I've been thinking hard about this for months, but I'm feeling stuck again, and would appreciate input. Thank you to everyone who gave input on my previous exploration threads. Previously, I didn't share much about my disabilities and some other influencing factors that I keep considering, and I am sharing much more in this thread.
I still feel sure that I should grab the TESU BSBA, and I'll explain that, but I'm lost other than that. And I'm sure some would say skip the BSBA.
I have permanent disabilities. I am hoping to have significant improvement in 2 areas, but it is really hard to predict if my improvement would be great enough that I could work an in-person job. I would love to make plans with the assumption that I would improve that much, but it seems completely unwise.
So that is one area which leads to confusion for me: If I assume I can never do the regular jobs, I'm only seeing about 3 real online work options for me. Partly because there are even some types of online at-home jobs that I'm unable to do too!
(I might have improvements where I can do some other types, but again, I would rather not rely on that.) I'd rather not give much detail on specific limitations or why, so I hope you understand if I'm shooting down some ideas, and just saying that I can't do that
Obviously, online jobs makes people think about tech jobs, so, I am pretty good with tech, and it seems like I "should" go into this field, but my heart is not in it. There are certain areas in tech I might enjoy, I guess (but even in those areas, it seems too hard to do full-time). I am sure that many areas I simply would see as a drag. Although the money is one of my motivators, it's really more important to me to feel like I'm doing something positive. But it does add a lot of confusion for me.
As some of you noticed, I seem to have too many areas of interest, but they are mostly all related. Where my interest and experience lies is the cross-sections of health + psychology + education. Basically helping people improve their lives, but I really like to use my medical/wellness knowledge and experience, at least some of the time. However, I don't know if I would like education in the normal sense of jobs that people do. So far, I like education in the sense of counseling/coaching, and I'm not sure I could be effective at some aspects of teaching. I worry that I might really dislike some aspects of regular teaching, like if I could land a DL teaching job. I also think it would be very hard to land such as job without classroom teaching experience first. I do have counseling-style experience, but obviously licensure is difficult for me, and counseling and social work programs tend to cost a lot more than just psych.
I already do part-time online work in these fields, and for a while I was assuming that a degree would basically get me more of the same kind of work. But I am now second guessing that. First because it's pretty competitive, and even with a degree, I might be stuck at part-time. Secondly even if I could get full-time, some of the work gets tiring to me (in part due to disabilities). I also feel I need to move up a bit, and have later opportunities for advancement. I just don't see how, other than maybe trying to get an online education job, which seems unrealistic?
I do have a lot of interest in business, and some experience. And I want the business degree because I feel it would help me get funding for a future business (if I decide to do one), and I find it very interesting. I'm already learning new things. But, I am wondering if the BSBA (or even an MBA) would help me in terms of employment. I am not sure how it would help with employment, only help with my own business. Of course, I am also interested in the TESU BSBA because of the speed and low cost, and the speed is partly due to my prior knowledge.
One thing I didn't mention yet is I also have strong reason to believe that I will only have about 6-10 years where I'm able to work, after school. So that's one reason I feel like I need to choose very carefully. I also feel I must get the degree(s) quickly. With the right job, after the 6-10 years, I hopefully be able to do something (that still pays well, I hope) part-time for a few years before retiring.
I'm feeling that I am going to need some combination of 2-3 degrees, that gives me some specialty advantage. Lately I'm thinking of getting an RN or LPN license. Although LPN requires a fair amount in-person, it's spread out over a year or so, and I think it's only around 8 hours in-person per week. I am worried about completing it, but feel that I already have half the knowledge/training (but, hardly any college credit for it), and feel that having RN+MBA might really get me some good online employment. Especially because then I could, over time, get a BSN. (If a place would give me PLA credit for my lab science, this would be great, but I was told that they won't for labs. But I did all the college-level lab work, in-person.)
Are there options I'm missing? My primary worry is that even with have Masters degree plus more, it'll be hard to find an online job that I can do full-time. So, for a while I was thinking I'd better plan on having 1-2 part-time online jobs plus a part-time online business. Sometimes I wonder if I should instead try to aim for an even higher-paying degree/career and plan on doing that part-time, such as a healthcare or IT job I don't really enjoy, but I would regret it. I also wonder about finding a high-paying career that I enjoy, even if it takes more schooling (like second Masters or a Doctorate, but I worry about cost). Money is tight right now, but I may be able to afford it in 1-3 years.
It may be confusing that I said I would not enjoy the healthcare job. I feel like I wouldn't enjoy most in-person clinical healthcare jobs, despite my strong interest in medical/wellness. I would guess there are some that would be different. It seems with an RN (and maybe even an LPN) I could get an online clinical job, which would be part-time most likely.
