I'm 42 years old and have one certification in healthcare. I've been riding the same job with it for 22 years and I recently have had to face the fact that it's a dead end, and the way the field has evolved, that particular job has less demand now. It motivated me to explore what I really want to do. Honestly, I have been oblivious to the legitimacy of Social Media Marketing as a job. While job listings for what I do are becoming uncommon, I see so many listings for some form of Digital Marketing.
Why Digital Marketing? I realized I've already been doing it to a lesser extent, fairly successfully, for several years. While I don't yet understand analytics or SEO, I've grown a few brands on social media. Nothing major, but they met my goals. The one that I'm most proud of is for my own original band. I've been designing ads and promotions for a few years, which resulted in signing to a record label. I'm fairly experienced by now with content creation - graphics, video editing, audio production. I love doing it, and I want to do it for a living.
The thing is, even Social Media jobs mostly require a Marketing Degree. I learned about WGU and Sophia, the various paths you can take in lieu of a traditional 4 years of tuition. I applied to WGU for the BSBA in Marketing. I've been accepted with a start date of Sept 1, because I wanted to do some of the more challenging courses (for me) on Sophia.
Over this last month, I've completed 6 courses on Sophia. I plan to keep cramming during the remaining time to earn as many credits as possible. My eyes are so dry.
WGU was the first school I really looked into. After admission, I looked at other schools, some with more focused programs on Digital or Social Media Marketing. Those are appealing to me because I'm not that interested in Business or Marketing in general, just the Social Media aspect of it. However, these other schools didn't have the lower tuition or acceleration that WGU offers.
Something else to consider is the fact that with the WGU degree, I would still need certificates, probably the Meta Social Media Marketing certificate, maybe others too. I'm fine with certificates because those are the meat and potatoes of what I'm really excited about.
Most recently, I learned about the Pierpont Board of Governors Associates degree. I've looked over the wiki and pulled up several West Virginia college websites (which are generally the same info) and I'm really interested in this. While a Bachelor's degree is, and would still be a goal, I would hate to pass up the opportunity to use my growing Sophia (and maybe Study dot com later) credits for an Associate's degree. Also, if the Meta Social Media Marketing certificate's ACE credits can be used towards this degree, that seems to be a bonus. I emailed their Director, Nancy Parks today to ask if my healthcare certification could be applied too. This was her response:
"That certificate is not yet on the State's list of standardized awards. If you know of another college that does offer credits, please let me know, and I can propose that our program give an equal number of credits based on that precedent."
So this is where I'm at currently. I need to decide if I should go ahead with WGU and therefore miss an opportunity to qualify for the Associate's, or get all my credits together and go for the Associate's, then possibly work on the WGU degree later.
I'm open to any and all suggestions!
Oh, and in response to her saying she would propose giving an equal number of credits as another school, I found this with my RPSGT credential:
https://www2.tesu.edu/oplr/client.php?client=BRPT
Why Digital Marketing? I realized I've already been doing it to a lesser extent, fairly successfully, for several years. While I don't yet understand analytics or SEO, I've grown a few brands on social media. Nothing major, but they met my goals. The one that I'm most proud of is for my own original band. I've been designing ads and promotions for a few years, which resulted in signing to a record label. I'm fairly experienced by now with content creation - graphics, video editing, audio production. I love doing it, and I want to do it for a living.
The thing is, even Social Media jobs mostly require a Marketing Degree. I learned about WGU and Sophia, the various paths you can take in lieu of a traditional 4 years of tuition. I applied to WGU for the BSBA in Marketing. I've been accepted with a start date of Sept 1, because I wanted to do some of the more challenging courses (for me) on Sophia.
Over this last month, I've completed 6 courses on Sophia. I plan to keep cramming during the remaining time to earn as many credits as possible. My eyes are so dry.
WGU was the first school I really looked into. After admission, I looked at other schools, some with more focused programs on Digital or Social Media Marketing. Those are appealing to me because I'm not that interested in Business or Marketing in general, just the Social Media aspect of it. However, these other schools didn't have the lower tuition or acceleration that WGU offers.
Something else to consider is the fact that with the WGU degree, I would still need certificates, probably the Meta Social Media Marketing certificate, maybe others too. I'm fine with certificates because those are the meat and potatoes of what I'm really excited about.
Most recently, I learned about the Pierpont Board of Governors Associates degree. I've looked over the wiki and pulled up several West Virginia college websites (which are generally the same info) and I'm really interested in this. While a Bachelor's degree is, and would still be a goal, I would hate to pass up the opportunity to use my growing Sophia (and maybe Study dot com later) credits for an Associate's degree. Also, if the Meta Social Media Marketing certificate's ACE credits can be used towards this degree, that seems to be a bonus. I emailed their Director, Nancy Parks today to ask if my healthcare certification could be applied too. This was her response:
"That certificate is not yet on the State's list of standardized awards. If you know of another college that does offer credits, please let me know, and I can propose that our program give an equal number of credits based on that precedent."
So this is where I'm at currently. I need to decide if I should go ahead with WGU and therefore miss an opportunity to qualify for the Associate's, or get all my credits together and go for the Associate's, then possibly work on the WGU degree later.
I'm open to any and all suggestions!
Oh, and in response to her saying she would propose giving an equal number of credits as another school, I found this with my RPSGT credential:
https://www2.tesu.edu/oplr/client.php?client=BRPT
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