Further Studies
Several months after graduation, I’ve been thinking about the prospects of taking further studies. My options are:
Another Degree
Another college degree like Management, Psychology or Economics would be a welcome addition to one’s current skill set. The extra units and focus on a certain subject matter would surely help me in my real world work. However, if it’s going to take me another three or four years, my MIS degree might be obsolete already once I graduate. Moreover, that would mean losing three years worth of opportunities. A trade that I don’t think is worth it.
Technology-specific Classes
I’ve been checking out short courses offered for specific technologies out there. Something like a crash-course program for stuff that’s rarely taught in prep school - COBOL, J2EE or Palm Programming and the likes. However, I couldn’t find any decent courses out there ~ or I haven’t looked at all places for such courses. While there are a lot of training materials online, I’m looking for ways to minimize my overhead in terms of time spent learning the material. I wouldn’t mind paying up just to kickstart such training.
Certifications
Bruce Schenier, security guru who wrote Applied Cryptography, recently discussed the relevance of certifications. From the discussion and comments of people, certifications are by no means indicative of expertise. It merely means that one can speak the language of the certification in question. It’s like your grade in school, you might net high grades, but that doesn’t mean right away that you’re good in the subject - at the least, it means that you can talk about the subject.
Will certifications get you hired? It depends on the HR person. Some HRs screen by basis of experience, certification or both.
Should one get certifications? It depends on what kind of career you are building. One cannot just get certification after certification if it doesn’t build up on one’s career strengths. Some HRs actually frown upon people with a zillion certifications. Being a Jack of all trades and Master of None can indicate the lack of experience and expertise in a specific discipline that a company is looking for. Lastly, certifications expire. So, one has to keep taking the tests every once in a while to update their portfolio.
Masters
In a recent issue of BOSS magazine, I read an article about the best MBAs in the world. It turns out that the Philippines houses one of the best and affordable MBAs in the Asia-Pacific - Asian Institute of Management (AIM). Good Job! While this is the option that I favor most, it still costs an arm and a leg if I’m going to pay for it myself right now. In addition to that, it requires several years of full-time employment. As such, I don’t think this is an option for me in the near future.
With so many options, advantages and disadvantages to weigh, this will take a bit of head work to sort through. Maybe I should just take guitar lessons. Or swimming classes. Or even photography classes. Hehe. That would still be fun.