I’m not sure what section this goes under - but I figured this would suffice.
I’m currently a first year college student - straight out of high school. I am attending a university full time, but I was wondering if it’s possible to earn an associates at the same time??
I’m currently a pharmacy technician at a retail pharmacy I am certified and registered, and thought it would be a good idea to go into becoming a dental hygenist and in 2-3 years, I become a part time dental hygenist while I figure out what else I want to do with a 4 year bachelors - or if I want to continue on to higher education after that.
I don’t think I want to be involved in dentistry for my actual career - but the pay is good for a dental hygenist and I am interested in the medical aspect of it - despite the fact the labor is repetitive, but while I finish school/ look for a job, I figured it would be suitable.
Any advice?
TLDR; I want to earn an associates for dental hygenist while also earning a bachelors in another unrelated field. Want to work as a dental hygenist until I find a reliable career with my university degrees. I want to know if there are any drawbacks or concerns or things I should be aware about.
Will the dental hygienist program be at the same institution? Typically you can only receive financial aid from one institution at a time.
You may want to check with your Financial Aid department to see if it’s an issue. I used to work at a university in IT and supported the Financial Aid department and the Registrar. It was fairly common for our nursing students to simultaneously earn a certificate in nursing so they could work as a LPN while they were pursuing their BSN. We happened to offer multiple levels of degrees (certificates, associate degrees, bachelor degrees, masters, etc) so they didn’t have to attend another school to do this, but we often had issues depending on how the priority of their major/degree was coded in the computer system. If a student was coded as primarily pursuing an associate’s degree, then Financial Aid was limited in what they could award the student (especially if it was the student’s third year of study at the university).
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Thanks for the reply. I don’t have any issue with financial aid - my tuition is paid in full by my parents. But I was planning on attending community college for the associates - which I would pay for myself without using financial aid.
Would getting an associates - different school - affect me negatively in any aspect?
You would want to check with each school to make sure it doesn’t impact you negatively. Most schools have to report their enrollment to a national clearinghouse (it’s a requirement of being able to disburse federal aid). Since you are not receiving any aid, it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but with students receiving aid, enrollment at more than one school raises a red flag.
You should also check to see if work done at one institution is transferable to the other. For example, if your associate’s degree requires some general education requirements (like English, Math) and your bachelor’s degree also requires the same general education requirements, you would ideally want to take these courses once, and not have to repeat the same courses. The four-year institution may already have a transfer articulation policy with the community college.
I recommend you talk to academic advisors at both schools to see if your plan is feasible.
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It’s unlikely you can add on what is essentially a full-time 2-year degree and continue as a full-time regular college student. So you’ll need to slow the progress towards your 4-year degree. Odds are many of the classes you’ll take towards the AA will not transfer to a 4-year college as credit towards that degree since they’ll be specialized vocational classes. As others have pointed out, if you are receiving financial aid you’ll need to investigate how getting your AA and then continuing on for a BA will work out. Financial Aid is not an unlimited bucket, you may use up a good part of what you are eligible for while getting your AA.
But is this overall a viable plan? Probably. A lot of people enter the workforce with just a HS degree or an AA degree, work for a few years, decide for various reasons they want a 4-year degree, then go back. It sounds like what you’re thinking of is a variant on that plan. This may not be the forum with the highest concentration of people doing that, everyone here is worried about getting into a top-10 college and is premed or CS. So I’m not sure how many kindred spirits you’ll find.