the same (only dakka is work blocked where I'm at, so no Dakka actually at work, unless I'm on the phone)

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Just a general chat. I'm currently sitting here with about 5 minutes of work to do on an 8 hour shift.

Our tax dollars hard at work it's OK, in a few minutes I'll be doing the same (only dakka is work blocked where I'm at, so no Dakka actually at work, unless I'm on the phone)

It's the nature of the job. When there is no weather going on, there is no work to do.

A friend summed it up once as days of sheer boredom, followd by hours of pure terror.

AA from hippy California CC with really cute wimminz aplenty. Met first earthquake and first last in a jetta on the same day

under grad finance and real estate from hippy California school with really cute wimminz aplenty. I remember a gal with a 1965 mustang with blood red toenails that she would drive shoeless life is good!

MBA focused on international business from Texas school with lots of da cute wimminz if you hung out in the liberal arts area.

JD focused on business. Not as many cute wimminz but lots of richie richers which I didn't get along with. Realized in year one I hated lawyers. They had one particular squirrel that would climb on my shoulder and share popcorn with me.

I have a Master of Arts in War Studies, and am about to start a PGCE in secondary school history. Once I've completed that, I hold an offer of a PHDship in Defence Studies at King's College London (although I'm currently being tempted by the Masters in Economic History being offered by the London School of Economics).

Final goal is to end up a professional historian.
.

I'm working on a B.S. from Western Governor's University in Information Technology. It's a really good school for IT - it's a distance learning school, and it's not for-profit. I'd recommend it highly. I have a lot of boring IT related certifications as well. Unfortunately I'm on a break with school right now, but planning on going back within the next few months.

Part of what's keeping me from going back is I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up, and with my current utter lack of ambition, further schooling is not required.

All these educated people responding, and this is missed..

Wish and Wildlife Management.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
All these educated people responding, and this is missed..

Wish and Wildlife Management.

Good catch. The W isn't even close to the F. Way to go fingers.

 Ouze wrote:
I'm working on a B.S. from Western Governor's University in Information Technology. It's a really good school for IT - it's a distance learning school, and it's not for-profit. I'd recommend it highly. I have a lot of boring IT related certifications as well. Unfortunately I'm on a break with school right now, but planning on going back within the next few months.

Part of what's keeping me from going back is I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up, and with my current utter lack of ambition, further schooling is not required.

I have a few friends that are attending WGU.


The nice thing about your position, is once you get a Degree, you'll have the Degree+ Experience, which is a much better situation than either alternative alone.

Im working on getting my dgree is possibly sociology, I am in my third year s general ed(I know, it should be two, but i had to take remedial classes) I will be done with general ed next semester is i dont fail German(67% im struggling)
Im stuck, Part of me wants to be a teacher, but when i get up infront of classes, i nearly have a panic attack.
Im also thinking of possibly studying film on the side.

I took a rather leisurely pace in undergrad. I went to Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) which is neither in the west nor a military school. My "official" major started in engineering, but my focus was pretty hard on fraternity life.

Somehow after the better part of a decade (and more than one forced sabbatical selling pools while appealing expulsion) I finished with BA in, of all things, philosophy.

Since at that point my extensive experience in retail and sales was actually more valuable than my BA, I decided to double down and went to Law School. Shockingly, my 2.2 undergraduate GPA limited my options to only the finest in local Third Tier school. I picked Cleveland Marshall at Cleveland State, since it was the cheapest. I focused on Tax Law, earning a concentration in that.

After law school, I was delightfully unemployed, and took a few community college classes in business and accounting. I found I like organizational behavior and managerial accounting, but bookkeeping is tremendously boring.

As I'm now working the Federal Government, I'm constantly kicking around the idea of starting a Masters in Public Administration.

Working on a double major in Philosophy and History at University of North Carolina Wilmington.

I have a BA from a large public university. It is in History and I specialized in Diplomatic History Pre-WWI. I had an abyssmal GPA as I worked two jobs full time and took over a full load of credits each quarter to cut the costs of college by graduating on time. However, once I got that piece of paper; no one cared about my GPA.

After that, I have earned various professional licenses, most of which are no longer in my field. The only one that is remotely interesting now is my 6Sigma belt.

I thought about going back and getting my MBA on the company dime, but I have little interest in it. Plus, my current life schedule would not really permit it.

BA in computer science, with a history minor, from a small, NE liberal arts college. Went from being a student worker at the computer help desk to full time staff in the IT department after graduating. Left after a while, due to restructuring of the department and a donkey cave boss. Full time Dad/homemaker these days.

A.) Started with pre-med at UMSL... flunked Chemistry So switched gears to... Accounting.

B.) While in the Accounting program, I got a job as a Helpdesk/Desktop support analyst during the IT tech craze... so then I...

C.) Switch my undergrad to MIS (Management of Information Systems) at UMSL.

D.) Got my degree in MIS with a plethora of tech certificates...

E.) Got hired as contractor by Anheuser Bush to work as a helpdesk analyst (awesome phone number... seriously, it's 1-800-BEERTALK )

F.) IRS changed the books on how contractors affected the business (detrimentally), thus I was laided off... got numerous interviews, and then...

G.) 9/11 struck. Was out of work for 7 months until employers were ready to start hiring again...

H.) Ended up getting hired by major Healthcare organization in their IT department, and been there for over 10 years and loving it.

I.) I have no desire to go back to school... I'd go to tech bootcamps if I need to... I am interested in Lean Six Sigma though.

