It's already week 4 in Leading Organizational Change and thus marks the turning point for this course. After this week I will have 8 weeks left of school before everything is wrapped up at Ashford for good. I know I probably am starting to get a little repetitive about this stuff but you have to understand that the reality that it's almost over has not quite sunk in yet. I feel almost like I'm trying to convince a reluctant believer.
I've also been perusing the job market a bit just to see what's out there. So far it looks like in order to facilitate a career change I might have to take a slight pay cut initially, something that I'm not excited about but that is reasonably understandable.
Honestly if I can find something within 10 minutes of my house I'll save over $300+ in gas per month, so that's a consideration, not to mention dropping the hassle of driving a 45+ minute commute to work every day and I refuse to accept any job that requires me working nights, weekends and holidays again. Forget it. If I have to work that type of schedule again I might as well stick with law enforcement since I'm already comfortable with that type of work. So I guess I'm already starting to form my job criteria in my head, what I'm looking for next.
Two fields that really seem to demand MBAs in my area are in IT and Accounting/Finance. I've been down the IT road before and aside from constantly trying to learn new technology, reading white papers, being considered overhead and getting laid off every six months it wouldn't be too bad of a field. Maybe the “dot com” bust just soured me on the whole experience, I don't know. I might consider it again but it'd have to be from a management angle or at the very least a project management angle.
I'm still working on that LSU Certificate in Accounting to see if that looks like the kind of work I could do. I know that accountants generally have a nice 9-5 schedule with weekends and holidays off and in my area are handsomely compensated for their efforts. However if during the course of this certificate program I discover that I do not enjoy that type of work I won't consider it. A valuable skill to have regardless of what I do, but that doesn't mean I want to do it for a living. To me it's like knowing how to change a flat, great when you need to but who wants to do it every day all day?
So I guess I'm in the “what do I want to do when I grow up phase” right now.