The answer to this question will vector you to the level you would like to achieve next.

If you are in high school, the whole world is potentially open to you. The breadth of these options begins to narrow immediately by the next set of considerations: Do you have the GPA to achieve your dream, and do you have the financing to do what you want to do? These two questions are the most basic in pursuing your education. If you do not have an appropriate GPA (and SAT) to go into your chosen field, you may have a problem. I hope you are reading and heeding this early in your career when you have time to overcome the problem. If you do not have the appropriate GPA for College A, you may be accepted by College B, or if not there, you may able to attend Community College C and then transfer to the upper division of State College D. This is not the best way to get there, but it will work.

If you are at the undergraduate level, you essentially have two choices: Go into the workplace or continue on to get your undergraduate degree. If you choose to go on with your undergraduate program, you need to decide what career field you want to go into? It is after primary education is established that most people go into project management, and that’s the baseline we will use to approach this career question. So if you are looking at your undergraduate field, that field will be your primary field. Your primary field may be computer science, chemical engineering, finance, banking, construction, or dozens of other fields. Whatever it is, you must make a careful consideration at this point. You need to enter at least the general field you want to pursue.

Granted, you don’t need to make your final commitment to a major before entering your freshman year of college but you must make that decision before entering your junior year (upper division) of college. Why? Because if you don’t, you will spend a lot of time unproductively, when you should be making progress toward your goals. If you choose incorrectly and then want to change later, you may have amassed (and paid for) college hours that are of no use to your new major. Granted, education is never wasted, but if it doesn’t apply directly to your major, you will be taking time away from your final career choice.

The most important point to research in choosing a college is the accreditation of the program and the college. There are many programs that are offered and look good, but that are not accredited by an acceptable source. I recommend that you avoid these kinds of programs.

If you are near the end of your undergraduate program, you once again have the option of going into the workforce or going into a graduate program. At this point, you may have a watershed. By this I mean, you may continue on at the graduate level with your primary career field or you may change career fields. At this point you are probably asking: “Why is this guy talking about changing a career field when he’s been preaching stay the course all along?” Good question. But, this is the point when you determine whether you want to stay operating in your primary field, go into management of your primary field, or go into project management at the graduate level. That’s the purpose. Naturally, you can choose to extend your primary career field and become expert there. Or, you can choose the management option and change to an MBA or a master’s degree in Project Management. If you have been in some related field—say, finance—and want to get an MBA, you can probably go directly into your graduate program. If, on the other hand, you choose to change your field from, say, electrical engineering to management, you will probably need to take some prerequisite courses to make the change. These prerequisites will likely be undergraduate courses at the 200 to 400 level. This is part of the tax you pay whenever you change majors. In some cases, you can take prerequisites as electives, but in the hard technical courses, such as engineering, there are generally not enough elective hours available to include the accounting courses and the other courses you will need in order to make the change.

This is an important question for several reasons. The answer to this question may be by choice or by necessity. You may choose to go on to graduate school after you get your bachelor’s degree but may not be able to do that for financial reasons. With the proper strategy, you can factor that into your career equation. Go ahead and enter the workforce, and then, when the opportunity presents itself, go on to grad school at night. Believe me, you will not be the first to take this route. The level you ultimately choose for your education will likely be a limiting factor in your career.

The answer to this question may be open or self-limiting. If you have plenty of money and a great GPA, it’s probably a superfluous question, but most of us are not in this situation. First, not all colleges offer all disciplines. Your choice of discipline may be a determining factor. In other words, if that lovely, ivy-covered college sitting on the river only offers a liberal arts education and you want engineering, it’s obviously not a match. Although this is pretty obvious, what is not so obvious is the limitation of a location once you are in the workforce. By this I mean if you live in Tucson, Arizona and want to get your graduate degree from Stetson University in Florida at night, you’ve got a problem. Your college locations are limited by: 1) Money, 2) Your GPA, 3) Where you live if you want part-time schooling. The point being, to the best of your ability, select your college, don’t let exigencies select it for you.

You may want to go to Harvard or MIT or Stanford or some other highly rated school (who doesn’t?) but that option may not be realistic. If you are in high school, you likely have more flexibility in the choice of schools than if you are in your undergraduate program. If you are independently wealthy and will be a legacy to MIT or Harvard, you can stop reading here and go on to the next section. Otherwise choose the best college that will take you, at any level. It does make a difference to your career.

Ideally, you will probably want to go to the school of your choice, have your education paid for, attend classes during the day, and have an extensive social life at night. I read a book like that a long time ago, and that was the closest I ever came to this option. If you’re like the rest of us, you will need some other combination of options. An alternative option is to work and go to school part-time. This is a real viable option, and it’s done by a lot of people every day. It requires determination and severely impacts your social life. If you go to school full-time, you will probably go in the daytime. If you go to school part-time, it’s probably because you are working, and you will probably have class at night. Some will take a night job just so they can go to school during the day. Correspondence courses are another viable option, but these are generally limited to undergraduate courses and very specific parts of graduate curricula. An extension of correspondence courses is the “distance learning” approach where you do most of your work through correspondence and then attend seminars at the university, usually in the summer. This is a great option, but it is limited in its career field offerings.