Edit: One problem with going for RN to start is most RN programs have a long wait list and it would take me a while to get pre-reqs. But LPN makes the whole path longer. If only I had made different choices before!
I still feel sure that I should grab the TESU BSBA, and I'll explain that, but I'm lost other than that. And I'm sure some would say skip the BSBA.
I have permanent disabilities. I am hoping to have significant improvement in 2 areas, but it is really hard to predict if my improvement would be great enough that I could work an in-person job. I would love to make plans with the assumption that I would improve that much, but it seems completely unwise.
So that is one area which leads to confusion for me: If I assume I can never do the regular jobs, I'm only seeing about 3 real online work options for me. Partly because there are even some types of online at-home jobs that I'm unable to do too!
(I might have improvements where I can do some other types, but again, I would rather not rely on that.) I'd rather not give much detail on specific limitations or why, so I hope you understand if I'm shooting down some ideas, and just saying that I can't do that Obviously, online jobs makes people think about tech jobs, so, I am pretty good with tech, and it seems like I "should" go into this field, but my heart is not in it. There are certain areas in tech I might enjoy, I guess (but even in those areas, it seems too hard to do full-time). I am sure that many areas I simply would see as a drag. Although the money is one of my motivators, it's really more important to me to feel like I'm doing something positive. But it does add a lot of confusion for me.
As some of you noticed, I seem to have too many areas of interest, but they are mostly all related. Where my interest and experience lies is the cross-sections of health + psychology + education. Basically helping people improve their lives, but I really like to use my medical/wellness knowledge and experience, at least some of the time. However, I don't know if I would like education in the normal sense of jobs that people do. So far, I like education in the sense of counseling/coaching, and I'm not sure I could be effective at some aspects of teaching. I worry that I might really dislike some aspects of regular teaching, like if I could land a DL teaching job. I also think it would be very hard to land such as job without classroom teaching experience first. I do have counseling-style experience, but obviously licensure is difficult for me, and counseling and social work programs tend to cost a lot more than just psych.
I already do part-time online work in these fields, and for a while I was assuming that a degree would basically get me more of the same kind of work. But I am now second guessing that. First because it's pretty competitive, and even with a degree, I might be stuck at part-time. Secondly even if I could get full-time, some of the work gets tiring to me (in part due to disabilities). I also feel I need to move up a bit, and have later opportunities for advancement. I just don't see how, other than maybe trying to get an online education job, which seems unrealistic?
I do have a lot of interest in business, and some experience. And I want the business degree because I feel it would help me get funding for a future business (if I decide to do one), and I find it very interesting. I'm already learning new things. But, I am wondering if the BSBA (or even an MBA) would help me in terms of employment. I am not sure how it would help with employment, only help with my own business. Of course, I am also interested in the TESU BSBA because of the speed and low cost, and the speed is partly due to my prior knowledge.
One thing I didn't mention yet is I also have strong reason to believe that I will only have about 6-10 years where I'm able to work, after school. So that's one reason I feel like I need to choose very carefully. I also feel I must get the degree(s) quickly. With the right job, after the 6-10 years, I hopefully be able to do something (that still pays well, I hope) part-time for a few years before retiring.
I'm feeling that I am going to need some combination of 2-3 degrees, that gives me some specialty advantage. Lately I'm thinking of getting an RN or LPN license. Although LPN requires a fair amount in-person, it's spread out over a year or so, and I think it's only around 8 hours in-person per week. I am worried about completing it, but feel that I already have half the knowledge/training (but, hardly any college credit for it), and feel that having RN+MBA might really get me some good online employment. Especially because then I could, over time, get a BSN. (If a place would give me PLA credit for my lab science, this would be great, but I was told that they won't for labs. But I did all the college-level lab work, in-person.)
Are there options I'm missing? My primary worry is that even with have Masters degree plus more, it'll be hard to find an online job that I can do full-time. So, for a while I was thinking I'd better plan on having 1-2 part-time online jobs plus a part-time online business. Sometimes I wonder if I should instead try to aim for an even higher-paying degree/career and plan on doing that part-time, such as a healthcare or IT job I don't really enjoy, but I would regret it. I also wonder about finding a high-paying career that I enjoy, even if it takes more schooling (like second Masters or a Doctorate, but I worry about cost). Money is tight right now, but I may be able to afford it in 1-3 years.
It may be confusing that I said I would not enjoy the healthcare job. I feel like I wouldn't enjoy most in-person clinical healthcare jobs, despite my strong interest in medical/wellness. I would guess there are some that would be different. It seems with an RN (and maybe even an LPN) I could get an online clinical job, which would be part-time most likely.
Edit: One problem with going for RN to start is most RN programs have a long wait list and it would take me a while to get pre-reqs. But LPN makes the whole path longer. If only I had made different choices before!
![[-]](https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/images/collapse.png)