Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jlb]

So, I'm contemplating my return to Canada in the next couple years or so. Except, the only things I have going for me in terms of career are:

1. Scuba Diving instructor cert (I will have in a couple months), but no full-time work in that field as of yet.

2. The ESL thing, except I have no formal qualifications in this.

My education background is in counselling/psych/religious studies. I don't really want to work in a Church/community service/human service organization. Too much stress for low pay.

So, I'm considering doing an online undergrad degree program from Athabasca University, probably in Health Care Admin, or Financial Services. Has anyone done a degree through this uni? Is it well-respected in Canada? Would it be reasonable to assume that I could finish the degree, and get a reasonable job within 6 months of returning to Canada?

[tea_time]

Athabasca U. is a small university set up to serve the needs of Northern Albertans and offers many certificate courses. It's also assossciated with the UofA.

Haven't tried any of their long distance course, but I am sure they are fine. It isn't a diploma mill like the University of Phoenix.
The health care admin degree sounds interesting- I wonder how much competition you would face from RNs looking to switch up their career.

The best thing to do is see if they have a mentoring program. See if anyone taking these degrees actually got a leg up in their industry.

Good luck sounds like a good plan to repatriate back home.

[oldtactics]

Athabasca is considered a standard university in Canada - Your degree has equal worth as those at brick and mortar schools, and you can use it to get into grad school if your marks are good enough. It's certainly not as highly regarded as McGill or U of T, but neither are 90% of the other unis in Canada.

If you already have a degree, it might be worthwhile to look into their MA programs rather than doing another undergrad, unless you're set on changing fields.

[riverboy]

Athabasca is a well respected school throughout Canada, with their MBA programme being one of the top programmes in the country.

I started the Masters in Distance Education and was surprised at the workload.

My sister took a few undergrad courses while getting her BED and she found them much more difficult than her regular courses.

Be prepared for a lot of work.

[Skyblue]

I took some courses with them and found them pretty lightweight. The key to programs like this is screening. Without excluding the thickos, you lose academic rigor, which is what I think happens with AU. There are no real rankings of their quality because they don't participate in most of the surveys that rank other Canadian universities (e.g. Macleans) or international universities (e.g. the Times).

Now plenty of well-known, respected Canadian universities offer distance programs in various fields (often graduate programs). Everyone from UBC to Brock to McMaster to Lakehead have some. Only a few are sticking solely to traditional delivery methods for all but "continuing education" (i.e. non-credit) programs (e.g. U. of T.) So I would, in a nutshell, do your homework before selecting a program. The fees at AU are as steep as anywhere else.

[ThePoet]

I completed my MDE from Athabasca University which was a springboard to the following:

a) I am in a Ph.D. program in educational technology at present.
b) I am an instructional designer at a polytechnic in Canada and the work is challenging, but very satisfying, and the pay and benefits are great.

Here is something also to consider about AU (taken directly from their website):
"In 2006, AU became the first Canadian public university to receive accreditation in the United States, through the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), one of six regional organizations in the U.S. that accredits universities. No other public Canadian university holds this level of foreign accreditation" - http://www2.athabascau.ca/aboutau/accreditation.php

I've taken both undergraduate courses there, and of course the master's program, and I can tell you the rigor is on par with other programs I've been involved with as an instructional designer.

I don't agree with tea time who classified it as a small university (Thier present enrollment is around 45,000 students per year), and while it was originally set up to serve Alberta's northern community, it has now reached around the world. And a rebuttal to Skyblue is that while the tuition is as steep, AU also includes all course materials (texts, readings, software) in the price of your tuition, which I have never encountered anywhere else.

Poet

[tea_time]

[el_magico]

[recessiontime]

How much dept do you have OP?

[mises]

[el_magico]

[mises]

[el_magico]

[mises]

An MBA after esl is probably a mistake. An mba itself, outside of the very good schools, is probably a mistake. If the OP is really committed to more university, she/he needs to learn a marketable and protected skill. The MBA is usually a generalist degree*. If you have a general liberal arts degree + esl experience + a generalist business degree, the employment market is going to be scary.

This is darn true:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcoDV0dhWPA

(* some schools like Laruier have MBA programs that follow the CMA curriculum, which is a great improvement over an MBA with a concentration in "international business" or strategy or HR etc).

[el_magico]