There was a time when the only people who succeeded in life through advancing their careers were those who had money to their name. That’s because to land a high-paying job, people had to earn an expensive college degree first. And as you already know, not everyone has the privilege to afford the costs of higher education.
Luckily, over time, this wealth disparity is addressed by creating employment opportunities that won’t require a bachelor’s degree. Although this advancement is evident across almost all economic industries, it has made unprecedented progress in the field of healthcare.
This is why aspiring healthcare workers no longer have to be hindered by their economic status to seek out the employment opportunities they wish to pursue. Most of these alternative routes are done through apprenticeships, certifications, and other training methods. In fact, here are three careers in healthcare that you can consider:
Health and Social Care Worker
You can seek employment from healthcare organizations like care homes and agencies, home care providers, or hospital settings that need social care workers. Unlike other careers in the healthcare industry, becoming a health and social care worker won’t require you to earn a bachelor’s degree.
However, that doesn’t mean that you won’t need formal training. After all, you’re going to be caring for actual people with actual lives, which is why you still need to undergo mandatory and non-mandatory training for all types of care providers.
More often than not, social care workers are required to get a new online Care Certificate by completing an interactive, in-depth, and comprehensive course through accredited e-learning platforms. Doing so will allow aspiring health and social workers like you to learn what you need so that you can apply those learning in the workplace.
And since these courses are offered through online platforms, you can also access them at your own time and from any device you please. All the courses are accredited through the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Certification Service, which means that you can use them to help you advance your career in healthcare.
Paramedic
You can become a first responder in the form of a paramedic who provides urgent care for emergency patients while on route to the hospital. Traditionally, people who want to become a paramedic can do so by getting their bachelor’s degree in paramedic science or practice before applying to the ambulance service.
Fortunately, there is another way to become a paramedic that won’t require you to have a degree: becoming a student paramedic. Through this process, you will need to apply directly to an ambulance service and study while you work. You can think of it as a highly competitive paid apprenticeship.
Of course, each ambulance service will have different requirements for its applicants. Still, it can include having at least two years’ worth of driving experience, maintaining a good level of physical fitness, as well as having qualifying grades in high school English, maths, and science.
Registered Nurse
You can become a registered nurse who works in the hospital and assists doctors in providing care for their patients. In the past, aspiring nurses had to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing before applying to work for a hospital, but fortunately, the times have changed.
Now, aspiring nurses like you can enter programs that will allow you to study and work simultaneously so that you can earn a living. There are plenty of nursing apprenticeships that you can apply to, wherein you can study at a university while working in a clinic or hospital. Through this, you will receive your training as a registered nurse.
After you complete the apprenticeship and earn your associate degree, you can continue to specialize in a medical field of your choice or pursue full-time employment as a registered nurse. This way, you won’t have to accumulate monstrous student debt to earn your degree.
The traditional way isn’t the only way. Of course, there was a time when the world had to abide by certain standards like earning a formal education through a university before getting a full-time job, but the times have changed. It’s only right that society is following suit to break the status quo.
Through the creation of these alternative career paths, more people are given employment opportunities that they were not exposed to before, simply because they didn’t have the economical means to. At least through these educational and training methods, aspiring healthcare workers can all begin at a levelled playing field despite their marginalized conditions.
