How Pursuing a Teaching Degree Can Redefine Your Sense of Purpose

*Collaborative Post

Studies have shown with remarkable consistency that the modern workforce tends to place more importance on the value of their work than its compensation. People want to do jobs that feel meaningful to them.

Not only has this led to more millennials and Gen Z choosing healthcare, education, and social work careers, but it has also made these fields common for older generations as well.

Pursuing a degree in education can provide meaning and clarity to your life. In this article, we look at why it’s important and how you can get a job in this exciting and highly in-demand career path.

Why Pursuing a Degree in Education is Meaningful

Employment surveys have identified several psychological features of employment that make some jobs feel more meaningful than others. Some of these are interpersonal and specific to the culture of a job.

For example, how well employees are able to support one another and establish relationships that have value beyond the context of the job.

Also relevant is autonomy—how much personal decision-making the employee is given. Often, the most important factors are related to what the work is, how significant the task is, what kind of social impact the job has, and how the individual feels about doing it.

As you might have guessed, education careers satisfy at least many of these qualifications. In certain cases where the internal leadership structure is strong within a school district and interpersonal relationships are well-developed, it can satisfy all of them.

This isn’t to say that compensation is not important. However, it’s a noted employment trend that high compensation without any other career motivators is not enough to keep a person feeling satisfied at work.

Here’s what is true about education jobs: They are fulfilling. They make a clear and visible impact on the community. And while teachers don’t get rich, they aren’t quite as bad off as many of the jokes would have you believe. For nine months of work per year, they’re given a solidly middle-class income and, in many states, a very comfortable retirement package.

Now, you won’t make the money of an engineer or a marketing executive, but you’ll do work that you care about in a format that encourages your creativity.

There’s Even Career Mobility

Another important factor in determining how much enjoyment a person will receive from their career is the ability to advance.

This is actually one area where education falls short of many career paths. The best teacher in the world will receive the same scheduled pay raises as the worst teacher in the world.

With teacher shortages being what they are, the worst teacher in the world may even enjoy a similar level of job security.

Education is the odd career path where your ability has nothing to do with your compensation or job description.

That doesn’t mean there is no way to advance as an educator. You just do it with—and it’s poetic really if you think about it—more education.

To become a teacher, you need to complete a four-year degree program and meet all of your state’s certification and licensure requirements.

From there, you can increase your earning potential with a master’s degree and possibly even expand your role by specializing in an administrative direction.

Principals are not exactly teachers who have moved up in the world. Though many of them begin their professional life in a classroom, their advancement into the head honcho seat is not a promotion precisely, but an entirely distinct job brought about by a graduate degree and an additional certification.

You can even get a doctorate degree in education. This will help qualify you for either university education positions or higher-up administrative roles like that of a superintendent.

Graduate degrees are unusually common in the world of education, where more than 50% of teachers often get at least a master’s degree.

How to Pursue a Degree in Education

One of the nice things about figuring out how to become a teacher is that there are often many options available to you.

If you have no college experience, the most common route is to attend a four-year university and complete an education curriculum.

If you do have a bachelor’s degree and are looking to pivot into education, there are more streamlined options available in the form of an accelerated program. Accelerated education degrees take about twelve to eighteen months, depending largely on where you live. They have the benefit of allowing you to focus only on education classes.

Once more, you can take most of the requirements entirely online, sometimes in a user-friendly pre-recorded format that allows you to work when it’s convenient for you.

For these reasons, online learning opportunities are often ideal for people who already have a job and are working on getting their education degree on the side.

It’s important when considering online learning to check with both regional and national accreditation compliance.

Many people are surprised to learn that just because the federal government recognizes the validity of a program does not mean that their state government will do the same.

You can technically get a non-regionally compliant online degree and jump through a few additional state-based certification requirements. But the most linear route for most people is to find a program that their state accepts and go from there.

Note that even in an online-only format, you’ll still need practicum and student teaching experience that can only be gotten in person.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a rewarding career path that allows you to directly influence the lives of thousands of people throughout the course of your career, there’s no better option than education. Find a program that makes sense to you and just go after it.

Remember that it doesn’t matter how long it takes. The important thing is finding an education certification route that aligns with your lifestyle requirements as well as your ideal learning style. There’s a path forward for everyone.

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.