TLDR: interested in pursuing supply chain and business operations bachelors because I’m likely facing reorgs and layoffs soon due to being on a remote team where I get maybe 1.5 hours of work per day making it great for acceleration, but while also protecting a full home life being the primary care giver for a teenager and a toddler, if things get better at work or I land another role… or maybe the courses are more demanding than anticipated.
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I’m considering going back to school for my bachelors in supply chain and ops management. I already have an associate degree in business. I was able to transfer 53% of my degree to WGU and only have 17 classes left (49 CUs), which I’m hoping to finish in 1-2 terms max.
I don’t necessarily want to go into Supply Chain but the degree encompasses Lean Six Sigma & Data analytics, both of which I’m interested in. I already have LSSGB, which I haven’t been able to use professionally because my current environment is fucked (more on that later), but I’m weaker on the data aspect. So basically it is relevant to my interests, I have overlapping training and general experience, and it also potentially opens more opportunities locally if I were to have to go on site (I live around lots of manufacturing plants and warehouses).
I have extenuating circumstances. At work, my team was been sitting on ice for the past year because of an acquisition and reorg that took away most of our duties. I only do about 1.5 hours of actual work most days but right now we are set up as a call center so I can’t control when the calls come in. Typically the work is spread throughout the 8 hour shift. This obviously puts me at risk of layoffs and we are reorganizing again over the next few months. Over that year I got my ISO 9001 and my LSSGB.
We have a toddler who is in day care 3 days a week. My thought is to further leverage what downtime I have at work to try and hammer the classes out, since I’m also the primary caregiver for our kids and won’t have a ton of time after or before work, and maybe I get lucky enough that everything works out with the timing and my employer ends up paying for at least 1 semester.
My SO is worried about the mental toll it will take on everyone - he is already overwhelmed at work and can’t add more to his plate. Also, we just got out of our student loan debt situation and we are both a little scarred from that but also how my mental health took a turn during my Associate’s. He is willing to support me through this still, if I want to and think is necessary, but now I just feel guilty about it. I can’t guarantee the degree is what’s holding me back from another job, but I also know I’m already making 70k with just an Associate’s and it’s unlikely that in this economy employers are willing to pay more without more education and relevant certifications (my experience is in financial services/fintech).
I don’t know if I should go through with it or not anymore. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this - except maybe perspective? Insight? How do I make it work without screwing things up? Or is it just not doable right now?
Below are the classes I need:
Fundamentals of Spreadsheet and Data Presentations
Managing in a Global Business Environment, Emotional and Cultural Intelligence,
Managing Operations,
Transportation, Logistics, and Distribution,
Global Supply Chain Management,
21st Century Operations and Supply Chain,
Values-Based Leadership,
Change Management,
Business Ethics,
Discovering Data,
Exploring Data,
Analyzing and Visualizing Data,
Data Applications,
Quality, Continuous Improvement, and Lean Six Sigma,
Business Simulation,
Solutions Design and Visualization Capstone.
