Every year, thousands of Americans return to education. Many of them manage to combine their learning program with a full-time job and family responsibilities. This creates a challenge but, nevertheless, they make a success of it as they are keen to reap the rewards of doing so. There are more reasons why you might be considering returning to education as a mature student. Here is a selection of them.
To Get Promoted
You may have found that you can only climb so far up the career ladder without obtaining professional qualifications. There are many courses that may suit your needs, whether you are trying to climb the ladder to the headship of a school or are looking at Nursing Leadership Courses with an institution such as Baylor University so that you can manage your own nursing team. The great thing about returning to education as a mature student is that you don’t have to sit in a classroom to do it. The growth of online studying means that you can study from the comfort of your own home, which makes it a lot easier to combine your studies with a full-time job.
To Increase Your Salary
Have you always dreamed of marching into your boss’s office and demanding the pay rise you know you deserve? Most people have, but they are put off because they don’t have enough ammunition to ask for what they want. However, one of the benefits of returning to work as a mature student is that you can prove that you have increased your knowledge, learned new skills, and gained experience. These are all fantastic reasons to negotiate the salary you want.
Career Stability
These days, a job is not guaranteed for life. However, making a transition as and when it is right for you rather than getting hit by redundancy or cutbacks is a lot less stressful. Therefore, you should make sure that when your HR department is looking at who to fire and who to keep, you are indispensable to the company. You can do this by upskilling – not only in terms of professional qualifications but provable soft skills such as leadership, self-motivation and dedication are all qualities that HR will want to retain. Returning to education will help you with these skills and they are easy to prove you have too.
To Build Professional Relationships
If you have been in your career for a while, you will have built up some professional relationships already. However, there is no harm in adding to these, especially with people outside your company. Returning to education will give you access to a lot of like-minded people who share your ambition. They are great people to know if you ever decide to change jobs as they will have contacts in similar companies and could help to smooth your transition or put you in touch with hiring managers. You can also build networks with your tutors who are likely to know a lot of people from the industry you are working in and are great people to reach out to for help and advice even after your course has finished.
Focus
It may be that when you left education you felt a little bit jaded by it all and needed a break from the constant studying. You may have spent a long time learning and were keen to get out into industry and start earning money. That’s great at the time but a lot of people start thinking about increasing their knowledge and gaining further qualifications after a few years in industry. One of the great things about returning to education as a mature student is that you are doing it because you want to, rather than necessarily needing to get a college degree. This means that you are likely to be more focused and keener to get ahead when you renew your studies, and you have a lot of practical experience under your belt too which can help you relate what you are learning to your everyday life.
To Change Career
The career that may have suited you best when you left full-time education may no longer suit your needs. You will have grown as a person and developed new interests and other things you are passionate about. It might be that your chosen career no longer fulfills you in the way it used to, and you want to try your hand at something totally different. Whatever the reason, the chances are you will need to get some new qualifications before you embark on your journey to a new and rewarding career.
A Sense of Achievement
You can be really proud of yourself for going back into education and gaining new skills as a mature student. If you are trying to juggle your learning with a lot of other responsibilities too and being able to manage your time well enough to even get started can give you new confidence and sense of worth. The qualification you get at the end of your course will give you a great sense of achievement, new skills, and a much better knowledge of your subject too.
Enjoyment
Learning as a mature student is fun. It can give you something to focus on outside of your other responsibilities and it is something you can do just for yourself. Creating time for yourself is an important part of self-care and doing something you enjoy for a few hours every week is a great way to relax and unwind.
There are many benefits to returning to education as a mature student and you can probably think of many that haven’t been listed here.
