Traveling the world can be one of the best experiences of your life. You can meet new people, learn a lot about other cultures, try new things and have experiences that will give you a huge amount of insight and inspiration. Of course, some people view time spent traveling as non-productive, and would like to also do something that can help in their future career.
-
Online Learning and Travel
Luckily, thanks to the advent of online learning, you can have your cake and eat it, and gain a qualification while you travel which can set you up for a career when you come home.
If your goal is to become a teacher, then there are lots of online courses available that can qualify you, such as the online masters in education from the University of Cincinnati. But is a masters in education really one you can do while you are traveling?
-
Your Travel Goals
For most people, it is more than possible to complete an online teaching masters while exploring and having adventures abroad, however it depends very much on the goals you have from your travels and where you are going. You will of course need a couple of important resources – time and internet access. If you are planning to go backpacking in Europe or to explore Australia, you’ll have these, but if you are planning to go on a charity mission to a third world country your time is likely to be taken up with your volunteer work and you may also not have the technology you need to study. When deciding if you can train as a teacher while you travel this is a very important factor. If you will be working, it may not be so easy to find the time, and you do need to be in locations where you’ll have access to reliable Wi-fi.
-
Your Itinerary
If you are going somewhere where you are sure you’ll have the internet connection you need most of the time and you aren’t planning to work intensively on something, you also need to consider your itinerary. If you have a massive list of things you want to do, you may find it hard to pack in a degree course at the same time. However, if you simply want to live in another country for a while and experience life there, then you should be able to manage study time quite easily.
Ultimately there is no one size fits all answer to whether you will be able to successfully fit study around your travel experience. However, if you want to try it, there is really no harm in doing so because with an online degree you can take as long as you need to, so if you find the balance too hard to achieve while you are away you can always complete your course when you return, and still be able to attain a rewarding career in education with it.
