Part-Time Graduate School vs Part-Time Consulting Work 1

[VTer]

I am in my early thirties and work full-time for a large corporation that has been very flexible with my schedule and my manager is very supportive. I focus to make my full-time job my top professional priority.

With the company’s permission and my manager’s support, I also just recently started doing some consulting work on the side. The consulting work is mostly done after regular hours, besides communications with the clients. Side work is coming in but it is very cyclic where some weeks/days tend to be much busier than others. One day I work until 1:00AM to meet a deadline and the next there is not much to do. The extra experience and income make the consulting very rewarding but now there is another opportunity that accidentally presented itself: Distance Learning Engineering Grad School.

I already spoke to my company and they are fully supportive and provide tuition reimbursement but I am very concerned if I am attempting to do too much. My family is supportive and the idea of one online class per semester sounds great and doable but I am starting to wonder at what cost. I already took one undergrad level online course to get a feel for the schedule and was able to perform just fine but with some luck. I did not have any major deadlines conflict each-other. If I start grad school than I will have to sacrifice some private work for the time being and I don’t know if it will be worth it. At this point I do not think I need grad school for my work, but I want to grow and learn and I am sure it will provide more opportunities in the future. I do not have kids and am relatively younger, so my belief is that now is the opportune time to do this.

I was curious if anyone has/had similar experience to share lessons learned? Would you recommend grad school in engineering from a reputable school or would you tend to focus more on the private business at this time? Some general advice and opinions are also welcome. I am truly stuck and appreciate any feedback?


"Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic ù and this we know it is, for certain ù then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature". û Nikola Tesla

 

[jpankask]

I earned my MS degree by taking part time distance learning classes while working full time. I generally took 1 graduate level class per semester. Most classes were videotaped and I would watch them on my schedule, then complete the homework assigned. It was very time consuming. I was not consulting on the side, but I don't think I would have had time to do that. If you are married, I cannot imagine your wife would ever see you working full time, grad school part time AND consulting work. If you have no wife and that's how you want to spend all of your time, I guess you could, but I imagine it would lead to burnout pretty soon, or declining work performance at your full time job. It took me about 5 years to finish my degree on a part-time basis. When I started, I had a wife with no kids. When I finished I had three kids (and luckily the same wife, who was very supportive of me but had to take on some things I should have been doing to allow me to focus on finishing school). I am glad I got finished while they were still young, so I didn't miss out on a lot of time with them.

As to how beneficial it is, that's really up to you and your goals. For me, the graduate level classes are really where everything kind of came together. In my undergraduate classes, I learned HOW to do the work, some of my graduate classes taught me WHY you do it that way. Having the MS degree has allowed me to achieve some career milestones earlier than I could have otherwise, but didn't really make me an appreciably better engineer. If you are able to build up your private business and succeed without the MS degree, do you really want to contribute a significant portion of the next 4-5 years to get the degree, and potentially sacrifice growing your business?

If just learning more is your goal, and you don't need the paper hanging on the wall, you can just buy the books and study them yourself, without the time pressure of following a structured class. Good luck with your decision, it's a tough one, but honestly I imagine you will ultimately be happy with whichever path you decide to take.

 

[VTer]

Thank you very much for your response jpankask! I agree with you and you provided some great feedback. There is just a part of me that really wants the higher education and I believe that it may open more doors for future business opportunities although I may have to sacrifice some short-term growth for the business and be more selective in my consulting work. Did you find it to be true that graduate school provided more opportunities and better networking, especially the fact that you did distance learning and were not face-to-face with your professors? In addition, roughly how much time on average did you spend per week on your class, studies and homework combined?

"Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic ù and this we know it is, for certain ù then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature". û Nikola Tesla

 

[jpankask]

I attended my graduate school at the same school I did my undergraduate, so I already knew most of my professors. All communications were done via email pretty much until I presented my research paper. I really didn't get any networking out of a distance learning masters degree. I had some contact with people in industry while performing research for my paper, but nothing I would really consider "networking". Having the degree has provided me with some opportunities at my current job, but that is mainly due to getting "work time credit" for having a masters degree, i.e. a particular position requires 4 years experience, or 2 years with a master's degree, etc.

I probably averaged at least 10 hours per week on the graduate classes. This usually consisted of about 3-4 hours watching the class video, and the rest studying and homework. A great benefit of the classes being on video is that you can rewind and re-watch anything that you missed, or didn't make sense to you, rather than just relying on your notes taken in class.

 

[Panther140]

Consulting work will give you a significantly better ROI, even if your only investment with a Master's is time. Formal education is rather cookie-cutter unless you are doing a unique thesis on something amazing.

Do consulting work, especially if you find it rewarding. Maybe you could hire yourself at your own consulting firm some day. I'm sure the consulting work would look great on your resume.



"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin