ever since i made my last post about how i might need a miracle for my foot to feel better, it’s been feeling 100 times better. not better enough for me to run in the annapolis 10-mile run (at least, not yet anyway), but better enough that i only really feel pain if i turn my foot in certain directions and it feels perfectly fine for me to walk on it and go up and down stairs and press on the clutch pedal in my MINI and so on. festive suggested a sports medicine place that i should check out and see if they might be able to fit me in earlier, and i may try giving them a call to get a second opinion and because at this rate i may not even be feeling any pain by the time my original appointment rolls around at the end of the month.

at work about a week or so ago we had an “education fair” where human resources had different local and online schools come to the office so we could talk to them about their degree and certificate programs. now, i’m already taking online courses for my master’s in information systems, but i figured i’d go see what’s available for when i’m done next year. i had talked to the UMBC representative during a previous education fair about their certificate programs, and so i stopped by to pick up details about their current offerings since i’ve been toying with the idea of getting a project management credential… they offer an 8-week course for about $2000 (held on saturdays from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM starting in late september) that fulfills the 35-hour classroom requirement for the PMP exam. unfortunately, i don’t have the 4,500 hours of experience leading projects that i would also need, so that classroom time doesn’t quite do me much good for the PMP credential.

still, that got the gears turning, and i realized that i’m qualified to take the CAPM exam (certified associate in project management), and i don’t even need to take their certification course! to qualify for the CAPM exam, i’d need either 1,500 hours of experience participating in projects (which i have but it’s tricky to document), OR i’d need 23 hours of project management education. this is the part where i say “hello undergraduate degree in information systems management!” since one of my classes happened to be named “project management”, and happened to meet for 3 hours a week for 15 weeks (hello 45 hours of classroom education), and happened to be one of the three courses i got an ‘A’ in during a semester when i was a 4.0 student. BINGO! i already had the coursework part done and i didn’t even realize it!

so i ordered a copy of the PMBOK and a “how to pass the PMP exam on the first try” book that had rave reviews on amazon. i’ve got until early november to pay the testing fee and then 1 year to actually take the certification.

i also made the mistake of looking into a doctoral program. specifically, one that was mentioned by Classmate #3 from my earlier lj post when we were still in the middle of the semester and before she accused the rest of the group of sabotage. i figured i ought to at least look to see what my options are. my only requirement was that i wanted to be able to complete it (mostly, if not entirely) online:

if i did the doctor of management program at UMUC, it’s an online courses with an on-site residency once per semester on a friday or saturday. i’d need 48 credits.

UMBC doesn’t have an online doctoral program, so there’s nothing to investigate there.

but, if i did this doctor of science in information systems program at dakota state university that my classmate had mentioned, it’s also online courses that may or may not require an on-site residency one weekend a month… and what’s one trip to south dakota once a month for school but a minor inconvenience? for this program, i’d need 88 credits.

now when i read about that i was like “88 credits?? holy crap! are they serious?!”, and yes, they’re serious… but then again, it’s not really as bad as it seems. see, here’s the trick:

it’s 88 credits, but 27 credits of that are master’s-level courses that you have to take if you don’t have a master’s degree in information systems management, and that they waive if you do. seeing as i’m in the middle of my master’s degree right now, well, that 88-credit requirement goes down to 61 credits.

ok, so now it’s 48 credits vs. 61 credits. let’s see what i’d end up paying out of pocket after my $8000 / year tuition reimbursement through work. i’m already drawing from my tuition reimbursement for spring 2011, so that’s the reason for the two different prices depending on when i start, and it’s likely that tuition would increase as the semesters went on as well:

48 credits at UMUC x $1087 / credit = $27,169 (fall 2011) – $28,176 (spring 2012)

61 credits at DSU x $343.75 / credit = $1,399.25 (fall 2011)

yes, $343.75 / credit hour for online graduate courses. i’m serious. $1400 for me to earn a doctorate. CRAZY! and even that is because it would exceed my $8000 cap on tuition reimbursement in 2011. i’d be able to take 23 credits a year at that rate and still not break my reimbursement amount for the year.

it was at that point that i had to remind myself to stick to one degree at a time. but BOY is that tempting!