Online Office Administration Schools & Colleges

Increasing automation, organization restructuring and new technologies have altered and continue to change the landscape for office administration personnel. Computers, e-mail, scanners, and voicemail, for instance, enable administrative assistants and secretaries to be more efficient. In many cases, these workers' traditional duties are now being handled by clerks, when it comes to bookkeeping, filing, photocopying and typing, for example, or by the professionals for whom the office staff works, like in the case of word processing and handling correspondence. At some law offices and medical practices, paralegals and medical assistants now are doing tasks once performed by secretaries. In many companies, some jobs are being outsourced to virtual assistants. At the same time, secretaries and administrative assistants are taking on more duties once reserved for the professionals or managers.

Office Administration Online Colleges

Office administration degrees are plentiful and even available through long-distance learning. Many online office administration programs are offered at levels varying from the associate to graduate degree. One such program is the Associate of Applied Science in Office Administration. This program offers you learning in areas such as database management, spreadsheets, word processing and more. In this degree program, you can also receive the training you need to work on Your Microsoft Office Specialist, or MOS, certification. This certificate verifies that you are capable of completing sundry job tasks across a variety of Microsoft programs. At advanced levels, you can find degrees related to business administration, human resources, and organizational management. While these are not specifically focused on office administration, they can offer you skills that can be helpful in advancement. Some of these online degrees include the Bachelor's of Arts degree in Business Administration and the Master's of Science degree in Human Resources Leadership. You can also find online graduate certificate programs that can be helpful to you increasing your office administration skills.

If you do complete an online office administration degree at the two-year level, you should be qualified to become an administrative assistant or secretary, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While those in this occupation earned mean annual wages of $32,000, the opportunity for a 11 percent increase in growth in the field is predicted, 2008-2018, by the BLS. This could result in more than 470,000 new jobs during this time period. Additionally, there are specific types of secretarial certificates that could be helpful to advancement. These include the Certified Professional Secretary, or CPS, and the Certified Administrative Professional, or CAP, according to the BLS. With additional legal- or medical-specific training, you could also work to become a legal or medical secretary. Legal secretaries in the U.S. earned mean annual wages of $43,270 while medical secretaries earned those of $31,820, according to 2010 BLS data. Growth was forecast at 18 and 27 percent, respectively, 2008-2018, by the BLS. Another option could be to pursue a career as an executive secretary or executive administrative assistant, positions that garnered $45,860 in mean annual wages. Of course, time on the job and experience in the field could be helpful to advancing to this position.