Ok, so I'm incredibly bored and frustrated with my lame restaurant job and I'm trying to find inspiration to find a decent job (~40 hrs/week, decent pay, modest benefits). I know they're starting to come back around and I would like to get one sooner rather than later. I realize that going back to school and acquiring more skills is almost definitely something I need to be looking into but I'm having trouble deciding what skills are most employable/useful. I just want a list of good certifications/skills that can lead to solid employment. I went to State for 2.5 years and got a lot of elective stuff out of the way so if I go back to school I pretty much have to only take core classes to graduate. I just wasn't mature enough to do it right the first time. Honestly, State would cost more than I'd like to pay right now but Wake Tech would be very doable. I'm pretty good at math and I work pretty hard if I care about what I'm doing. It's seems like I'm rambling so just start throwing ideas at me.

And yes, I already looked for all the jobs where I just get to sit around and smoke weed all day. har har

12/22/2010 8:21:01 PM

how are your language skills?

if they're good, learn chinese. seriously. well, only if you want to live in asia but you can make a lot of money and pretty much write your ticket with any large company

what kind of work gets you excited and engaged?

if you're not interested in china then learn spanish.

12/22/2010 8:40:57 PM

If you can learn to supress your gag reflex then you'll be set.

12/22/2010 9:12:21 PM

Not great, but not bad. I haven't spent a whole lot of time studying languages. I can't really pin down anything that I'm super passionate about. Politics or a job pertaining to sports. I enjoy helping people. I can be pretty creative when I really put my mind to it, I just haven't ever been really motivated in that regard. Anything that would be challenging and not monotonous on like a week to week, month to month basis. I'm trying not to be too picky while also narrowing things down.

Basically I'm looking for something that, if I went back to school, would take me < 2 years to finish and would be a highly desirable skill in a job with a future.

I would also appreciate hearing general experiences in obtaining new education in your mid-20s, career changes, first jobs etc.

[Edited on December 22, 2010 at 9:14 PM. Reason : ^ tried to post in Lounge to avoid stuff like that. im supr srs guize]

12/22/2010 9:13:35 PM

if you're good at biology stuff you could be a nurse

they make decent money and i think you could finish the schooling in 2 years

plus if you like it you could do more school and make more money as you move up the ladder

and with all these baby boomers getting old, you know nursing is going to be in demand

12/22/2010 10:24:49 PM

Wake Tech has an agreement with ECU where you can get a 2 yr applied associates to start with (a money making degree), and then transfer it toward a BS - and several programs are online. The applied associates used to be terminal degrees, and if you wanted a BS you had to start over. Now you can pick up where you left off, and who knows, maybe some of your NCSU credits will transfer ....

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-admin/news/poe/2007/407/agreement.cfm

12/22/2010 11:26:38 PM

you probably can't finish nursing school in two years.

pretty much any spring class at waketech will be full at this point.

most of the the classes you took at state aren't going to help you get a degree from waketech.

most programs at waketech are technical; if you want something in "politics or a job pertaining to sports" you'd be better off going to a university

12/23/2010 12:54:37 AM

If you got a lot of stuff out of the way at State then go back and finish any degree.

A lot of jobs just want a college degree; doesn't matter what degree. Just pick something that you like, such as political science or parks, recreation, and tourism, and go from there. If you go with poli sci, I'll be glad to help you with picking out classes/professors that are low work/easy grade. If you take the right classes, it's not all that difficult, and assuming you have 45 hours, you could probably finish in 2 years. The dept also sends out emails almost weekly about internships, so you could probably get one of those and segue into a job after graduation.

12/23/2010 3:44:42 AM

I just kind of said those as a reply to things that interest me. I'm not really holding out for those things in terms of a career although at this point in my life I've worked enough to realize having a job you're passionate about is a good way to not hate your job in 20 years.

But I'm also looking for certain kinds of certifications/licenses that don't necessarily require more formal education in order to acquire.

12/23/2010 7:01:28 AM

You can get certified as a mechanic, electrician, plumber and/or barber by basically taking a class and paying for the test. You get your cert if you pass and you can be your own boss.

12/23/2010 1:36:35 PM

keep an eye on DOT positions, a lot of the technician level jobs have pretty good salaries when you advance a few levels and training will be made available to you. a family friend of mine is a tech 3 doing survey stuff and makes pretty decent money (at least for a job with little formal education requirement)

12/23/2010 1:41:27 PM

you don't have to have a degree for those positions but you're probably not going to be competitive with the people that do unless you have previous experience

12/23/2010 3:26:16 PM

Also a no on the nursing school; I have a science degree already and I still had to take 1.5 years of part-time pre-reqs so I'd hit the nursing classes running at a university.

Even an Associates in Nursing requires more than 2 years.

12/25/2010 11:56:45 AM

best bet is to get back in school and finish up a degree, then figure out sorta what you want to do... even if you have to take some loans to go back...

12/26/2010 1:06:22 AM