Questions From a Newbie

This is my first post, so a blanket hello to all! I wasn't sure where would be the best place to post these questions, so I settled on the General DL Discussions board as a sort of catch-all; hope that's OK.

First off, a little background. I am disabled -- in a wheelchair to be precise. I attended a local Tier 2 state college for a few years right out of high school during the mid- to late-90s, but never earned a degree. My place of employment got bought-out by a larger entity, schedules changed and conflicted, and I ultimately had to choose the one that was paying the mortgage.

FF several years and, despite promotions and really good $$$ for such a rural area, I'm hating the job and want out of the industry (telemarketing and working in a call center as a customer service supervisor for a well-known satellite TV provider) altogether. Selling people TV for the rest of my life is not what I was made for. So, I go back to school to finish my Bachelor's online.

FF several more years. BS degree completed. Unfulfilling job is history; I resigned due to a health issue that arose in the interim and went on S.S. Disability. My BS is in criminal justice, so I knew from the get-go that, with my disability, working in the field would mean Academia (I could possibly find work as a Correctional Counselor with my BS, but I have zero interest in mollycoddling scumbag pedophiles and meth dealers). Also, unlike many others, getting on a govt. check was never my goal, so I don't intend to stay on S.S. Disability forever; I just need it as a bridge until I can earn degrees sufficient to get me to a career I will find both fulfilling and possible with my physical/health impediments.

Here's where it gets a little more hairy. My BS in CJ is through Mountain State University, which just made news for losing its regional accreditation. I had also started work toward an MS through them, but have now transferred to American Public University. I had 6 hours of graduate work under my belt, 3 of which I fervently hope transfers to the APU program: Research Methods was a beast and not something I relish having to go through again.

My questions for the board are these:

What is the general opinion on here of the MA in CJ program at APU?

and,

Ditto the above RE: the Ph.D. in Public Policy - CJ specialization at Walden U.? (thinking ahead)

Once I have the MA in hand, I plan to apply to teach as online adjunct faculty at the same Tier 2 state college I attended in the mid- to late-90s and, eventually, to other online programs as well. Another secondary question I have is will online adjuncting experience fulfill the requirements for admission to Walden's doctoral program? All it says on their website is that you need a Master's degree and "Three years of related professional or academic experience." So, I'm assuming that's a yes. Am I right?

 

.....bump.....

 

Anybody have any input?

 

I can understand why you would hate doing telemarketing. Everyone I know, including me, will not listen and will terminate the call as soon as they know who it is from. It must be terrible to get hung up on all day long. I at least say "no thank you, goodbye" but that's still pretty rude. I'm sure you face more rudeness than that on a daily basis.

I have no experience with the CJ program at Walden, so I can only give you my opinion (guess). I can't imagine that they would deny you admittance with experience in anything remotely related. If they are like most schools, the stated rules can even be bent depending on the circumstance of the applicant. I would think that you could get into Walden without trouble. This is especially true since enrollments are dropping at many online schools, not sure about Walden on that.

The main rub is in landing an adjunct job. That's getting harder and harder to do with only a master's degree, given that you would be competing with doctoral degree holders. It's not impossible but it may be tough. Do you have any practical experience in the CJ field? If you do, that would help you considerably in landing a teaching job. Just a degree in a discipline is usually not enough anymore.

 

You either develop a thick skin pretty quickly or you don't last. I was good at it; I even opted to stay in that dept. when the opportunity arose to transition into an inbound customer service dept., because we got Sundays and holidays off (can't call) and got paid commission on top of hourly/salary. I was later promoted to a supervisor's position, but I just couldn't see being an old man looking back on my life with my only accomplishment having been that I sold TV to people.

That will be an issue, I'm sure. I have no such experience and can't imagine how I ever will; I doubt they're likely to hire a wheelchair division at the local police department any time soon. I was originally studying Criminal Behavioral Analysis at Mountain State, which I intended to transition into a certification as a behavioral profiler, but that is shot now. Maybe I could still salvage that by getting an 18-hour certification in psychology, then getting certified. Either way, I'm reasonably sure I can get a spot with the local Tier 2 school as I still have an in with people up there. Even if it's just 1-2 classes per semester, I'm hoping *THAT* experience can be leveraged into other online adjuncting jobs.

