I am a 36 year old mother of a 2 year old and thinking of leaving a 13 year IT career to pursue a career as a Physical Therapist Assistant. I was a Sports Medicine trainer in High School and planned to pursue a similar career in health and fitness, but encountered many challenges out of High School and never went to college. Full time work and finances prevented me from going back to school. Now, 18 years later, I am considering quitting my job to pursue a PTA degree and finally do what I'm passionate about.

 This all sounds great except we can't easily do without my salary for the time I would need to be jobless, and time wise, I worry about doing something to better myself and deprive my son of that time together. Like many moms (and dads) I can't get over the feeling that I'm making a selfish decision. I would love to hear from others who have gone back to school after a very long hiatus, especially moms or those who encountered the challenge of losing an entire income while in school.

I would also love to hear about how to go about researching schools. I only have 2 options in my area and one is accredited...the other is only "in the application process" for accredidation. The accredited program is about 3K more expensive. How much does the accredidation of the school matter? Could I still sit for the exam if the school isn't accredited but I receive an AAS in their program? I also wonder about how to go about contacting hospitals/clinics to shadow and log hours. Also, are there good publications or books to read in advance or while getting the pre-requisites?

Finally, how many hours of study outside class can I expect? I need to really "sell" my husband that this is a good idea and want to give him a realistic view of how much I am going to be taking on. I know it's only 3 years (1 year for pre-reqs, 2 years for the program), but I feel very strongly about making this happen.

Thanks for any tips or advice!

okay so i am not a mom, but i would say that the accreditation is extremely important. i am graduating this may and pretty much every job i have looked for the requirments for the job will say "graduate from an accredited PTA program", also when i was looking at schools the 3 questions i was told to ask are 1). is the program accredited? 2.) what is the pass rate of the PTA exam, and 3.) what is the employment rate?

As for observation, i just called the places, asked for the PT department or the director of PT and said i was a student and needed observation hours.

And as for the studying it really depends. i'm going to be completely honest. i'm 19, and i am friends with a lot of the people that are 30-40..more towards the last 30's. they will study a week in advance for the test..2-3 hours a night. i study the day before MAYBE like an hour 2 nights before. but that's it. and i have one of, if not the highest grade. i'm not trying to be cocky, i'm just saying i reallly don't need to study that much and i learn it, and i remeber it too. half the time i can hear it once, and remeber it and i think that might not be as true for people as they get older. i'm don't know you, so maybe that's not true for you at all, just consider it i guess that the study hours will be different for everyone.

sorrry if i didn't help much =\

Laura

hi,. i'm a PTA right now and i love it i work with kids, ok i went to school two years (texas) it was hard but i was single and fresh out of high school, now i have a boy and its hard going back to school, well i was able to keep a job the first year and half year my second year. the first year is in school classes and labs and the last semester is clinicals like a full time job but no pay ;) its hard but at the end it was all well worth it. hope it helps .....

I am a PTA that went back to school in my early 30's.  I have no kids though, but we were a two-income household going to a one income because I quit my job.  I wanted to change careers from accounting to do something I really loved, but I had to consider what it would be like living from paycheck-to-paycheck because that's exactly what we had to do.  I was fortunate in that I had a lot of my pre-requisites from my previous degree so I never actually stepped foot on campus (which was an hour and a half commute) until I was accepted into the program.  Once into the program, it was a little less than a year long--fast & furious.  And yes, I studied frequently and was committed to getting the most out of it I could and getting my money's worth and ended up graduating at the top of my class.  All that aside though, I studied because I wanted to be a good therapist.  So, there will be a big time commitment to studying, clinicals, etc. and this is where you just have to ask yourself if the sacrifice will be worth it. 

I currently work in a setting as a Rehab Tech, I would like to become a PTA but I have to work full-time is there any school out there I could do on line classes?

I too decided to pursue a PTA degree after being out of high school many years. I am in my last clinical rotation right now ( 9 weeks long) and will be completely finished Aug 21.  My program was a little over 2 years long, and I took as many pre-reqs that I could online. Actually, all of the core classes were offered online, but my math skills were lacking so I chose to attend campus classes for those. If online is an option, I would suggest going that route, the classes are not easier necessarily but at least you can choose when to log on and complete your assignments rather than spending time traveling to campus.

Beginning school again at the age of 40, with 3 children at home (ages 17, 8, and 6) and a husband who had just deployed to Iraq was difficult to say the least. My oldest was of great help with the little ones, but trying to study and complete assignments, maintain a household, and find time for the family was very hard. I would say that during the core (online) studies, I spent an average of 3 hours daily on school stuff. There were alot of late late nights for me. Once I started in the program, all classes were held in the evening, 4 nights a week. My oldest was then in charge of putting the little ones to bed in the evening. Talk about feeling guilty and selfish for not being around!  I think it's important to be there while your children are little, and I feel fortunate that I have always been a stay-at-home mom, but that also has it's downside in that my children were used to not having to compete for my attention.

As far as school accreditation, I would highly suggest you go with the one that is accredited. I know it can never guarantee the quality of educational experience that you will get, but schools have guidelines and such to follow to keep their accreditation so it's one way to gauge their quality. My program required 25 hours of observation before beginning the program (not the core) and I knew this ahead of time so I went to a local physical therapy clinic and asked if I could observe there. It was easy enough. The school could also direct you in this area as well.

Luckily for us, losing a salary was not an issue since I didn't work to begin with. One issue that I did have to come to terms with was that my family plan during my husband's deployment was to stockpile alot of money toward a down payment on a house once he came home. Because I chose to start school, and we don't use credit cards or student loans, all of the money we would have saved has instead gone to my tuition. Since I attend a private school (which is the only choice in this area for PTA) the tuition is ASTRONOMICAL. I will spend the first couple years in my career now saving toward a home, but my husband and everyone else I spoke with said that it's just a trade-off and it's worth it in the end. As far as my classmates go, some continued to work part-time (waitressing, retail, therapy aides) up until our clinical rotations began. Until then they worked days and weekends, and weeknights that we werent in school. Once clinicals started mostly everyone stopped working (a couple still work weekends only). So if your program is day classes only, that might mean you have to work part time at night, which I will be honest and say will be difficult. I do have one big suggestion though: how about doing everything you can now, financially, to either pay off debt or save money for the next 3 years to cover your salary while in school. Your baby would then be school age ( no more daycare costs) and you could attend during the day without huge feelings of guilt about not being there for him/her.

Well, I hope this helps, and I realize you posted quite a while back but I thought I would try to give some insight. I know I was so anxious and worried about starting this process, but I am glad that I did. It's been hard work but it feels good to know that I have been able to achieve what I set out to do, and even though my family sometimes complained about it, I know it has made us all stronger. My children have learned what patience and diligence means by watching me, and we rejoice together when I earn a fantastic grade (and share my disappointment when I don't do as well I like). So go for it!  PS I have to pat myself on the back now as I have been a 4.0 student since day one!

Good luck!