Many employees often choose to go the way of acquiring a degree while keeping their jobs. When it becomes important to further your education while still on the job, the tips below may help.

1. Know Yourself

It will be a grave error to try out things just because other people are doing those same things. Many people are very good at multitasking, for those sort of people, running a private business along with their job combined with the challenge of working towards a masters’ degree may be nothing hard. For some others, combining a simple professional course with their job would reduce them to nervous wrecks and keep them far far from being productive for months. For the second type of individuals many firms would have fired them before they realize it. So know yourself, be sure you are mentally and physically ready for the task ahead before starting out.

2. Know Your Workplace.

I have once worked in a firm where every single second from when you are clocked in to the second when you are clocked out is judiciously monitored. Electronic reports on productivity were sent every one hour, and if your statistics exhibited any sign of dormancy, you get questions to answer. If you work in a firm that does not joke with productivity and you want to get a second degree, then you may have to consider part time or online options before you get yourself sacked or dent badly the record you have worked so hard to keep high and clean.

Some workplaces that are employee conscious may give you the privilege of taking a study leave. Some may even oblige to keep a proportion of your salary coming. If you are blessed to have yourself in this category, grab the opportunity and enjoy it while it lasts.

3. Get as Much Information on the Program as Possible.

It would be a potentially harmful error to just assume that all part time masters’ degree programmes are the same. Many universities allow post-graduate students the flexibility of choosing when and how they hold their lectures, others may not. Some departments may have peculiarities that may not favor your interest while others may so suit you, you’ll wonder if they were tailored just for you. No matter what program you are putting in for, go to the school if possible find out every necessary thing so when you resume, there’ll be no time conflicting issues.

4. Don’t be Fooled that Online Programs Come Cheap.

We are often caught up in the temptation of thinking that, when it comes to further education, going the online way is the easiest. We often think that nobody is monitoring what they do, so they can afford to handle its quality anyhow, much to your favor. I enrolled for one lately and by the time I saw the workload, I wondered if I would have been that interested if I had seen that from the outset.

Many of those online universities have standards as high as that obtainable in standard physical campuses. So be ready for real work, there is no shortcut for it. For those of us who in some ways are not so focused or disciplined as others, you may want to keep away from online programs except you are convinced that you can go through with it, because it would make no sense paying millions of Naira and ending up forsaking everything.

5. Walk the talk.

If it’s time to get a professional course, go get it. If it is time to get a Bachelor degree, go get it. If this is the time to go get a masters’ degree, then launch out and go get it. Don’t sit there all day telling how that in no distant time you will get one while time is flying and you have done nothing.

One of the most frustrating things that can happen in a workplace is watching a twenty-something year old employed yesterday advance to become your boss despite the decades of experience you have acquired not to mention years you have labored serving the company. The pain is even worse if you had a chance to improve yourself but decided to do nothing.

source: Ngcareers - jobs and careers