 Polonius wrote:
I took a rather leisurely pace in undergrad. I went to Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) which is neither in the west nor a military school. My "official" major started in engineering, but my focus was pretty hard on fraternity life.

Somehow after the better part of a decade (and more than one forced sabbatical selling pools while appealing expulsion) I finished with BA in, of all things, philosophy.

Since at that point my extensive experience in retail and sales was actually more valuable than my BA, I decided to double down and went to Law School. Shockingly, my 2.2 undergraduate GPA limited my options to only the finest in local Third Tier school. I picked Cleveland Marshall at Cleveland State, since it was the cheapest. I focused on Tax Law, earning a concentration in that.

After law school, I was delightfully unemployed, and took a few community college classes in business and accounting. I found I like organizational behavior and managerial accounting, but bookkeeping is tremendously boring.

As I'm now working the Federal Government, I'm constantly kicking around the idea of starting a Masters in Public Administration.

How did you crack getting into the FedGov P?

 Nevelon wrote:
Went from being a student worker at the computer help desk to full time staff in the IT department after graduating. .

As a bachelor's degree increasingly becomes the new High School diploma*, the work experience you gain in school is going to become more important than the letters after your name.

*By this, I mean a BA doesn't really mean you have any skills or value, but you still need it for a lot of jobs.

 Polonius wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Went from being a student worker at the computer help desk to full time staff in the IT department after graduating. .

As a bachelor's degree increasingly becomes the new High School diploma*, the work experience you gain in school is going to become more important than the letters after your name.

*By this, I mean a BA doesn't really mean you have any skills or value, but you still need it for a lot of jobs.

Even working in the IT field, I used almost none of the skills/knowledge I got with my degree. A little bit in writing scripts for installers and updating the public computer labs, but that's it.

But I am a big fan of the idea of a liberal arts education. Having a broad spectrum of knowledge lets to be able to talk to and relate with a wide range of people. I think high schools are more focused on getting you the bare bones skills to function in society. One thing about a liberal arts education, and college in general, is that there is more a focus on teaching you -how- to learn, not just filling your head with the facts you need to pass the standardized tests. And once you understand how to learn on your own, you can go to any job and do it. You might not have the skills you need, but you have the skill to gain the ones you lack.

Wether or not it's worth the crushing academic debts, or if those skills could be taught in high school is a whole other can of worms.

I am, at the moment, currently working through a BA History degree. Gearing up for the exams in about a month's time so as to pass the second year, then it'll be time to focus on the dissertation.

I have a master of engineering in biomedical engineering and have just completed a master of science in biomedical engineering.

Currently applying for jobs

Good luck!

I was all set up and acceted to study 'contemporary military and international history'
During my A levels I had enlisted with the TA and trained up as a combat Medical technician.
I decided that I enjoyed the first aid side of things, and worked a job as a nurse auxilliary on medical assessment unit. I was given the opportunity to become a nurse on the hospitals secondment program, where I qualified as a nurse after 3 years of full time study.

These days after stints on medical assessment and acute respiratory, I work outside of the NHS in a laser eye surgery provider as a laser nurse, whilst I will be continuing my new specialist career in refractive surgery to include Intra ocular lens surgery and potentially cataract surgery.

In four weeks I'll have a BS in medical lab science, in five I'll be nationally certified by the ASCP... or at least thats the plan =)

It’s a pretty good field to be in if you like lab work.

I went to college to be an English teacher, got my MAT for it, and hadn't found any jobs in my area other than subbing. Teaching in NY is rough. I had a friend get me into a dental company, driving mobile offices to National Guard bases/armories and working at local prisons and such. I thought my education was pretty much a waste, until I was offered a promotion based on it. A year later, and that promotion goes into effect! Moving to Connecticut, just outside of NYC in a couple weeks. I'll need a new gaming community, so anyone near Stamford, send me a shout out. Unless your name is Nitro (for you comic fans).

I'll be finishing up my degree in New Media this summer (...seriously, I was one elective short of graduating...). Essentially, my focus is on graphic design, and digital illustration (for things like concept or promotional artwork for games and other mediums).

It's pretty cool, because you get to make some pretty cool things, and apply some real critical thinking, but you can tell that there are a lot of people in those classes just because they want to coast for a while and play videogames. And the slackers are much more widely apparent because of the way all of our work tends to get shown off often.

Baccalauréat in Philosophy from UQAM with a cumulated minor in Law from U Laval. Working on my master in Philosophy and just finishing my first college intership. If I get the grant I need (or scrounge up really well in the next year), there's a trip to U of Vienna or U of Leuven in the foreseeable future. Gotta work on my german tho.

I'm working on a second BA right now. The first time I went to school, I started studying computer art at a university. I'm not sure what I was thinking since I can't draw to save my life, but there you have it. Then I transferred to a community college so I wouldn't be wasting money while I tried to figure out what to do (heh) and switched to communications. Then history, decided I liked it enough for it to be my major when I finished and transferred to another University. Then finally I realized that I really like foreign languages so I switched to Asian Studies, which wasn't offered at that college so I transferred again, but by the time I graduated I only ended up taking a year and a half of Japanese, which isn't really enough to do anything with, couldn't really find any meaningful employment so now I'm back at school and am working on a BA in Arabic language, literature, and culture. Not sure what I'll do when I'm done, but this school does offer MAs in Social Science and National Security Studies, so those are options. Also, law school. Also it turns out there's shamefully little written about the Sultanate of Oman, so if for some ungodly reason I decided I wanted to get a Doctorate, there's probably something I could do there.

EDIT: So throughout my college career so far I have attended....five schools. Actually, six, since I did a semester abroad.