How I Got My Masters While Teaching Full-Time

During my first year of teaching, I looked at where I was in my career and decided to go for my Masters. In one year, I got my Masters with a 4.0 grade point average. It was hard, but I’ve found some tips that helped myself and my husband get our Masters while teaching full time.

Importance of Getting Masters

I was blown away at how little money I was making. It hurt. I was only receiving my salary, no extra stipends or coaching pay. At lunch, when my coworkers talked about their kids, I always thought “How can you afford to have kids?!”

If you don’t know how teacher pay works, it goes up with experience and education. Teachers are constantly doing professional development to better themselves as teachers and move up the pay scale. In Washington, earning my Masters gets you a $10,000 pay increase in your salary! Along with the pay increase, you also better yourself by learning new strategies or better understanding you content, depending on what degree you choose.

Research Programs

The most important step to set yourself up for success is researching different programs and finding the one for you. There are so many options and paths out there, below is a list to consider as you research:

1. Online school, face-to-face, or a hybrid program?
2. What do you want to learn about? Your content, a different career choice, or strategies to teach?
3. Does location matter to you? Do you want to attend the graduation ceremony – cause being local can help with that!
4. Cost – it’s going to be expensive, but it will usually pay for itself in two to three years. But still look at the cost cause you gotta pay it back!
5. Scholarships? Pays for books? What specials or perks do they have going on?

For my Masters program, I wanted something fully online that was made for teachers. I also wanted to focus on Curriculum and Instruction, with an emphasis in Social Studies Education. So, I chose Concordia University – Portland (which is now closed, awkward), which was just a couple hours south of me, so I was able to attend my graduation! When I applied, they were waiving application fees, paying for books for the entire program, and if I completed the interview process within 3 days, I got a $3,000 scholarship! Sign me up! But it still was more debt to add to my total, but it’ll pay for itself in a couple years!

My husband recognized that he should probably go and get his Masters. So he researched programs, all online, and decided on Concordia University – Irvine. He loves sports, especially high school sports, and is already a coach for both football and baseball. So for his degree, he did Coaching and Athletic Administration. With that degree, he could eventually become an Athletic Director, but right now, he likes being full-time in the classroom. He didn’t want to attend graduation and was fine with it being a little farther away. His did cost nearly twice the amount of mine though – ouch. Mainly because his program was longer, so more semesters to pay!

Tips to Rock Your Masters:

1. Time management.

Make sure you find the time to do your homework and reading. Maybe it’s spending an hour before or after school. Maybe it’s an hour after dinner. Finding time and blocking it off for your Masters work is super important to being successful! You gotta put the time in, but where you do is up to you!

2. When they work, you work.

When I was writing papers and really stressed, when my students had work time, I had work time. Did I do this every day? Of course not, but I made sure that if I needed to spend a little extra time writing that paper, if my students had a work day, so did I!

3. Skim your readings!

You do not have to know your readings word for word! As long as you get main ideas and a couple of supporting arguments, you’re set. If I read my readings as thoroughly as I would have liked, I would never have time to write my papers, teach, and live life too!

4. Work ahead.

If you can, work ahead a little bit! My classes were each 5 weeks long and they laid out all the assignments from day 1. Because of that, I was able to go ahead if I knew the next week was going to be crazy. Take advantage of any flexibility that your program has, it’s there for a reason!

5. Keep one day free.

Always make sure to give yourself one day that is school-free. No homework, no reading, no grading, nothing! Mine was and still is Saturday. Giving your mind a day off from everything is good to, not only just relax a little bit, but also prevent burnout. Go for a hike, eat out at your favorite restaurant, binge-watch Netflix! Something not related to your homework or work!

Have you started your Masters yet? Do you plan on it? You got this!