Online College Degrees and Career Choices

Making your career choice can be one of the toughest decisions in your life. A Teaching Career offers a well-defined path. An Accounting Career comes with many choices, from audit services to taxation. And as a Computer Science graduate, your career path is both exciting and with good earning potential. If you are interested in healthcare, you can choose to be a Registered Nurse and enjoy the safety net that the healthcare career provides. In short, it is hard to know which field will bring you satisfaction over a long career. This selection of articles describing popular careers is intended to provide you with a helpful start in thinking about which career may be best for you.

Accounting Careers

After getting an Online Accounting Degree from our online colleges, you will begin a satisfying and lucrative career in accounting. Our online accounting degree prepares you for a wide range of services, from accounting, auditing, to taxation and business services. Many accountants opt for private practice, joining established accountancy companies and partnerships, or becoming self-employed and starting their own consultancy. Others are employed in the financial management departments of corporate businesses, working as management accountants and analyzing financial information, and doing cost management, budgeting, forecasting and other information handling jobs to aid executives in decision making processes.

In order to enter the accountancy profession you will need an accountancy degree or a degree in a related subject, which you can achieve by signing up an online accounting degree from one of our accredited online colleges; and then gain professional recognition through certification or licensure. This usually takes the form of taking the exams for a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) awarded by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. These licenses have to be renewed at intervals, involving continuing professional education.

Pay is good. In 2002 the median annual earnings of accountants and auditors were $43,500, according to the US Department of Labor. Starting salaries for graduates are high, and experience will see salaries increasing fast. The top 10% of accountants earn over $73,000.

Increasingly accountants are taking on consultancy in business areas related to accounting, such as some information systems consultancy, some limited legal areas and business organization. This is an interesting and evolving profession, so take at our online accounting degree offered by chooseyourcollege.com

Teaching Careers

An Online Teaching degree is increasingly popular and much sought-after. An online teaching degree prepares you for a satisfying and worthwhile career, with a well-defined career path and the opportunity to pursue a career anywhere in the US.

Teaching is set to be a really good career to enter in the next ten years, as many teachers are reaching retirement age and there will be opportunities that have not previously been available. As a teacher’s job is to prepare students to take their place in the future workforce, the changes in the economy are making teaching a challenging and interesting job. The need to keep abreast of new developments associated with the emerging information economy means that teachers need to be involved in continuing education, and the ways of bringing the information economy into the classroom.

Most school teachers need at least a bachelor degree to start teaching, plus an approved teacher education course in order to become licensed as a teacher. Some teachers complete their bachelor degree in a specialist subject and then do a graduate teacher training course, and others do their degree in education, allowing them to become licensed after their first degree.

Enrollments in school are set to increase slowly, according to the US Department of Labor, fuelling growth in the overall teacher numbers, and this plus the retirements that are due means that promotion prospects are good. Salaries are around the $42,000 mark, with the top 10% earning up to $65,000.

Sign up and get an online teaching degree from one of our accredited online colleges today.

HR Careers

Finding the most appropriate person for any job within an organisation is one of the most important tasks of management, but as an organisation gets bigger, it becomes impossible for the senior management to keep in touch with all employees. At this point, Human Resources departments start to appear, to make the link between the two situations. However, Human Resource management fulfils more functions than this, also looking after legal issues to do with the employment of people, health and safety, payroll and benefits, and some strategic planning issues. Increasingly they are also involved with training and development issues for employees.

Employers usually seek college graduates to fill places in the Human Resources department, preferring people who have majored in human resources, personnel administration, or industrial and labor relations. However some will consider applicants with business studies or a technical background, depending on the nature of the organisation. Increasingly there is a move to look for people with graduate degrees, who have also done some work in law or industrial relations.

Prospects for growth and promotion are good in the next ten years, and earnings are around the $59,000 mark for human resource managers according to the US Department of Labor. This is a good career to enter with lots of different specialties to gain experience in, so entering at the right level is a must.

Marketing Careers

Marketing is the keystone of any company’s successful commercial activities. The marketing department identifies potential markets for the company’s products, researches the market’s key features and motivations, modifies products and prices and measures customer satisfaction. The department also keeps an eye on trends that indicate the need for new products to start the product life cycle all over again.

