Career change at 36! Terrified!

pennyfox_2

Hi Pickle,

first of all best of luck and success with your career change. I do hope it all goes well. I'm nearly 30 and have decided to retrain as an architect and yes, it is daunting at first, but it also feels so good to finally be doing something I really want to do.

I wanted to suggest that you call the Student Finance advice line. Just google 'Student Finance' and you will find some information from the government. If you wanted to do a degree in Radiology there may well be funding available for either part time or full time study!

I also think that part-time hairdressing is a great idea. You may well be able to fit it around your study hours, and do extra work in the summer holidays.

flea72

pennyfox wrote: »

I wanted to suggest that you call the Student Finance advice line. Just google 'Student Finance' and you will find some information from the government. If you wanted to do a degree in Radiology there may well be funding available for either part time or full time study!
.

As it's an NHS funded course, SF will just refer the OP to the NHS website. Yes, you can do the degree full or p/t, but p/t is 6yrs.

Also the unis offering the course p/t are fairly limited, and most still expect you to do block release for placements? Which might be ok for the OP if self employed, but wouldn't work for those who have to work set hours/days

Pickle21-2006

Thank you so much for all the helpful advise! It's amazing how many people out there are looking for a career change when they are older. My brother in law is a huge inspiration for me after giving up his life in London as an IT consultant at the age of 33 and moving his family to the West Country and studying medicine. He is now at the end of his training to be a GP!
I'm going to an open evening at my college in a few weeks so will discuss my options with a careers advisor there. I'm defiantly going carry on hairdressing around my studies as its so flexible and fits in with my family too.
Good luck to those who are making a big career change too!

Dunroamin

Pickle21-2006 wrote: »

Thank you so much for all the helpful advise! It's amazing how many people out there are looking for a career change when they are older. My brother in law is a huge inspiration for me after giving up his life in London as an IT consultant at the age of 33 and moving his family to the West Country and studying medicine. He is now at the end of his training to be a GP!
I'm going to an open evening at my college in a few weeks so will discuss my options with a careers advisor there. I'm defiantly going carry on hairdressing around my studies as its so flexible and fits in with my family too.
Good luck to those who are making a big career change too!

Good luck but be aware that if it's the college's careers adviser you're seeing, one of their main functions is to recruit students to the college's courses. Unless they're from an independent organisation like Nextstep you may need to review their advice with your critical head on.:)

Fire_Fox

If you can get a training/ assistant post in a school, college or university you may be able to train as a laboratory technician for free on day release even as high as honours degree level. Tho unless things have changed there are no standardised qualifications it's a pretty broad job title encompassing jobs in many areas, hospital labs are not the same as research or education.

Don't let university fees and loans stress you out, its not a regular debt - you don't pay it back unless you are earning enough, your debt is wiped when you reach a certain age, the total doesn't count when you apply for a mortgage they just look at your salary after any payments towards your loan are subtracted.

Mature students can be the best off or can struggle, it really depends on household income and commitments. If you look at the Student Income and Expenditure Surveys young people have been spending a small fortune on non essentials for years, they often don't organise themselves to be working part time from day one, they often don't have the experience to earn more than minimum wage.

You hopefully have the skills (and MSE!) to help you live to a tight budget and to earn a better hourly rate. All you need is to be open minded, maybe you don't need to run two cars, maybe you can eat home cooked vegetarian more often, maybe you could take in a lodger. Also be aware student finance will soon apply to part time degrees, so you could work and study simultaneously over five or six years instead of three. Modular degrees should be available part time, universities and the NHS are supposed to be encouraging diversity not just 18 year olds with no ties.

BTW when I worked in an ex polytechnic (biological sciences) almost all our 'first class' graduates were mothers, as were several of the PhD students. Some of those were single parents.