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Over the past couple of weeks, I've been looking into options for getting a Master's degree in Computer Science. I have a couple reasons for wanting this - one is that I genuinely want to learn more about the subject. I know I can do that on my own time, for instance through the path laid out on teachyourselfcs.com, but I like the idea of going back to school for a couple years. The second reason is that I need to have a master's degree if I want to teach at the college level, and I'd really like to have that as an option. While getting the degree, I could probably work in a graduate assistantship to get experience teaching as well, which could be great.
Teach Yourself Computer Science
An aside: I got my undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering. My experience with that was interesting - I liked to casually follow space news, and enjoyed astronomy, but my passion for the field was nowhere near the level of my peers. My classmates were often pretty hardcore - hobby rocketeers, serious kerbal space program players, challenging each other to identify planes, the works. They cared a lot about aerospace developments, and I just wasn't there with them. I was plenty smart enough, just not passionate. This is one of the reasons computer science is calling to me - it just tickles my brain like that. I read lobste.rs daily. I've been learning languages and exploring linux for fun, no job required. This is a field I feel like putting work into.
Now, it's very fun to muse on the idea of a master's - look up local universities, what I need to do to apply, what options there are for teaching. Doing all this is the easy part, I get here with all my projects - the ideas phase. Now comes the hard part. I'm going to need to procure funding, looking up tons of scholarships. I want to reach out to a couple of professors to ask about their work, what the job really entails for them - and that is anxiety inducing. I have to reach out to old employers to ask for letters of recommendation, people I haven't talked to in years. I'm terrible at networking. So, it's all a nice dream at the moment - if I want to make it real, I need to start doing the hard part.