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This is helpful.
I meant it to be broad. Just a good job/realistic job prospects in a hard science-connected field. I potentially have the opportunity to go back to school and I'm wondering what scientific paths, if any, can lead to job prospects with a four-year degree. The reasoning being that I hope to transfer some credits from my previous degree and can't really commit to six or eight years of additional study right now. But 2-4 is potentially feasible.
Yeah, then you can figure something out I'm sure. What is your background? If you can bring past experience "with you" to some extent, you'll have a much easier time, even with just 2 years of education behind you. Everybody shits on hires fresh out of college.
This is the part where I make a disclaimer that I'm not exactly a career rolemodel, I just hear a lot of talk and know people from all kinds of backgrounds. And read the statistics on things.
My background isn't really related to science. I got a degree in Broadcast Media, then worked mostly in Politics and Marketing/Communications. So I'm not sure a ton of credits will transfer, but I'm hoping to get an idea across a spectrum of possibilities.
Hmm. Well, if you do go IT, you could look for a UI/UX (user interfaces/experience) role where they might see that as an asset. Or maybe do marketing analytics - anything math heavy could potentially get you into that. I don't even mean college credits, I mean job experience on your resume (since you were worried about finding a job afterwards) - it's just as important in non-academic hard science as in other disciplines.
The academic credits are another thing, though. Hard science education can be pretty demanding, and the drop-out rates in some of them - like engineering - are sky-high. Then again, professors say older students almost always do well.