Two Master's degrees - or none at all?

[jarrett]

Hi.I am a graduate of the Geography program in CSULB. I am also a Fall 2013 applicant to the MA program in Geography at Cal State Fullerton. While awaiting admission, I have begun to have some doubts as to the reasoning behind my going to graduate schoool and just wondered if anyone could help me with their two cents of advice.

I thought I wanted to be a community college teacher (that is mostly what you do with a Geography degree - go into education) but lately I have been thinking about getting the TEFL certification and teaching English abroad. I have also had long term thoughts of into the clergy and getting a Master of Divinity degree. All I know at this point (I am 27 years old) is that I want to be a teacher or a minister, but I don't know which one.

What is the appropriate course of action? Don't waste time, and go for one of the options? Go do both degrees? Or simply wait and get more real life experience, and then settle on a career path? I hate student loans, I don't have any from my undergraduate years but I am more than willing to incur them if I have to to get where I need to be.

Everyone welcome to respond, but especially those with experience in grad school. I really appreciate your help.

 

[juilletmercredi]

If you don't know, then don't go.  If you're not sure that you want to teach geography, and may be changing your mind to other career fields, don't attend the program (and pay the money).  Instead, take the time to decide what you really want to do.  It's far better to go a year or two later than it is to be $40K in debt (or more) for something that is now useless to you because you have to go back, get another degree, and won't use the first.

 

If you want to weigh teaching English abroad, you can do that without a TEFL certification.  There are a variety of programs that allow you to do that - JET (in Japan), EPIK (in Korea), CIEE (various countries), and Fulbright (various countries).  This website shows you a variety of teach abroad options in different countries.  You can get the experience first and then decide if you want to get the TEFL certification to do it as a long-term career.

 

The other thing is that you don't have to do everything now; you could teach English abroad for several years and then return to the States, get an M.Div, and go into ministry.  Or you could teach abroad for several years and realize that you want to teach geography after all, so you return and get an MA in that.