I’m kinda thinking pursuing my education in Japanese (I’ve already taken four semesters at a local community college) . I was thinking about seeing if I could do school part-time while I work full-time (my boss is fairly flexible as long as I get my hours in) and get a second bachelors degree and then maybe onto a masters. I already have a bachelors degree in engineering from the same university.
Anyone ever gotten a second BA? Since I’ve had all the courses the degree requires except the major ones, would I be able to take exclusively major courses? Surely I wouldn’t have to retake stuff like basic English, math, and science. Also, can you get a BA while you work on getting your masters?
I’m planning to go talk to the admissions folks too but wanted to see what the word here is.
So you want to pursue a BA in Japanese and an MS in engineering I assume. Excellant idea. No reason you shouldn’t be able to do both as long as you have the ability. Do you work for a Japanese firm now? Are they paying for any of your education? Most companies have caps on how much they would cover and I imagine that most would only want to pay for the advanced degree, not the secondary BA.
Nah, I just work for an international engineering firm in Texas. The Japanese is really a recreational hobby for me. Right now, I’m just toying with ways to continue my education for fun. I haven’t decided on getting the masters in engineering yet (although I’m considering it).
I’m not really worried about the funding. If I can find a way to take only a class or two a semester, I can afford it and I can do some creative scheduling at work (looooong lunch breaks, etc.) I’m just really curious about the requirements for second degrees.
Most of the time, all you need to take are the “missing” courses. This makes for a situation where some people can pile on additional BA/BS degrees fairly quickly once they’ve taken enough core classes, or common classes between the degrees. The University after all measures whether you qualify by whether you’ve taken and passed the required courses. For example, my assistant has a dual BS in Engineering and CS, and only had to work an extra year. I know a woman who has a BS in Chem, Biology, and Physics, and ended up only taking 6 years to get the three degrees.
That having been said, it’s always a source of debate whether in the job market 2BA’s = 1MS, or 2BS=1MS…
You’re talking about a master’s in Japanese, right? You might want to see if you can go straight to the master’s with some remedial coursework added onto the normal path.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m thinkin’. I guess I just really need to go talk to the graduate admissions counselor and see what they think. I’m just currently in my “my job is kinda boring and what can I do to keep me motivated” daydream sorta state.
I looked into this when I was considering going back for a biophysomething degree at UW-Madison; since I have an engineering degree with physics and math minors a good deal of the prereqs were already filled, and I’d have basically been taking 4 full time semesters of basic and upper div biology and biochemistry classes. Yikes! They didn’t have any problem crediting me with undergrad classes, except for the fact that for some reason they couldn’t accept my Calc I and II classes; I guess UMKC (where I took them while in high school) didn’t have the same standard of ABET accreditation and while UM-Rolla accepted them just fine other schools wouldn’t . :mad: I was told I could test out of them, though, and just pay a reduced fee or somesuch. I was advised against going directly into a graduate program, as I’d need a significant amount of remedial classes as prereqs to graduate coursework.
I’m not sure what all is involved in a language degree, but I’m guessing that there’s more to it than just mastering the language; probably some significant amount of historical and modern cultural studies (above and beyond slash manga, heh)–you may or may not be able, or indeed, want to, jump straight into a master’s program. I don’t know if you get any kind of tuition reimbursement from your employer, but you might check on how much they compensate for different degrees/programs as well; two jobs ago the company would pay 100% for an MBA but only 50% for a technical Masters or PhD (gobfracking manufacturing company), and the current employer only shells out $2,500/yr unless you know the right person to get one of the coveted and unadvertised fellowships. And they wonder why we’re losing our competitive technical edge. “More MBAs, damnit, that’s what we need!”
Meanwhile, I sit and contemplate all the different, but equally unprofitable programs I’d like to take up. It’s a pity UCLA is on The Other Side; maybe I could get transfered to Redondo Beach…
If you haven’t already, you should check if your university gives out second bachelor degrees at all. Some don’t, maybe because they don’t have room or other reasons. If they do, you usually just have to complete the requirements for the major. Even though the school might not award second BAs, you could still take coursework in Japanese for a while and then apply to a master’s degree program in that language. I would talk to the graduate admissions people to see how much coursework would be considered an appropriate amount of preparation for their graduate program.
Wow. You people are scaring me, talk about the dumbing down of a university education. Mind you it’s happening here too - you can do masters degrees with no research papers and some unis have MBAs that you can knock off in less than a year.