The International Schools Review Forum

Is it worth it to take a year off to pursue a master degree? I am 50 year old, single with no dependents. Also, another question for those who already completed their master degree while working. How did you do it? I tried and found it too overwhelming.

Maybe, depends on your situation and what you value and your difficulty of reentry. The global average IT salary is 32K, youre 50, how long more, and where are you going to work to make that back (plus costs of the program)? Youd need to average better than 2K in increased salary over 16 years just to break even for the year of loss income and thats if your only making average coin. If you have to leave an upper tier IS you cant come back to, you may be taking even more of a salary hit if you have to slide back down a tier or lose some very valuable benefits if leaving an IS thats competitive. Unless youre planing on moving into leadership or you have some kind of plan, or your not losing much, its probably not financially worth it.

I just compartmentalized and scheduled my coursework and research and stuck to it, I also prioritized my academics over the job. I changed my ASP, and moved to less intensive marking/grading assessments. I left on time and stuck to my schedule.

I got my master's in ed leadership through the College of New Jersey. They have a few global campuses during the summer. I went to the one in Mallorca. My program took four summers I think, but the good thing is you don't have to do anything during the school year, except for the final year when there was a leadership internship. I don't know about the other programs, but this one was manageable. But it did take four summers, so if you want to complete it more quickly, you would have to take a year off I think. Also, there are a lot of international school teachers, so it's great to make connections with people as well.

https://offsitegrad.tcnj.edu/

Not worth taking a year off with the lost income when there are so many online options for an MA now.

You can find programs where you can get your MA in 3 semesters online, and there are also programs that will let you take an exam at the end rather than write a thesis.

I'm currently working through my M Ed while working. So far I've found it extremely challenging doing both at the same time but manageable.

I did a hybrid program quite awhile ago. 3 weeks on campus, one online course a semester, three weeks on campus, one and two online courses. This was a research masters, so there was a dissertation with all that implies, which leads to a real PhD if I choose to later.

One class a semester was manageable and the one extra class could also be taken as a summer course (instead of two online courses).

All, thanks for all your advices and insights.

TCNJ is also a very expensive program about USD$30K.