Check the Guides to Environmental Careers at the end of the Introduction . Teaching Primary and secondary school teachers must obtain teaching credentials determined by their state of residence. For more information, check with an advisor in your college's or university's Education Department. If you are primarily interested in educating, you may want to consider elementary or secondary teaching certification. An MA can take one to three years to complete.
Some departments allow students to choose between the two, while other departments demand both.
Most Master's programs also require proficiency in one foreign language, usually equivalent to two full years of college-level instruction. When accompanied by the proper certification, an MA will qualify you to teach at the high school level. Although a Master's degree will sometimes be sufficient to prepare you for positions at community and junior colleges, an increasing number of two-year colleges are now demanding applicants with PhDs. The focus, however, is on creative writing, and the MFA, unlike the MA, is a terminal degree. Often, a candidate who wishes to enter graduate school in an MFA program will have to supply writing samples to demonstrate his or her potential as a creative writer.