 

As you and I both know, it always boils down to who you know. If you have an "in" with some people, your chances would be better. However, why don't you do a turnabout and go for some of the higher demand careers? Do you have any interest in accounting at all? Surely it would be better than what you are doing and would be something you could look back on with at least some measure of satisfaction. The thing about accounting degrees is that you can almost always find a job with one and your disability probably wouldn't hinder you very much. In fact, I know that the IRS actively seeks out disabled individuals with accounting experience and that's a pretty sweet gig. My good buddy has been an IRS man for many years and has had a good life because of it. Just food for thought.

I admire you for sticking out a tough job and rising to the top despite adversity. You have my respect.

By the way, here's why your posts don't show up right away: http://www.degreeinfo.com/general-distance-learning-discussions/35100-new-users-ask-where-did-my-posts-go.html

 

Some background: the local Tier 2 has 3 full-time faculty -- 1 with a JD (the dept. chair) and 2 asst. professors with MS degrees + experience. Every adjunct I've ever seen teach there had a Master's, and many had only maybe a year of practical experience. One was a JD who hadn't even passed the bar exam yet.

Did I mention it's a very rural area with only 1600 or so students?

 

Sounding better and better. Best of luck with it.

 

I wouldn't mind a switch, but not to Accounting. LOL! I hate math. My initial jump into CJ years ago was intended as a jumping-off point to law school, but there are none in my area and moving is no longer an option due to family responsibilities. I considered getting a JD online and psychology is another possibility, but the problem is that I live in a state where it's currently impossible to get a license to practice either law or psych if you got the degree online. :/

 

You can probably work for a private probation company that doesn't require a law enforcement certification. You might also work as a background investigator for companies like US Investigations Investigations|Litigation Support|Federal Security Solutions. If you're wanting to be a CJ professor you probably need to go one of the better traditional PhD programs after you finish with APUS, although if you didn't like the research methods class you will probably hate getting a PhD.

 

Yes, the qualitative methods will be awful if you can't stand math.

 

I imagine that I will absolutely hate getting my Ph.D., but I'm willing to grind it out if it helps me attain my goals. Oddly enough, it wasn't doing research that I hated, but, rather, reading about how to do research and logging into monotonous weekly chat "classes" where we spent 3 hours talking about doing research. LOL!

As far as being a CJ professor, I'm perfectly happy just adjuncting. If you can believe it, in the rural area where I live, it's possible to live really well on only $20k-$25k/year as a single guy with no kids -- $35k-$45k is pretty comfy for families. I know lawyers only making around $55k/year with country club memberships. My cousin is an OR nurse and her hubby is a cable company executive; they have two boys -- 1 in college, 1 a teen -- and they own their home, have a pool, drive new cars every 2 years, and take numerous vacations every year + own a piece of a beach time-share, making about $85k between them.

 

Thank you, btw. I never even thought of something like that.

 

Dang! Would you like a new neighbor? :smile: Where I live in Orange County, CA, it is the opposite end of that scale. Really expensive to live here, especially at the beach where I live.

 

Sure! But I doubt you'd wanna trade your beach for rural Appalachia, dude. I have to drive 40 minutes to get to a movie theater.

 

Hmmm. Beautiful countryside, no crowds, no smog, lower cost of living vs. not getting to surf anymore. Tough call. :smile:

 

Here is a good discussion / list of things to do to get adjunct work -

http://www.degreeinfo.com/online-dl-teaching/42634-becoming-online-adjunct.html#post413840

 

Thank you.

Another thing I hope I have going for me that I forgot to mention before was that same Tier 2 school I've been talking about actually hired an acquaintance a few years ago to teach a weekend 100-level Intro class, and she only has a BS and one other certification. Granted, I think they only did that because they were in a bind, but still...

And I think I'll definitely add getting an 18-hour Grad cert. in psychology to my plans, because I just checked and there's another little 2-year community college only about 45 min. away that offers 100- and 200-level psych classes online that I could teach.

 

I grew up in rural Appalachia. You can definitely live well in many parts of the mountains for very little money. I used to have to drive 30 minutes just to get to a place where I could buy some shoes.

 

I lived in NJ (near the Lincoln Tunnel), Queens, Tampa, Jacksonville, Charlotte, and Denver...a place like that sounds kind of nice!