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May 22, 2015
Newsletter Article
Think of the agriculture careers that come from earning a master’s in agriculture education. Beyond classroom employment are public information jobs and agribusiness professions.
A master’s degree in agricultural education can keep a middle school or high school agriculture teacher’s skills fresh. It can also allow a high school agriculture teacher to move into education administration or post-secondary agriculture classroom teaching. Ag educators teach about crops, livestock, economics, marketing, and systems that provide food we eat.
Others will find that a master’s in agriculture education could lead to being an extension educator with adults or youth, food or natural resource educator, or curriculum developer. A tailored master’s degree could also enhance the career of a communication professional, museum curator, employee of state or federal agencies, congressional staffer, or sales associate.
There is an alternative to stopping a viable agriculture career in order to return to college for an advanced degree. Fully online opportunities to take graduate classes from respected agriculture colleges at accredited universities are available now.
A student can tailor a master’s in agriculture education to fit his or her career goals by enrolling in a partner university of AG*IDEA, the Agricultural Interactive Distance Education Alliance. AG*IDEA itself is not a degree program; it’s an alliance of established universities that allows students to take classes online through their home university courses that are taught by other partner universities.
It’s all online, and each course is available any time of the day or night. Courses are asynchronous within the semester offered.
Taking courses online allows for career advancement while still employed. Students who take a couple of courses each semester can expect to complete a degree in two to three years.
A visit to the agricultural education web pages for the partners—California State University at Chico, Clemson University, Kansas State University, Montana State University, North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University, University of Arkansas, and University of Missouri—helps a student determine each partner’s admission requirements. From campus to campus, requirements vary for completing an agricultural education degree with a thesis, a project or a comprehensive examination.
Whichever of the nine partners a student choses as a home university, that institution become the home university for a student’s enrollment, advising, transcripts, and graduation. Each student can put together a program of study in agriculture education that fits that person’s area of interest.
All students will complete courses that focus on foundations of the profession, principles of teaching and learning, program planning and evaluation and research methods in agricultural education and select electives that tailor the student’s expertness. The master’s in agricultural education does not provide or substitute for the teaching credential process.
A visit to the alliance website at www.agidea.org “Programs” tab has links to each partner’s campus coordinator, who can assist with admissions and enrollment. The” Programs” page also provides course information sheets and a course matrix to show the sequence of courses being offered.
What is the advantage of AG*IDEA courses? By using the AG*IDEA alliance, a student has access to more courses than those only at the home university, and students get to study with faculty who have nationally recognized expertise in a specific topic. Taking courses at other universities may allow a student to proceed with a course sequence for the earliest possible completion of a degree since that student didn’t have to wait for the home university of offer a course the next year.
