I have seen that a lot of schools now offer Graduate Certificates. Has a graduate cert. helped anyone in their career? Just wondering if they are worth time.
My opinion here: They have helped certain people in specific circumstances. I think they offer a bit of resume padding, but they will not replace a degree. If you already have the qualifications for a job, a grad cert can help you look a little more impressive and may give you the edge over someone who is equal otherwise. Experience is the best qualification you can offer though.
I would agree with the above statement, but only with the caveat that this is true mainly for the US. In other countries (e.g. the U.K.), a graduate certificate is often a very useful stand-alone qualification and many use this for career entry/advancement (along with their undergrad degree), without pursuing a masters or PhD.
In my opinion, they also seem very useful to those that already have a masters and want to change focus a bit without tackling a second degree program. They can make sense if the certificate is somehow related to your existing degrees such as MA History/Grad Cert Political Science or Native American Studies, etc. Even an MBA/Grad Cert in Finance works. If you have a MA in History and pick up a certificate in BioChem, I think people are going to be curious about your decision.
I agree, there should be a complement to a degree or experience. I have an MS-ITM and work in healthcare. My graduate certificate is in healthcare risk management. I work in healthcare and manage risk through employee education to reduce patient infection.
No real experience with the question at hand but I have always looked as grad certs as a way to broaden knowledge within ones field of work for example with the counseling degree I am hoping to get I might consider going back at a later time and getting a cert in say addiction studies.
One thing about grad certs ... the requirements to earn them seem to differ wildly. For a Master's, you'd need to earn at least 30 credits, often 33 or 36, sometimes 48 or more (ex, MDiv). But a grad cert may require as little as 9 credits or as many as 24+. Some grad certificates seem to be almost Master's degrees in terms of the amount of work required, while others require relatively little work yet have a similar name. This may be one reason why having one on a resume is surely a good thing, but won't have quite the same impact, because it's difficult for the person looking at the resume to gauge exactly what it means. (Just to clarify: I'm not trying to say grad certs have no value ... I think they have plenty of value! I'm just speculating on why they will sometimes have less perceived value from employers than from the person who earned them.)
I know someone who went through a grad program in some type of Psych discipline but because it was only a 30 hour program they were not eligible for licensure. So they went through a CAGS program (Certificate in Advanced Graduate Study) and that made them eligible for psych licensure. That's a career changing cert.
I looked at a grad certificate from FGCU at it was 21 credits while the MS was only 36 credits (15 credits more). I was also looking at UWF Programs that ranged from 9 to 12 credits. You are right - there is not really a standard but I usually think of 12-18 credits when I hear certificate.
It occurs to me that some who teach in a college or university setting (or perhaps even high school or other schools) may need additional coursework to teach in a certain area and may choose to get the certificate in order to gain the credit hours and also have a boost on the resume rather than just getting the credits.
I just ask because I'm three classes away from finishing my Masters in Emergency Management at Jacksonville State University. I really want to concentrate more in the homeland security field. The program at JSU has a few electives I can take in homeland security topics but I was thinking that maybe a grad certificate in homeland security might help.
I've seen a lot of graduate certificate programs but they offer next to little aid for any of them as people admited to their programs are considered non-credit students.
That is odd because the non-degree seeking take the same classes as degree seeking, or do you mean administrative support?
I believe the poster is referring to financial aid. Typically, certificate programs offer very little (if anything) in financial aid, including federal financial aid, as certificate programs are often ineligible for Title IV funding.
