The format that you select will influence how, where, and in what ways you learn. This is to reflect the fact that many different kinds of people decide to continue their education with a master's degree.
The needs of a 23-year-old going right into grad school after completing their bachelor's is going to be very different than the needs of a 35-year-old parent who is balancing their family and careers with their education goals.
In this article, we take a look at how selecting the right format can make an enormous difference in how you experience your education.
What Are the Format Options?
The most basic categories of continuing education in the form of a graduate degree are online or brick-and-mortar. However, between the two, there are many sub-options. For example, many online programs will allow you to choose between a live or a prerecorded format. The live format is similar in almost every way to classroom learning.
You meet at a predesigned time, you engage with live instructors, you communicate and collaborate with other students in the classroom—you just do it from behind the screen instead of in the room itself. Prerecorded formats, on the other hand, are a lot more flexible.
They allow you to work on your own timeline by viewing lectures that were already recorded and completing modules within a designated timeframe. As long as you're hitting your deadlines, it doesn't matter when you work or for how long.
Both online and classroom learning will also have sub-options in the form of specialized graduate programs. For example, there are nursing programs that allow you to get a BSN and an MSN over the course of two or three years.
Similar programs are available for almost any profession that requires a specialized certification—think speech language pathology, education, social work, etc.
Part Time or Full Time
You also have options in how aggressively you pursue your degree. For example, you could choose between a part-time or full-time MBA trajectory. A full-time format will generally allow you to complete your graduate degree in one to three years.
A part-time format might have more of a three-to-five-year timeline, but will generally be designed to reflect the needs of working professionals.
Not only will it be less time-consuming on a day-to-day basis, but it will also typically be optimized for when busy professionals are able to get work done—early mornings, late nights, etc.
The Riches Are in the Niches
Format is definitely an influential factor. At least just as important, however, is your understanding of how niche graduate programs can be.
Yes, you can get an MBA, but what kind of MBA? You could focus on accounting, marketing, general management, finance, or even entrepreneurship. Or maybe you want to become a nurse practitioner. Great. What kind of nurse practitioner?
There's family medicine, gerontology, psychiatry, and psychology. Teachers also have many different directions they can take their graduate studies. You can get a graduate degree in virtually any academic discipline—special education, math, science, English, all with an emphasis on teaching.
You can get a master's of education, typically available for people who want to move into something more administrative, like curriculum design. Or you could get a master's in teaching. This is a practitioner's degree designed for people who intend to stay in the classroom.
The graduate degree that you decide on can have a massive impact on both your professional experiences but also on other things like salary. For example, a person who graduates with a master's of education might make up to twice as much as someone with a master's of teaching.
This is because administrators usually make considerably more money than teachers. Your eventual salary needn't be the deciding factor in which degree program you take, but it is something to be aware of. If you're equally interested in two different career paths, why not take the education option that leads to the one with more money?
How Do You Learn Best?
At the end of the day, this is the consideration that will matter the most. What format best suits your needs as a learner? If your education isn’t optimized to your specific needs, it probably isn’t serving you as well as it could.
Granted, you don’t need a perfect match. You should take into account a balanced mix of considerations that includes price, schedule, timeline, and format.
Ultimately, though, nothing else will matter if you pick a format you can’t complete. You might think, “I really enjoy the energy of a traditional learning environment.” But if your schedule doesn’t allow you to sustainably commit to three years of commuting, you probably won’t ever complete your degree.
Or maybe you think, “I’m very busy. A pre-recorded, online only format would probably make the most sense for me.”
But if you can’t produce good work in a self-guided learning environment, all the flexibility in the world won’t help you.
You want the degree. Make sure you choose a path that will get you there. Everything else is secondary.
Conclusion
Remember that every program is going to be different. No matter how much research you do, it's important to understand that every program is ultimately going to be at least a little different from the next.
So two part-time MBAs could have very different schedules and expectations. It's important to shop around and find a schedule that makes the most sense for you. Also, keep in mind that the price for a degree can vary pretty dramatically.
An online-only university will generally cost less than a brick-and-mortar one that offers online courses.
