Reason for Returning to School This essay describes the reasons why working adults, like myself, decided to go back to college and obtain a degree.

The reason of why I decided to go back to school and obtain my Bachelor Degree has never been anything out of the ordinary. In today's society, I see many working adults pursuing their degrees to obtain security and self-fulfillment. While others are looking for the advancement in pay and position in their current or new job. There are even those who need to gain more confidence in their skills to do a good job for their company and they feel that by getting a degree, they can achieve this goal. All of them pertain to me. Especially to today's current economy, I strongly feel that there is a great advantage to having a degree versus to not having one when it comes to searching for a job.

More and more each year, I see new programs for education that are designed for working adults. If there were no real demand for these programs, I believe they would not exist. But that demand is real. There is a larger competitive environment in the work force now then there was a few years ago. With many new and fresh graduates coming out of college, I feel the pressure to increase my credentials to be able to compete. Even though I have built my experience through years of on the job education, I feel that by obtaining a graduate or even undergraduate degree is the only way to secure my position against the growing population of new graduates. I believe that you must continue updating your skills to keep up with this very competitive market.

Then, there are those current working adults who are already established in their field, but would like to find a way to increase their potential of getting a raise or promotion. By obtaining a degree, this can show the managers how much value of an employee you are to the company. To have the qualifications and experience can give you a better success rate of getting the raise or promotion that you would ask for. It's a way of selling yourself and your worth. With a degree, you just are more armed to the task of requesting for an advancement. Once I have obtained my degree, I can then see myself seriously requesting for an advance of my pay and position from my manager.

Most importantly is the ability to feel confident in doing your job and to have that credential to show people. There were many projects that I have been involved in that required myself to learn new skills. One example was learning how to program in Visual Basic 6 to create an interface GUI for one of our robot systems. Another accomplishment that I achieved was generating a database for system files used by our integration department. In almost each project, there were other managers involved besides my own manager. And each one had their doubts in my ability to succeed in the project. I have yet to fail, but each time a new project is started, these doubts from these managers come along with them. Even though I have five-years of experience in my field, I can see that it is harder to prove your ability in your skills with out a four-year degree. It is also much harder to have the confidence in yourself when there are others that lack that confidence in you. That is why I can see by obtaining a degree can benefit me in many ways besides security and advancement in pay and position.

There are times that I try to imagine how different it would be one I have earned my degree. And each time all I can imagine are anything but positive results. Sure, there are concerns and sacrifices that I would need to make down the road. Sacrifice like time. Time with my family and time for myself. But what is a couple of years of sacrifice compared to a lifetime of advancement? I once read an article about a successful businessman and how he achieved his goals by following one philosophy he recited to himself everyday. He believed the reward in terms of happiness is directly proportional to the sacrifice that each one makes. Great philosophy. And I try to live it everyday.