In the last few years, e-learning has come to the fore. This is a great approach even if you are working full-time and traveling. You can take a sack full of books and your laptop, and have some productive time at the airport waiting for the next plane or on the a long flight. Again, this approach is somewhat limited, and this approach may also be conducted in the same way as the extended campus option. This option will take a lot of planning and will eat into your social life, but so what? It’s an option that’s available, and if you choose to take it, go for it and good luck.

This is usually a grabber, at least for most of us. There are several options. First, you can have your education paid for by your family. That’s wonderful.

Second, you can get a scholarship or a grant, several scholarships, or multiple grants. Good for you. This takes a lot of research and a lot of time answering questionnaires and interviewing, but otherwise is a good deal.

Third, you can take out student loans. Student loans are generally offered by financial institutions and backed by the federal government. Education loans are offered at very low interest rates.

Fourth, you can join the military and take advantage of their educational program. At one time, military personnel qualified for the so-called “GI Bill.” But that specific instrument has been replaced with the military educational program. This is basically a matching annuity. A very good option. If you have taken the SATs and then the military entrance exams, you will likely show very well. If your scores are high enough, the military will send you to one of their schools that you choose. That’s a great start on vectoring your field of work, and you can take correspondence or even some residence courses while you are in the service. Needless to say, you will have a service option of four or more years, but if you can get at least two years of college under your belt while you’re in the service, you’re way ahead of where you would be otherwise.

Fifth, some employers will pay or help pay for your education. A typical offering is for the employer to pay 75 percent of undergraduate tuition and 100 percent of graduate tuition. Paying for books, lab fees, and so on is up to you. This is a terrific way to get a degree but it takes a lot of grit to work all day and go to school at night. Besides that, you may be starting a family at the same time. This is a good place to put your scheduling skills to work.

Finally, you can work your way through college. That’s a tough option, but it’s done every day. Working takes its toll on homework and certainly on social life but in the long run it’s definitely worth it. You must understand that, if you intend to work your way through, it will likely limit the schools you can attend and the way you do it. Chances are that you’ll need to take the first two years at a community college while living at home and the last two years at a state university. If you are going to grad school under these conditions, you are likely working days and going to school at night. It works, but it requires drive and determination.

There are dozens of colleges and universities in the United States and dozens of colleges and universities internationally offering graduate-level project management degree programs and certificates. As you might imagine, the offerings are a conglomeration of just about every combination of on-campus, off-campus, Internet, degree, certificate combination you can think of. They are so complex that I can only generalize about these offerings. I organize these colleges and universities into five groups:

It is interesting to note that some colleges and universities recognize the PMP from the PMI. In the cases I have investigated, the PMP has a value of nine graduate-level hours counting toward a graduate degree. A graduate degree in project management usually consists of thirty-two hours of work.

To say it once again, the field of project management is changing rapidly. So is the support offered by colleges and universities. The best way I know of to find a consolidated listing of universities that provide support to these programs is to go to the PMI Web site at http://www.pmi.org/. Then, go to the “Professional Development and Careers” menu. Select “Academic Degree Accreditation.” You can access the information there and then go to the Web site of the college or university of interest. You can search each school individually and determine which categories each offers. Then you can select the school that is most appropriate for your needs.

As an alternative, you can do an Internet search on colleges and universities, but you’ll have to wade through a lot of inappropriate colleges. Also, you can do a search on “master of project management” or “master of science in project management.”

At this point, you may be asking yourself: What role does a graduate degree in project management play in all this? This question is a little bit difficult to answer. Generally speaking, the project management curriculum covers the project management subject areas equivalent to those required for an expert project. In addition, there will be other courses required. Colleges and universities have little consistency of curricula other than for the core courses.

There are some other nuances that should be discussed at this point though. The first question back to you is: What do you intend to do with your career? The answer to that question is the real reason I divided the colleges and universities into the five categories.

If you want to go into project management as a long-term goal, you should select a program and university that results in a graduate degree in project management. The master of project management usually fills this ideal. Let’s call this Category A.

If you want to add project management to your repertoire, but ultimately want to become a general manager or CEO or the like, you should choose an MBA program with a specialty in project management. Call this Category B.

If you are a technical person and want to have the ability to lead projects and be a functional manager also, you should select a program that adds project management to your technical core. Usually the master of science in project management will fill this requirement. We’ll call this Category C.

As you can see, each of these areas follows a little different line of education. While the core courses are similar, the supporting courses and electives are quite different. Ergo, you should be careful to select the degree type that will give you the greatest return.

Let’s refer to the five groups I talked about earlier and match them with the categories we just discussed.

What if you already have a graduate degree in another field, or don’t want to go back and get another graduate degree or a doctorate at this time? The answer here could lie in getting a diploma, a certificate, or a certification in project management and add that to your credentials. These credentials actually fall into the category of training, which follows.