Hacker News Reader

Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone else working full time and getting a degree part time? I’m a year away from my masters and it’s just been grueling, especially given that the government sees no difference in terms of taxes whether my tuition is paid directly by my employer or if they just gave me a $20,000 check every year and I ran it straight to the bursar on my own accord, so I’ve been screwed for money and time for it seems like as long as I can remember.

I really want to do side projects (I’m getting a degree in machine learning and google colab is free) but I have a job to go to, classwork to do, tests to study for, groceries to shop for and dinner to cook because I can’t afford instacart or delivery...and then I read posts like this about the joys of side projects. It’s really depressing.

View on HN

I really want to do this, my new employer will even help subsidize the cost but there are major problems.

1. Traditional universities schedules do not work with a full time work schedule. Even getting information on admission and such is a pain because it's all geared towards HS seniors.

2. Most online bachelors are either post-bacc or require me to have preexisting college credits (I went to a CC a couple years back and quit after a month so I have nothing). A few others often a handful of limited degrees such as Nursing or Business or a vague "IT". The latter seems to be the case with most adult education programs.

I suppose I could could take a handful of weekend classes at a community college and then try to get into one of the distance learning programs, but I dont want to spend a decade to get a degree

I've been considering getting a masters. The thing holding me back, is that I worked full time while getting my bachelors and it was a grueling 9 years. I'm not sure I want to go through that again. Though I do dream of quitting my job and going back to school full time. I think that would be fun. I have the money to do it, but the opportunity cost is just too high.

Though I do spend a couple of hours most weekday mornings learning stuff I want to learn. I get up about 5 spend a couple of hours studying and then head into work. The nice thing about studying on my own, is that I can take a break if I need to. Like right now work is real stressful, so I decided to take a week off studying.

Taking classes full time was much easier. Even with the mental whiplash of subjects and classwork to do, I at least had the freedom to figure out the best way to work my schedule around it. Not so easy when I have to be at my desk at 8am every day.

I did a masters in Electrical Engineering while working full time, it took me 4 years. Luckily I wasn't married or had kids at the time, but my school was next door to my office so it was easy enough to get back and forth for night classes. It did take up all my free time for those years though.

I wouldn't stress about doing more than you are right now! Getting a degree is just as good if not better than any side project! Take a long term look at the skills you want to develop and maybe map out how to get there after the degree is finished. Good luck!

I am in the last year of my master degree and I have been working for 7 years. The pressure from both work and studies have left deep scars in my body and soul.

This attempt on my education has left me scarred and deformed...but my resolve...actually that’s pretty worn down too.

I don’t think there’s enough discussion in spaces like this on how hard it is to continue education while working full time. Working full time is already hard enough. Life is hard enough. We in tech like to pretend that ours is the most meritocratic of industries, but we also contend with job postings that wouldn’t dare a second glance at a candidate without an advanced degree next to their name.

I just wanted a skill set that couldn’t be as easily outsourced or replaced by H1-Bs so I could make art with A.I.

Shit’s crushing.

I have to work, study and remodel an apartment [0]. It's damn tough.

[0] This has probably saved me more money than I would get from a side project.

Especially since those savings are not subject to taxation!

The first $5250/yr of employer paid educational benefits should be non-taxable to you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com