Ladies, Your Thoughts Please!

[saggyhairyarse]

My future is in your hands....Please could you give me your immediate thoughts on my predicament.

My youngest DC is nearly 2 and so I am beginning to plan my next career move. I've not worked since I had my eldest 7 years ago so I think it is a good time to retrain.

My DH is self-employed and we have no family to help with the kids so whatever I do I have to fit around me being the primary carer for our children (school hours/term time). The obvious option being a Teaching Assistant/Early Years Practitioner or similar.

Last night I was trawling the net for courses and rather than looking at TA courses, I was drawn to the courses in Criminology. I have always been interested in this subject. Growing up I wanted to be a Police Officer but my eyesight is not good enough. I have a (morbid) fascination with serial killers etc etc etc.

So, in a nutshell, should I be sensible and study something that will give me a good chance of getting a job workable to my personal circumstances, or should I study a subject I am deeply interested in?????

Gut instinct - go for the thing that interests you, and work the detail out later - but look into what career options it offers to you, as if it's not that good, I'd study it on the side (with the OU, say) for interest, and do something else.

Don't think that was terribly helpful, was it?

Surely you'll be more committed to something that really interests you, so I'd go with that. You can always become a TA anyway if it doesn't work out.

All opinions helpful Habbibu

Mung, I don't want to start something i'mnot going to finish.

Surely if you are interested then you will finish the course, or do you mean finish it by making a career out of it. Surely any studying helps you find jobs and you have more chance of becoming a private detective or spy with a criminology course than a TA qualification .

On a serious not, I hope you find something you enjoy doing, you may love being a TA and it would fit in nicely with the children.

Cheers Mung

For purely study purposes - go for something you are interested in (and I say this as someone who dropped out of Uni after doing 2 years of a degree I was not at all interested in but was pretty much guaranteed a job in upon graduation) but if you need the money then you know what you have to do.

Also make sure it is really a 'proper' course (I'm sure you have I don't mean at all to sound patronising) apparently lots of criminology type courses have popped up since CSI has become very popular - sad but true.

Actually, I hadn't thought of that and was looking at the OU courses.

A criminology qualifiaction does not necessarilly qualify you to do anything Police realted.
You might be better off checking your local Polic website for civilian jobs, ie CSI, Intelligence analysts.
Are you sure about your eyes? i know lots of officers who wear contacts/ glasses?
The Police are actually quite famlily frreindly.
I work Part time and I know a few people who work term time?

Am pretty positive about my eyes as am -8 short-sighted, unless they have changed the requirement?

I wouldn't be doing it, if I did it, to get in the Police. I thought it might open up a career in the justice system/youth offending teams.