Three Reasons Why You Should Keep Studying as An Adult

Happy Wednesday! It's feeling spring-ish in Philly today even though the skies look like doom. 

This was contributed by Maggie Hammond, a retired nurse and freelance writer, exploring and writing in the U.S. in retirement. An advocate for public health and nursing qualifications, she feels passionate about raising awareness of the current strain on public health organisations. When you don't know about it, give someone else a chance to write about it, am I right? 

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A lot of people miss their college or high school days, but usually not for the long study sessions, critical teachers and tight assignment deadlines! However, staying in some form of education as an adult, for instance doing online courses, night school or evening classes in a topic that interests you, can have a lot of benefits once you have finished full time education and ventured out into working life.

Here are three reasons to keep on with your education as an adult:

Faster Career Progress and Better Options

If you enter a company after college with a good graduate level position, you may think all you need to do to move up the career ladder is work hard and stick with it long enough. However, you can gain a real competitive edge over others and move up the ladder faster if you are still learning and gaining qualifications on the side. Doing a master’s degree in your spare time with an online university like Rutgers can be a great way to achieve this.

You will also have better options if you decide to change careers later on. If you have more strings to your bow in terms of certifications and skills, moving to a new career path, for instance if you want to work different hours to fit around future children, or your original career becomes less in demand in the future, will be much easier. You could even use your education background as a way to become an educator yourself.

Goals and Achievements

People tend to be more motivated when they have goals they are working towards, and these don't always pop up naturally in normal working life. If you are studying something, you always have a way to monitor progress and set targets, whether they are ones that come with your study like attaining your masters with Rutgers University online, or with the results, for instance being able to converse in Spanish because of the learning app you've been using.

You Don't Lose Your Learning Skills

The human brain is very good at learning, and this is the case for adults as well as children. However, many people just get out of practice at studying and remembering new information, which is why some believe only kids' brains are wired for this. If you stay in the habit of studying and picking up new things, this will serve you well in everything you do, so you won't feel bewildered when you have to learn how to use the new system being rolled out at your office or research all of the things you can't eat when you are pregnant if you decide to have a baby!

Learning has also been shown to help keep the mind active and young, and may even make you less likely to suffer from dementia in old age! With all of these advantages there is really no good reason not to consider adult education an important part of your life.

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Have you studied as an adult or considered it?

See you here tomorrow for Thursday Thoughts like every Thursday since 2011.