The job of a company’s marketing manager is to develop the detailed marketing strategy that will keep the firm at the forefront of its market. Working with the marketing manager, the product development managers and market research managers look after the key elements of the marketing strategy. In some companies, advertising, public relations and sales will all come under the remit of the marketing manager.

Most companies want marketing employees to have a background of at least a Bachelor’s degree, and preferably in marketing, business administration with a marketing bias or a related subject. Courses in marketing will give the skills and knowledge that the marketing manager needs to fulfill his tasks. Certification is also an attractive option, in marketing or a related subject. This can increase a candidate’s attractiveness in a very competitive market.

College graduates with marketing experience who are creative and have strong communications skills are best set to do well in this highly competitive job market. Earnings are around the $71,000 mark according to the US Department of Labor, with the best paid managers earning in excess of $130,000.

Computer Science Career

Computer Scientists work as theorists, researchers and inventors. They are very necessary to the computing industry at present, as new technologies are needed to improve the interfaces between the internet and computing, and new ideas come along to make the most of interactions between technologies.

Many computer scientists work in academic institutions as researchers and developers, pushing forward the frontier of hardware and software design and applications, working on materials science to improve capabilities and performance, and looking at theoretical algorithms to give new applications and new technologies. Some work on multi-disciplinary projects, for it is on the interface between known disciplines where many of the new ideas arise. Some computer scientists work in private industry to apply theory, developing new software and hardware techniques and applications, and developing known technologies to integrate with present products.

Computer scientists are usually highly qualified, entering the early stages of this profession with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science, and often taking research degrees in a chosen area of computer science. This is a challenging and fascinating area to work in, and many computer scientists can progress to become project managers, and take part in departmental management of the technology process.

Earnings are good, with median salaries being in the area of $70,000 in the year 2000 according to the US Department of Labor. There is always demand for talented and hardworking computer scientists, and this is likely to increase in the next ten years as computer technology and the impact of networking creates new and different classifications of products.

Criminal Justice Careers

A career as a criminal justice lawyer can be both interesting and rewarding. Lawyers in criminal justice usually act as advocates, either on behalf of the defendants in a criminal action, or as prosecutors for the government. As advocates they present evidence and argue their client’s case in court. Sometimes they act as advisors, pointing out the consequences of particular actions to clients who need to clarify the legal consequences of their action.

Criminal justice lawyers either work in private practice, being retained by individuals who have been charged with crimes as a trail lawyer. Some work for either State government in the State attorneys general department, or in the US Department of Justice and other agencies.

Criminal justice Lawyers have to be licensed by the State or Federal courts. An applicant has to graduate from an accredited school – usually by the ABA (American Bar Association) with a four year degree. They then have to study for three years in a Law School, and pass the required Bar examinations. Competition for places at law school is often intense, and only the better graduates are taken. May schools include practice trials and students and projects under the supervision of practicing lawyers, giving students opportunity to experience situations they will be faced with when they are working.

Earnings for criminal justice lawyers are good, median earnings for lawyers being around $88,000 according o the US Department of Labor.

Video Game Designer

The first question to answer is what exactly does a games designer do, apart from dress in black? Well, the answer varies from job to job, but basically they have ideas for video games, and are able to work them out in a logical fashion, present these ideas clearly and concisely both verbally and on paper. To this end designers have to be able to at least give a thumb-nail graphical representation, or alternatively be able to produce mock-up screen shots, maple menu layouts, flowcharts and other graphical content.

Although as a designer it is unlikely that programming will be required, in order to be able to make the most of the technology it is increasingly necessary to know a reasonable amount about software and hardware platforms. Games designers work in teams, so teamwork and the ability to be able to both give and take constructive criticism is necessary, as well as a reasonable knowledge of the functions surrounding games production – sales, marketing, programming, artistic design, and legal and financial issues.

It is possible to get into games design without a good background, but it is incredibly difficult. There are many more wannabes than there are places, so the better qualified are much more likely to get a look in. There are some really good Games Design degrees available, which will give the knowledge and skills that are necessary to succeed in this competitive business.

Earnings are about the same as graphic designers, around $34,000 according to the US Department of Labor. Obviously if your ideas take off and you have negotiated the right deal it is possible to make much more money, but this only happens rarely.