Categories
Antiwork

Fiancée’s new high school library job pays 10k a year more than public library gig, but she’s required to get a certification for it within 2 years (ON TOP OF her Master’s degree in Library Sciences isn’t enough for the school). Cost of 21 grad school credits in NJ = roughly $24,000

Alright, some context and why it’s antiwork: She already has a Master’s in Library Sciences and is jumped from a $52k to $62k annual salary by accepting this position. Previous job was heavily manipulative and borderline harassing her to work every weekend, nights, and denying time off in favor of more senior colleagues, so staying was not an option. What gets me angry is that she has years of experience and already holds an advanced degree, which was 36 credits and completely overlaps that of the “school teacher” track curriculum. So instead of being able to take the 2-3 courses that make up the difference, the university won’t let her and she needs to take a full 21 credits more to earn a certification within 2 years. That’s bullshit. But she’s trapped. Option 2 is to go to another school and repeat a 36 credit track for an entirely new…


Alright, some context and why it’s antiwork:

She already has a Master’s in Library Sciences and is jumped from a $52k to $62k annual salary by accepting this position. Previous job was heavily manipulative and borderline harassing her to work every weekend, nights, and denying time off in favor of more senior colleagues, so staying was not an option.

What gets me angry is that she has years of experience and already holds an advanced degree, which was 36 credits and completely overlaps that of the “school teacher” track curriculum. So instead of being able to take the 2-3 courses that make up the difference, the university won’t let her and she needs to take a full 21 credits more to earn a certification within 2 years. That’s bullshit. But she’s trapped.

Option 2 is to go to another school and repeat a 36 credit track for an entirely new Master’s degree (you have to hold a MS with the school already to take the Cert program). That would obviously cost more, take longer, and is generally not going to happen. 7 classes is cheaper than 12, no matter how you slice it.

This is my antiwork feeling: she’s already in her new role at the high school doing her job well. She already has a Master’s in Library Sciences. So, 1.) why must she get a teaching cert if she’s a librarian with no job responsibilities of teaching in her contract, and 2.) leaving a bad job, even with a 10k salary jump, costs more in the 2-3 year immediate future than what it returns.

It’s not like when the certification program is complete a switch will flip and her performance will suddenly improve. That’s not how anything works! The link between ed. requirements and relevant on-the-job experience is such a fallacy… how much of your coursework directly benefits your daily operations at work? I’m guessing very little.

Relevant job experience (and education credentials) should count. State-sanctioned drowning of workers under hyper-specific degree requirements shouldn’t be a thing. Exceptions should exist in these cases. How many students end up in the exact field they study? Very few. Even though she’s the exception, earning a MS in Library Sciences, it STILL wasn’t the “correct” degree.

Work needs to stop punishing us with these costly burdens to “prove ourselves” and meet these arbitrary but mandatory state benchmarks just for trying to survive.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *