Evaluating Schools and Careers

You’ve seen the whole range of alternative career schools. You know what’s in all the sections. You understand what the more obscure training programs are teaching. And you’re probably a bit overwhelmed. Not only do you not know which of the schools would be best for you, you haven’t even decided on one career. Don’t worry, we will help you identify the best career for you and evaluate the merits of specific schools.

Your first task is obvious – ask for more information from each of the schools that interests you. Although it would make sense to avoid filling out requests online by pinpointing a career before getting information from schools that will ultimately be inappropriate, the information is FREE and can lead you to dismiss or focus on one career with a minimum of fuss. And many of the schools send information with helpful career tips – how large the market is, what and where the possible jobs are, and so on – that will help you narrow down your career search.

Also, the brochures, catalogs, and information sheets range from glossy, beautiful works of art to what looks like the final stand of mimeograph technology; you can get a fairly accurate feeling for a school from its marketing material. Still, some well-known and highly respected programs send information that appears to have been designed by a drunk baboon wielding a charred twig, so this should only be the beginning of your research.

Choosing a Career…

First, determine exactly for which careers the various schools prepare you. You may think this is completely obvious: cooking school to be a chef, nursing school to be a registered nurse. But that’s not always the case. For example, nursing school programs can teach everything from being a school nurse, a medical assistant, basic first aid for parents; cooking trainings cover being a personal chef, a cooking teacher, a nutritional consultant, and working for a caterer, restaurant, or health center. As you pore over the catalogs you receive, tease out all the potential careers, not just the most obvious. Discard the uninteresting and otherwise inappropriate careers, and you have a list of your possible future vocational fields. Do a little research on all of them.

The most important questions you want to answer are: Will you like working in the field? And will you make a living working in the field?

Predicting Job Satisfaction

You like animals. You like design. You like computers. You like healthcare. You like working with your hands. Talk to people who are already doing whatever it is you’re considering being trained to do. Most people will be flattered that you’re so interested in what they do, and will be happy to spend some time talking with you. Then, if it’s practical, ask if you can spend a couple of hours working for them (for free, of course). We can’t recommend this highly enough. Nothing will give you a better sense of whether or not you’ll like a particular career than working, if only briefly, in that field.

Researching Income Potential

After identifying a potentially satisfying career, you have to determine if it’s lucrative enough to support you in the manner to which you would to become accustomed. There are people making a living in all sorts of careers, but some are geared toward a comfortable living, and some are geared toward a more white-knuckled, pray-the-rent-check-doesn’t-bounce lifestyle. Although it’s true that what you get of a career depends on what you put in – and people do make surprisingly good incomes in goofy-sounding careers- there are more and less profitable vocations. Again, the best place to start is with free brochures from vocational and technical schools.

In our career info section, you will find the answers to the most important questions:

  • The job market. Are there more jobs than job hunters? What does an entry-level person get paid?
  • The possibility of self-employment. What does it cost to get started? How difficult is it to find clients? How much can you expect to make in the first few years? Can you start a business part-time?
  • Advice for additional income. How do people in the field make more money? If they were starting over, what would they focus on to help them get a good job or attract clients?

You may find that, while it’s true that practitioners make $60 an hour, they tend to bill only 20 hours a week. It’s not a professional football player’s salary, but it’s a great living, nonetheless.

By the time you finish your research, you’ll most likely discover you’ve already made a decision. At some point, consciously or otherwise, you probably identified one or two careers that are clearly your favorites. Congratulations!