Higher education is an excellent way to prepare you for your future career but finding the right degree and understanding the full range of what you can do with it is another story altogether. Every degree typically has one obvious career choice, but that is far from the be-all-and-end-all of your options.
A master’s in education is for more than those looking to head a school. It is for more than those who want to work in the educational department in government. Though these are two of the most popular options, you can work in so many industries and put what you have learned with that MA in education to help students from all walks of life.
What Does a Masters in education Prepare You For?
Despite common belief, a master’s in education does not prepare you to be a teacher. To become a teacher, you need to specifically take either an additional test or pursue a different avenue to become a qualified teacher. The rules on what you need will differ from country to country, yes, but the point is that a master’s in education is not something you need if you want to become an educator.
It is, instead, something designed to help you secure a career and make a difference at levels above teaching. This gives you greater influence over a larger number of students of various ages and can help improve the quality of education so that it is more accessible, informative, and understandable for future generations.
You could focus on educational leadership, for example, or focus on core curriculum subjects like language and literacy. You could aim to become an advocate and focus on special education needs.
Both traditional and MA education distance learning options teach you methodologies and shape the future of education. With such a scope, you have plenty of unique career opportunities ahead of you.
Education Administrator
Education administrators work to set out goals and implement the strategies necessary to reach said goals within any educational environment. This can be in schools, colleges, universities, and any other learning environment (including prisons and rehabilitation centers).
Instructional Designer
Instructional designers work to create and design course materials, like handouts, presentations, and other learning equipment that teachers can use to help their students understand the material in fun, innovative ways. This is a particularly great choice for those who are visual and want to help improve the quality of education using a multi-media approach.
Educational Consultant
Consultants work independently to help organizations, schools, NGOs, and more to improve multiple aspects of their teaching approach. You may be there to find problems, find solutions, or lead a new project.
Learning Director
Learning directors work to improve the teaching practices of the teachers that work underneath them. However, knowing the information is not enough, and there are many strategies that teachers can use to help more students understand and engage in the curriculum given to them. It is your job as a learning director to create strategies that teachers can take to their own classrooms.
Curriculum Developer
Every year the curriculum is tweaked and adjusted. Sometimes subjects are taken away or put back in. It is always being adjusted and rearranged to fit budget constraints and improve the quality of education – and that is on a regular day. If new information has come to light or if today’s leading theories have changed from the past, you will work on updating the curriculum.
Education Advocate
What if you are wondering what can I do with a masters in special education? While the obvious answer is to become a special education teacher, this might not be the best fit for everyone. If this is the case, a career as an Educational Advocate may be the path for you. Advocates work to give voices to those who are commonly overlooked, especially in education. From improving the physical spaces of schools to accommodate those with physical disabilities to advocating for new tools, research, or strategies to help accommodate those with learning difficulties and other special needs.
Advocate work is hard, but it is also some of the most rewarding work you can do. Without advocates, civil rights would not be where it is today, and without future advocate work, it cannot and will not progress.
Policy Maker
Policymakers work to improve the quality of education. They can do this by improving the curriculum by adjusting the rules that educators must follow and advocating to get new tools and resources in schools. Their work has the greatest reach and impact.
Policymakers could work to either advocate for change, or they can be one of the ones essential in approving that change. This means you can either work in the education department or as a politician with a clear emphasis on education.
Policy Analyst
Policy analysts work to review and monitor existing policies to explore how they are impacting the students and the communities as a whole. Not every new policy is going to be an improvement. Most will need to be tweaked and adjusted to either serve students better or alternatively be more cost-effective.
Be Creative: You Can Work Almost Everywhere!
You can work in schools, NGOs, prison reform, museums, consultancy businesses, and beyond. There are so many places where your work and your expertise will come in handy. Everyone should adopt lifelong learning. It will better individual fulfillment and be instrumental to improving society as a whole.
It will be your job to improve the quality of that education and to help more people reach their full potential by implementing better strategies, policies and advocating for a new focus. Where you do that does not matter. People deserve to learn in an environment that is supportive and with tools that help them get the most out of the material at any stage in their life, meaning that you have almost limitless options on where you can work with a master’s in education.
So whether you are at the beginning of your teaching career, or you have been thinking about the next steps in your career, then a master’s in education is something that you should consider if you want to make changes in the education sector for the future generations.
