What Should I Study After 50?

Adults over 50 may choose to pursue a college degree for various reasons. From protecting and expanding existing careers to exploring exciting new ones, enrolling can bring many exciting experiences.

Medical coding professionals categorize patient services and facilitate financial procedures within healthcare organizations, making this degree especially suitable for adults over 50 with life experience to bring to the workplace.

Accounting

Returning to college after 50 can be an intimidating decision. The first step should be assessing why and your plans after receiving your accounting degree, if that’s your motivation. If career-related, look for degrees with good job outlook and ample opportunity for advancement once completed – bachelors degrees provide entry-level positions while master’s may open doors into more specialized accounting roles such as auditing, taxation or forensic accounting.

If you opt to study accounting online, make sure that the institution has an excellent reputation for providing quality education and offers an array of resources that will support students throughout their programs and careers. Read up on each professor bio to make sure that they possess experience both inside and outside the virtual classroom as CPAs, controllers, auditors, tax managers or working for various accounting firms and corporations.

Psychology

Adults over 50 with life experience often possess a keen desire to understand human psychology and can fulfill this fascination by earning a bachelor’s degree in this discipline. Although most associate it with counseling or therapy services, a psychology major has many career options open to them.

Graduates with a psychology degree can work in human resources, social services, education, business or marketing; additionally they could attend doctoral programs to become therapists, counselors or psychologists.

Pomona’s affordable psychology program blends rigorous intellectual pursuits with exciting field experiences. The curriculum examines how culture and society influence psychological development and behavior. Students explore diversity, power and economics while studying Chicano/Latino cultural psychology, contemporary prejudice and global migration.

W&L’s accredited psychology programs provide students with a strong foundation for 21st-century professional development and provide a deep knowledge of human and animal behavior. Their affordable curriculum emphasizes broad theoretical perspectives and practices like emotion and motivation studies as well as human development and behavior analysis, sensation and perception studies, music cognition research, developmental psychopathology studies and primate-human links; while engaging in research activities makes students even more competitive when applying for jobs or graduate school admission.

Nursing

If you want to make an impactful difference in people’s lives, nursing may be the ideal second act career choice for you. From learning practical skills and having an effectful impact on patients, nursing degrees offer many reasons why one might pursue one after 50.

Contrary to some degrees, nursing degrees combine both classroom theory and hands-on clinical placement work, so most of your time in hospital will be spent observing licensed nurses performing their duties before later helping patients under supervision. Although it can be demanding and demanding at times, nursing can also be rewarding and satisfying work that demands you make life-and-death decisions and provide emotional support – so if you have resilience for high-pressure situations then nursing could be perfect choice as a second act!

Although many adults believe they are too old for school, there is an increasing demand for nurses of all ages. If you can commit to fulfilling all prerequisites and studying for your nursing degree with as much dedication as you had when beginning your first career, then success awaits in this exciting new field!

Early Childhood Education

An early childhood education bachelor’s degree can open many career doors. Some graduates choose to teach all ages of students in preschool through middle school while others go into administrative or policy work or advocacy work.

Early childhood education curriculum equips future teachers to understand and support the physical, social and emotional development of young children. Students also learn basic math and science concepts for teaching purposes as well as reading/writing abilities as well as child development policies/standards compliance.

These students may specialize in areas like encouraging language development in young children or working with infants and toddlers. Other specializations could include teaching English as a second language to children or working with prekindergarten students with mild learning or behavioral issues.

A bachelor’s in early childhood education can open the door to numerous career options, including becoming a guidance counselor or school counselor. These professionals help young people establish and maintain positive relationships while giving them tools they need for future success in life. These professionals typically work at schools but may also work for non profit organizations and government agencies – with average annual salaries in the high 20s to mid 30s.

Public Administration

Are you interested in helping improve public services and helping the community at large? A bachelor’s degree in public administration provides the tools for doing just that – managing city transportation, parks and other community amenities as well as potentially finding employment with government offices or social service agencies.

Master of Public Administration (MPA). This degree specializes in cultivating your leadership, management and planning abilities; you may choose from among several concentration options such as public policy and nonprofit management.

An effective MPA will offer an all-encompassing curriculum, covering areas like management, finance and economics – skills which will equip you to solve problems and make decisions that benefit both the individual and their community.

There is a growing demand for qualified public administration professionals at both state and national levels. You can now find online programs offering degrees in public administration to satisfy this growing need, without having to put your career on hold while studying for it. Some programs even allow you to earn credit for prior professional experience which could reduce time it takes you to earn your degree so you can concentrate on growing your earning potential more quickly.

Financial Planning or Economics

Many adults choose to return to school after 50 in order to pursue degrees in financial planning or economics, providing knowledge of markets, products and investment options as well as personal income tax planning and retirement planning. Furthermore, these courses develop communication skills necessary for dealing with sensitive topics with clients.

Some colleges also provide courses on the economics of entrepreneurship, which explore the role of entrepreneurs as market-makers and leaders. It focuses on how their organizational constituencies – founders, shareholders and employees – affect strategic decision making as well as any conflicts or cooperation that arise due to different goals being pursued by each group.

Law degrees can lead to careers as attorneys; and an MBA equips students to understand macroeconomic and microeconomic principles, including supply and demand effects, taxes, inflation and unemployment as well as business plan creation and statistical analysis techniques. An advanced exploration of economic theory of entrepreneurship with special attention given to venture capital financing of new firms (EC 157 Entrepreneurship).