I’m trying to get a part-time gig teaching at the local community college. Basically, I’m looking to retire, but I need something to do. or I will rot. And I like to teach, and think I’d be good at it.
I spoke to the woman hiring there, and she agreed that I’m qualified, but said it’s really hard for her to hire anyone who doesn’t have a master’s degree. She suggested I look for the cheapest, easiest on-line degree I could find, so that I (and she) could tick that box.
Ideally, it would be a useful degree in teaching, and not just ticking a box. And she actually had a lot of advice about what to look for in a useful degree, too.
But I have no idea where to start looking, and I suspect that if I do a google search, I will get directed to a bunch of predatory programs that are neither cheap nor useful. So I thought I’d try asking here.
Perhaps look into a public online university, such as Western Governors University, Empire State University, Charter Oak State College or Arizona State University Online, rather than one of the private, possibly predatory ones like the University of Phoenix.
This is less of a recommendation and more of a suggestion for possible research, if you get the distinction. SNHU (Southern New Hampshire University) apparently has online degree programs these days.
I mention it only because my mother was in a somewhat similar position many years ago - she had the skills and the chops (plus an R.N. with a specialty in psychiatric nursing) but needed a masters. She went to SNHU because it was close by and relatively inexpensive. She actually ended up liking her coursework quite a bit!
Obviously things could change a lot in 40 years, but I still have residual positive feelings toward SNHU because of the positive impact they had on my mother’s career.
Look into Penn State World Campus. It really is Penn State and you get the exact same diploma as students at University Park get.