u/AltoMayo_Agro_Forest

I'm a dual US - Peru citizen, and have an AS degree in Environmental Horticulture, and a BA degree in General Studies with minors in Basque and Spanish.

I was thinking of getting an MS in soil science, since that is very relevant to the agroforestry restoration work I've been doing on my land in Peru for the past six years. Problem is that in Peru you are typically gatekept from jobs at the undergrad (colegiatura) level. Which means since I don't have a five-year Ingeniero Agronomo or Ingeniero Forestal title, HR tends to filter you out. It doesn't matter that you're a great soil scientist and excelled in your Masters program. think it's the same elsewhere in latam. They all want you to have that underlying Ingeniero title. That's a tough constraint since I have a BA.

If I get the MS degree, are my only options for using it in the anglosphere?

I can always pursue a Masters in TESOL to get a good English-teaching job pretty much anywhere. But I don't want to give up on my dream of being a scientist.

I'm in my late 30s and considering a career change. My background is AS in Environmental Horticulture and BA General Studies with minors in Basque and Spanish.

Due to the General Studies degree, I can definitely relate to comments like this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/Environmental_Careers/comments/1tdqql0/other_degrees_are_much_more_useful_for/

I'm a dual US/Peruvian citizen and I've been working on my own agroforestry restoration project in the highlands of the Amazon for the past few years, and prior to that I had a lot of irrelevant jobs like truck driver.

Do you think it's unrealistic for me to break into the industry as is? I do. As is, I think I'm basically just looking for unicorn jobs like private property manager roles.

So I'm considering a field that I don't see mentioned much on this subreddit: Soil Science.

It seems like Soil Science has greater breadth to be accepted into many different fields: Environmental consulting, federal, ag, forestry, restoration, etc.

I've been looking for programs that satisfy OPM 0470 requirements, and it seems a number of them have a thesis track and a non-thesis track. The non-thesis ones are usually called M of Ag or Professional Masters or something similar.

Are these scarlet letters? I understand the thesis is important if you want to stay in academia or work towards PI roles, but those aren't huge priorities for me. I'm more concerned about the more general perception of degrees like that.

One additional question: Do people in this industry get hired with a Masters in a relevant field, even though the underlying Bachelor degree is irrelevant? The reason I ask, is that in Peru, where I currently live, there is a lot of gatekeeping at the undergrad level no matter how much experience and relevant advanced degrees you stack on top of the undergrad credential. I understand it's not an issue for US federal jobs, but what about the rest of the industry?