Educational consulting includes helping students, teachers, schools, and colleges across a range of education-related areas. The goal is to provide expertise and insight related to primary, secondary, and higher education.
Education consultants provide career-related advice, formulate study materials, and enable institutions to offer the best possible curriculum.
If you’re passionate about helping others through their education journey, this could be a rewarding career for you. To be an education consultant, you need to:
Earn your degrees
Choose your major in either education or in the subject you wish to specialize in. Some schools even offer introductory teaching courses, which is a plus.
Your master’s is more important than your bachelor’s. So go with either M.Ed or aim for an MA or MS with a specialization in education.
To be a consultant, you’ve got to be an educator first. Getting these degrees will set you up for a smooth career.
Start teaching
Get professional experience either by taking up full-time positions or through internships. The nature of the job isn’t that important but your experience is.
You can also participate in extracurricular teaching activities during college. This could be volunteer work in your local school or community service.
Another option is working part-time at a tutoring center or a tuition agency. Working as an independent tutor also counts. The focus here is to get as much exposure to teaching as possible.
Get your license
Education consultants need to get certified before they can start looking for opportunities. Apply to universities with educational consulting programs and get certified. A few institutions to try are UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, and UCLA.
Alternatively, you may choose to receive your certification from the American Institute of Certified Educational Planners (AICEP). Again, it doesn’t matter where you get licensed from as long as it’s recognized across the country.
Find a job
Once you’ve got your degrees, some professional experience, and a license, you’re ready to go job hunting.
Create your account on LinkedIn and other job boards and start applying to vacancies. Another way is to ask for referrals in your circle. You may also want to visit a few educational institutions to put in your application.
Discuss your academic and teaching experience when applying. Highlight all teaching-related work you’ve done – volunteering, tutoring, internships, and part/full-time jobs.
Do that and you’ll be on your way to being one of the most sought-after education consultants out there.
