Possible Career ideas?

January 3, 2007 8:11 AM

Trying to find ideas for my husband's career path, who has a degree but it isn't from the U.S. we're not sure where to start?

My husband has a 4-year degree from a college in Morocco in political science. Can he use that degree when applying for jobs here in the U.S.? I would think a worldwide company would look at that degree as acceptable. I think he would also need to take a few classes on computer skills in microsoft like word or excel. He is currently working as a food server, and while it pays the bills, he really wants to move on to something more fulfilling.

He speaks 3 languages fluently, Arabic, French and English. He's done some translation work, but it mostly seems like those jobs are not so regular and dependable to make a living.

While school isn't out of the question, we have 2 small children he watches during the day and I take care of during the evening. We have no childcare. As far as school, I know we could probably find a school that has daycare on site, or possibly do online classes. I'm not to framiliar with how online classes work, or if they could be the right choice either. He has checked into classes and was told that he would have to basically start over as if he has never been to college because nothing he has done counts towards credit. Any ideas?

posted by Gooney to education (5 comments total)

I graduated with a degree in History/Pol Sci from a 3d rate school in 1989. The Army was interested that I had a degree from an accredited school. No one else, from small businesses to large businesses to really really really really huge businesses cares what my degree is in, where it is from, or what my GPA was. Several jobs I have applied for required a "college degree", but it was never more specific than that.

As long as everything on his resume is accurate, the mere fact that his college education was in a different country shouldn't hurt. Assuming, of course, that there are not specialized education requirements for certification in a job (i.e. an MD from a non-US college would almost certainly require further info)

Good luck,
posted by stupidcomputernickname at 9:03 AM on January 3, 2007

the Federal Government seems to be in serious need of Arabic translators, I'd check that out, too, if he's fluent in English. It's a skill not many Americans have, and possibly more precious (in the US) than a Moroccan political science degree
posted by matteo at 9:03 AM on January 3, 2007

The real question here seems to be "What career does your husband want?"

That will help answer whether his Moroccan degree would be of any value in starting him on that path.

For many careers, degrees are all but irrelevant. For example, programming. As a hiring manager, I can honestly say I completely skip that portion of the resume. It is absolutely no predictor of how well a person can program, whatever the degree.

If it were me, I'd try to leverage my language skills in an environment where they were an important differentiator, but not the point of the career. For example, instead of a translator, possibly a business analyst for a company doing business in France and the US.

I think your husband and you should come up with a goal worth striving for, and then plan how to reach it. If you don't have a goal, and you assume going to school will be helpful, you are likely to end up working hard, spinning your wheels, but get nowhere.
posted by Invoke at 9:07 AM on January 3, 2007

Can he use that degree when applying for jobs here in the U.S.?

He can put it on his resume and such, sure.

But there's no way that he can make a company or hiring person give a damn. If they want to discount a Moroccan BA, rightly or wrongly, then they're free to do so.

He can probably expect that some people who look at his resume and see a university with a scary brown-people terra-ist name will stop reading. These would probably also not be fabulous places to work.

Glancing at information on Moroccan higher education, I wonder if it would be useful for him to note under his BA that the Moroccan higher education system is modeled on the French system and was a part of the French university system until (or slightly beyond) Morocco's independence.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:58 AM on January 3, 2007

Gooney, my husband is Moroccan, and I know many Moroccans who've come here - almost all who've gone on to "white collar" jobs have had to get a second education in the States. My husband speaks about 9 languages fluently, and we've found that translators do need to have PC skills - for example, several hospitals in the area are now using a "translator on demand" service, where a chat/webcam session is used.

As for the colleges - even if they don't want to give him credit for anything, see if he can test out of certain courses. What he really needs to do, like Invoke said, is decide what he wants for a career.

Do you belong to any of the Yahoo groups for women married to Moroccans etc...? They're good for sharing exactly this kind of info.
posted by Liosliath at 1:31 PM on January 3, 2007