So some people close to me have been suggesting that I do a Masters in CS.
I was thinking about it on and off, and to be honest there’s a part of me that feels pressured and stressed about it that made me want to start this post.
I know why I should get a Masters. Working in education, it could advance my career, it could give me a wider view of things and people could start treating me differently.
On advancing my career, the place I’m working at is kind of an escalator; pay increases with time spent, not title promotion. Getting a Master or PHD might increase my pay but not by a large amount. Masters might give me more opportunities like taking on research projects or more jobs I can take on but I am not interested in any of that. Selfishly, I just want more time to myself, my family and friends. Yes, the research projects pitched to me in school were all very interesting and exciting from an average CS person’s view, but I honestly don’t feel strongly enough to partake in any of that. As just more jobs I can take on, bro, I’m already happy at where I am and so busy that I don’t want to do anything else.
Sure, maybe it will allow me to work in other, more established universities, maybe even overseas. What if I quit or get laid off? This is basically the fool-proofing my career argument. The truth is, I think I’m already financially well off. Even if I’m not, I’m fairly confident in finding similarly paying jobs that I might be interested in given my connections. And, I don’t even know if I want to bother working in other universities, considering how much I know how mainstream academia works. God that’s so much rubbish that goes on in mainstream academia that I just…don’t, lol. I should probably make a post about that one day. Obviously, I’m not saying that all mainstream academia is bad, but just thinking about working in that environment makes me rather be a cashier at my grocery store. On top of that, I don’t even know if I actually want to stay in mainstream teaching if I left my school. The reasons why I love my job is slowly reducing as more mainstream academia and teaching directives seep into my work (which also warrants another rant post lol)
Next is the better perspective thing. If I wanted better perspective, honestly I would just switch jobs. I already know so much about CS through my peers. While things might be different in different CS sectors, let’s be real: how different can it be? If I want different experiences, I’ll go be a politician or a content creator or a bus driver or a garbage collector. For studying, I would rather pick up some non-CS degree like psychology or food sciences or even an MBA. And I don’t even really WANT to do those things. By myself, I’m already swamped with personal things I want to do or even things I want to do with friends and family that I feel will give me a better perspective, make me a better person and more.
The last point is about people’s perception of me. In other words, the initial respect I’ll get when I meet someone. I instinctively shrugged that reasoning off but I decided to give it more thought. It is true: if you have a Masters or PHD, conversation around you does change. I agree that this will make networking in the academia CS circles easier but…I don’t understand why I want to do that. People whom I want to think that I’m a capable programmer already know that I am. I have also constantly proven that you don’t need a Masters or PHD to be a better person or master at their craft. I have seen Master and PHD holders complain and bitch about their course and degrees, or realise that they don’t want anything to do with their degrees anymore. Do I want to throw time and money for something I don’t even need for the sake of some arbitrary person’s surface level of respect? Do I really care about someone who judges people by their bag of certificates? I have always loathed those kind of people who genuinely look down people based on their GPAs, school education and worse: race and gender. I understand why they think like that but when they compare degrees and accomplishments like a dick size and orientation contest, it disgusts me. Yes, this includes people who look up to me because I wrote my own game engine in C. Yes, it’s worth some respect I guess, but that doesn’t mean you should look down on those who didn’t do it like they are trash immediately.
Honestly, I was entertaining the thought of doing my Masters for the past couple of days, but the more I think about it, the less meaning I find in it, both objectively and emotionally. There are so many other things I’d rather be doing man. Also, at this age, having a Masters in CS doesn’t give as much respect as actually developing a product!