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Should I go back to school after having kids?

  • Carolina
  • Sep 26, 2016
  • 3 min read

I remember right after I had my daughter, my husband asked me what I was going to do with my life. He was talking about my career of course! As any mother can understand, I didn’t take that question well. I was overwhelmed by the demands of being a new mother and my hormone fluctuations didn’t help either. Once I departed the kamikaze state of post-child labor and established a routine, I started to reflect on his question. At that time, I found myself in the middle of the semester of a very demanding undergraduate program. Some people say the best time to go back to college is when you have a baby. Hmm. . . I don’t know if that applies to programs like mine, where I had to spend overnight hours in the studio cutting materials to build countless architectural models. Obviously it didn’t work. Breastfeeding and diaper changing don’t go well with exacto knives and super glue. Unfortunately, I had to drop out.


Here’s something you probably know: It’s very hard to pursue an education working full-time and taking care of your kids at the same time. Brick and mortar colleges demand full dedication to the pursuit of your bachelor’s degree. The amount of hours you have to commit inside and outside of the classroom occupies most of your day. If you’re lucky, you may spend a few free hours on freelance work. That’s why the “dorms” are full of teenagers living inside universities for 4 years or more. . . “the ideal college experience.” If you’re trying to go back to school while taking care of your family but can’t afford the “college experience,” don’t lose faith! You have options. I admire women that decide or have to be a stay-at-home mom. I stayed home with my daughter until she was 3 years old. Most times, it doesn’t make sense financially to go back to work when a daycare costs as much as your salary!

Online professional programs are the way to go. They offer degrees and certificates that will help you infiltrate the job market. Courses are taught online –sometimes they’re scheduled and other times, you have the freedom to learn according to your own schedule– to accommodate working adults. A lot of these programs offer scholarships and work studies*, (Federal Work-Study provides part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money to help pay education expenses*.) and the workload fits right in with your work and family responsibilities. It’s not easy, but at least it’s manageable.

Staying home with your kids has to be a very well-thought-out decision between you and your spouse. You’ll be fully invested and engaged in every single stage of your child’s life; but one thing has to be clear: just because you’re home with your kids doesn’t mean you’re doing “nothing”. This can be a difficult concept to grasp for full-time parents that rarely care for the kids for an extended period of time. You both have to understand and respect each other's roles in this arrangement to avoid resentment. There are many successful stay-at-home moms that develop and manage amazing businesses from their homes. That can be a great way to invest in yourself, while staying home with your kids. However, it may be difficult to accomplish without prior experience as an entrepreneur.

A college degree for expats in America represents a vital tool in your job search. If you have some college credits from your country you can transfer to some universities here in America (get in touch with a college advisor to find out how can you transfer the university credits from the country you are from). I guess is hard for everybody, for expats, a college degree can boost our confidence and increase our value

in the job market to better position ourselves against our competitors.


Here are some tools to get you going:

Online Universities: Some state universities have online programs primarily designed for adults. They tend to be cheaper, more flexible, and more reputable than a private online college. Here are a few of them:

Professional Career Training: Online classes are not the future anymore, but the present. There are so many programs available that can teach you a skill in order to proceed straight to the job market. In some cases, you can even open up your own business upon completion of the program.


Examples include: Real Estate licenses, AutoCad licenses, Web Design, Medical Transcripts, Project Management, and more...

If you are an expat woman going back to school or know other schools to add to our list, we would love to hear from you to share your story and advice! Connect with us at: missplaced16@gmail.com

 
 
 

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