@Santa: don't be a dick; I ready explained why I haven't done that yet

@everyone else: thanks for all your help. I'm much closer to figuring out what to do than I was earlier. Regarding taking pre-reqs for an MS without getting a new undergrad, how would one usually go about this? Would you simply audit each class a là carte or is there some sort of program for this type Of thing? Or would it normally be done at the same institution you plan to get your MS from? Does it matter what school you get pre-reqs from?

(I ask this because I am also planning on taking classes to get a technical certificate in horticulture in the next year at a community college here in New Orleans - perhaps while there I can knock out a few of these basic pre-reqs as well, just in case I decide to try for the MS later on?)

Do you really need another degree? Could you perhaps get practical OJT in agricultural practices by working for a company/nonprofit that is assisting African nations with improving their agriculture? For example, I would trust someone who has on-the-ground experience designing and building irrigation systems in Africa but who has no degree more than I would trust someone who had the paper but no experience.

I ate at a Senegalese restaurant last night, btw. It was good.

I think you need to do more than audit these classes because you have to offset the Masters degree granting institution regarding your competence in the subject area you're intending to get the Masters in. I would contact the department chair at your local university and see about if it would be possible to take classes for academic credit but not towards a degree plan.

"by working for a company/nonprofit that is assisting African nations with improving their agriculture?"

Haha, this is my end-goal. If I get the degree, it will be a means towards this end. So if I already had such experience, I wouldn't waste my time and money at school. That said I am working on building my personal experience that can serve as an technical "intro to agriculture" - it started small, simply learning to ID plants, keep a garden, and shovel compost. I now work at a nursery and I have volunteered with an urban gleaning project as an intern for a year and a half (want an orange?). Next year I'm going to go to school for a semester to get a technical certificate in horticulture, and in the meantime I have been and will continue to take online classes and read textbooks about botany, agronomy, smallholding, food systems, and the like. So I'm getting there. I'm just being realistic - when I look at job postings id like to fill one day, most seem to strongly desire or require a technical degree (sometimes an advanced degree) in an ag related field. I will try to get into the field without the degree, so that if I don't need to get it I won't have to. But if necessary I will get the degree(s) necessary to make it happen. I figured I should at least have tbe bones of a plan for that contingency. Either way, this is my life's work. Time and money are no object, because this is my top priority.

Thanks for the help everyone, I have a much better idea of how to proceed.

"want an orange?"

Don't even start with me, Thucy.

I'm harvesting grapefruits on Monday and Tuesday if you want a few. You pay shipping tho

Where's mine?

You do grapefruit now? You really are moving up. Let me know when you're onto watermelon. I'm playing the slow game.

Ooo, when he's a watermelon picker, we will know a watermelon picker

Also, if this is the field you are truly interested in, I would recommend going for an MS even if you don't need it for the first job you get. The form all education will likely be very helpful and the MS will help you advance into decision-making positions.

Of course, talking to someone in the field should still be your top priority because they will be able to tell you exactly how much an MS would benefit you in particular.

I've picked some wild melons on one of my illegal nature walks. They had been sitting there since summer, I found them in the dead of winter by the creekside. I washed em in the creek and atr em right up, tell you what. Fuck you gonna do about it

What's an illegal nature walk?

I tend to agree abge about the MS, I would only get a bachelor's if required to do so. However, I also don't really want to be in a decision making position. I could have pursued that track right out of college as a Foreign Service bureaucrat. I am interested in the technical side so as to be of direct physical assistance. I want to be stationed in the field. An expert, perhaps, but not a manager, unless a manager is what is eventually required of me.

Geting his weed out of the swamp.

It's where you trespass on an absentee landowner's property and enjoy it illegally, since no one else is doing anything with it. Free-roaming nature walks are often illegal in the United States of the 21st century

Down there you run the risk of getting shot. Then what would we do for our citrus?

Even in technical fields you have people that make decisions a d people that do grunt work. I'm sure I don't know how agriculture works at that scale, but in the computer industry, I have a squad of technicians below me at the Associate s/BS level that do things I don't have time for. I'm not a manager, nor do I handle business decisions, but I do make technical decisions and recommendations.

I know that, I'm just saying I'm not angling to be promoted, id rather be the boot on tbe ground

How about being the upper-boot on the ground though, rather than having to obey that idiot who insists grapefruit is a vegetable?

I've thought about that and, yes maybe sometimes you have to obey an idiot. But on the other end of it, if you are the boss, you have to rely on idiots to do the right thing, which they won't. I'd rather be at the most direct level, able to influence the world in a direct physical way as much as I can

What I mean is perhaps you can pick the fruits while bossing around other people to pick fruits.

I guess it matters little though.