Military spouse education & professional development

[lierre 224]

I know we, military spouses and future spouses, had our own careers and plans before we chose to be engaged to a military man and thus agree to be the "mistress" to their military commitment.

Some of us have already done the career or school change. Others are yet to sort everything out (like me!)

For those who have done it, what was your plan prior to immigrating and what changed after you did?

For those who haven't done so, what is your plan now? Career shift? Graduate or post grad education? Be a stay at home spouse?

Also, if you know of scholarships, helpful links for military spouses, grant announcements, and what not, please do share it

[Inky 1,111]

Also, if you know of scholarships, helpful links for military spouses, grant announcements, and what not, please do share it

The education center on base has information on all the grants and scholarships available and can help you figure out which ones you can apply for and are able to get.

They also have school reps on hand to talk to about your plans that can help you apply to programs and schools.

World Education Services

wes.org is one of the most common websites used to translate your courses from your country to US standards. As far as I have found you cannot use grants etc to pay for this service and you cant recoup the service via filing to the military for it. Seems to be out of pocket cost.

[lierre 224]

World Education Services

wes.org is one of the most common websites used to translate your courses from your country to US standards. As far as I have found you cannot use grants etc to pay for this service and you cant recoup the service via filing to the military for it. Seems to be out of pocket cost.

I see. You're the second person who mentioned that to me. How much did it cost for you?

As for education centers... Hmmm, do they only advise you on schools that are advertised there? Or can you also seek help in looking for other inexpensive yet quality education?

[Inky 1,111]

I see. You're the second person who mentioned that to me. How much did it cost for you?

As for education centers... Hmmm, do they only advise you on schools that are advertised there? Or can you also seek help in looking for other inexpensive yet quality education?

I haven't payed wes yet.. its expensive because most of the schools want your GED and your college transcribed. Looking at paying soon to have mine done tho. Often they recommend the wes ICAP because it is stored forever on their system and you can access it and send it to schools whenever/wherever you want as many times as you want. The cheaper version just does 1 time service of transcription for you to the school you apply to.

Depends on the area I think - ours has high priced university but also low cost schools that have short programs you can take for vocational type learning.

You can also use Google search to look for schools in the area you will live in and see what ones you like that way too.

[ecg19 7]

I have 2 degrees gained before I met my husband, they are NZ LLB and BCom (law and commerce bachelors).

I was part way through my Chartered Accounting (post grad) qualification when I met my husband, which I was doing while working as an accountant in Australia.

I gave up both to join my husband.

Currently a stay at home house wife and when we PCS to Germany, I literally have no idea what to do.

[Inky 1,111]

Currently a stay at home house wife and when we PCS to Germany, I literally have no idea what to do.

For this reason a lot of military spouses pick careers that move. For example nursing, medical technician, pharmacy tech, medical transcription is a really big one, you can do it from home!

About 90% of the women I know are just stay at home wives or moms because they feel stuck and cant have a " real " career.

Just have to move into a " moving career " that can move with you anywhere very easily.

MYCAA often gives grants to military spouses who qualify to take programs like medical transcription, pharmacy tech etc.

[ecg19 7]

For this reason a lot of military spouses pick careers that move. For example nursing, medical technician, pharmacy tech, medical transcription is a really big one, you can do it from home!

About 90% of the women I know are just stay at home wives or moms because they feel stuck and cant have a " real " career.

Just have to move into a " moving career " that can move with you anywhere very easily.

MYCAA often gives grants to military spouses who qualify to take programs like medical transcription, pharmacy tech etc.

Fair call, but I already have 2 degrees (surely business should help me get a job!), 5 years at a university - with a student loan still to boot.

i'm not going to retrain just not sure what kind of job I will do in Germany or whether I will study for Masters or something.

Unfortunately, my husband is E6 and therefore I can't use MYCAA (it only applies to those whose spouse is E5 and below).

I'm hoping after Germany that we end up in the UK or somewhere where my degrees will get me a job like I had in Australia.

By the way, I have had a qualifications assessment done which transferred my degrees over to a US equivalent for employers to see. It cost around $250.

[Inky 1,111]

Fair call, but I already have 2 degrees (surely business should help me get a job!), 5 years at a university - with a student loan still to boot.

I know some spouses with masters and stuff who sit at home because they cant get a job, or they travel so much because of military orders they cant hold one long enough so people don't want to hire them.

I myself have been victim of the " oh your a military spouse... I see we will call you " because I 'might' leave due to orders they now wont hire me.

People should be able to get jobs of course specially when they spend that much time learning to do something specific but often its not an ability being a military wife so retraining even tho many do not want to do that is something that helps them to get jobs in places they otherwise couldn't or when they are having an issue using a degree to get a job.

Regardless my post was pertaining to the fact you PSC to Germany and now don't know what to do, which is a reason spouses pick to retrain into moving careers, they can take it with them to Germany or wherever and work in a base clinic/pharmacy or hospital or etc. Used it as an example.

[Khaleesi 1]

hello gals

i have 2 bachelors degrees in politics and marketing

and 2 masters degrees in international relations and finances

and ive spent enough time studying.. i do not want to study in another field, i am already more than half insane after all this studying, another field will just make me completely insane

i know it is not going to be easy to have a career, but i am not going to give up just yet before ive even began fighting

i hear there are opportunities on the bases for military spouses, although from what ive seen online, they arent many and require citizenship

i hope we can all find something that makes us happy

[Thatgirl2 21]

I got accepted in over six different universities, always in top ten students in each major but couldn't go because of the time difference and having to be the one with flexible schedule while we were dating, so i had to settle for a crappy major at a crappy online school.so now, my husband is planning to sign over his GI bill so I can finally study what I want at a prestigious university. My options are literature, history and art or history of art. My dream career would be working at smithsonian however for some reason I'm in those work mode.

Before I came to the states or even before we made this cross country move from California to North Carolina, I was the laziest girl ever. I did not wanna work, I was keeping myself busy by studying Arabic and German, or trying to, in German's case. For me studying was the lazy way out. But now that we are in a bigger base and I have my green card , I'm kinda restless to work, so I'm all open for a career in military as a translator or even working at the px or my dream job.

@Khaleesi almost none of the on base jobs require citizenship. It's just like getting a job at a strange work place, the only require a green card or proof that you're eligible to work. The only difference is, they like to hire from within. I there is a civil and a military wife, they go with the military wife , and in some cases they have a more flexible schedule for military wives.

[Messybrownhair 251]

I am about to graduate from grad school this May. Being a military spouse did not stop me from fulfilling my dreams

[ecg19 7]

I suppose it depends what your dreams are

Mine are political in nature and at one point while I was at university I had my dream job working for my home country's government.

Obviously, the dream is now quashed, and I have to come up with new ones! Hopefully I will learn German while there for 4 years and add that to the resume, but what if I am out of my sphere of expertise for four years?

Even graduate school, if your husband had had to pcs, would you have stayed at school and done long distance? Or would you have tried to move your program to another university and hope they recognized your studies to date?

I guess, I've been used to planning my life in five year blocks, and then suddenly I fell in love and I am now making new goals with him included in it. There's no way I want to do long distance again (unless he was deployed and we had no choice). What about you girls? Would you go long distance for your dream job, your dream school?

[lierre 224]

I'm a physician in my country. Been practicing general medicine and was considering doing a masters in public health and working for my country, too... Then, I met my husband.

It is now unthinkable for me to continue with my original, "single girl" plan. Besides, he is the one who has an actual career... Mine's hardly taken off since graduating med school 3 years ago. You can say my "career" has been put on hold for almost 2 years now. I actually had to change to a job that allowed me to be more flexible 2 years ago when I had to balance the tasks of planning our wedding, going on trips to see him and still have something to put on my resume.

Messybrownhair, congratulations on the baby! And yay for finishing grad school

ecg19, I have thought about this long and hard. However, the major point against going long distance again (even if just different US states) is the fact that I'm nearing 30 and we want to have kids. So, I think if those weren't issues, I'll be willing to try long distance again even for just a couple of years. And oh, I think you should study German! Being conversational in it, at the very least, wiill look great on your resume.

Thatgirl2, hmmmm I beg to disagree, dear. Professional jobs on base all require citizenship. Some non-professional ones don't but they often require foreign language fluency so, it's best to be a citizen when you PCS OCONUS.

Khaleesi, oh my I agree with you! I don't wanna study anymore! Hahaha! But, I dont wanna go out of my mind not being certified to work either. So, I'm coming up with tons of ideas how to find work that is somehow related to what I studied 7 years for,

Inky, yeah, that is one of the biggest challenges of a military spouse who wants to be a working spouse. I hope thegovernment does something about getting more spouses to get work on base or even near the bases.

We're living OCONUS and I'm not a US Citizen so I have no jobs available to me here. We're moving to the US soon (hence, the CR-1 application) but I know my degrees mean nothing unless I pass what feels like a gazillion of certifying exams and years of residency training.

I really do wish that I could have predicted I would marry a military-affiliated non-Filipino... I could have chosen a more portable field. Hahaha

Edited February 18, 2013 by ivyanddan

[Deb+Steve 13]

@ecg19 - I also did Accounting. I never worked as an Accountant but was in Construction as a Contracts Administrator. Of course, the market here for that is tanked so I have been a housewife for nearly 3 years. I am doing a Paralegal AAS though and hoping it can move me into real estate when he does retire in 3 years. It sucks having had a plan and being set and then having to start over! I decided based on what they wanted to pay me here that I would rather study some more and watch bad daytime TV.

[lierre 224]

It's been a really rough month for me.

Rght now, I am torn between pursuing the costlier prospect of me getting a US license or getting into a non-clinical healthcare-related degree. Sigh... If only I knew I'd be marrying my military man