I think I might quit my job to go and be a full time graduate student till I finish my degree. Work is starting to hinder my progress, and I care more about the degree I have than I do about my job. My only worry is being unemployed and then trying to find a job. Does it look bad on paper to do this?



Finances should be alright. My wife brings in ~80k/year + I will get my GI Bill for 10 more months. What say you?

Honestly it looks bad to me and I have serious reservations about hiring anyone that goes to school full time at any age past about 25ish. I've been burned every time I hired someone that was older than that. Turns out they are always career students.

Lose a job? Go to school.
Get divorced? Go to school.
Don't have funds to pay school loans? Go to school, get them deferred.

I know that's not your situation but i'm sure other employers have been burned like I have and may be skittish.

I may be biased also, i'm just dumb construction trash. I have no education.

EDIT - Just in general, even not for school, I don't like hiring people that don't already have jobs. I always find out that there was a reason they didn't have a job.

My plan is to finish this master's while going back to completing the CFA. I am pretty sure the combination will go a long way. However, doing both is simply not possible while working a full time job.

I wouldn't have a problem with it as long as I got a decent reference from the employer you left to go back to school, but then this is a common scenario in public accounting.  People often work in public accounting for a few years to get some experience and their license and then go back to school for an MBA, MS in tax or law degree.  Then again, lots of people manage to earn those degrees while working.

ETA - What degree?  CFA + degree + good work history and references should be good to go.  My $0.02.

How stable is your past employment history. If you haven't job hopped a bunch i'd say your probably fine then.

Are you talking about finishing your post grad degree and then interviewing for a 'new' job and being worried that you're unemployed at that point?

Presumably, you're getting your post grad degree to allow you to qualify for better positions after the degree is completed.  I would think that employers in your post grad degree field would be happy that you went back (all other things being equal of course) and got your degree that can help their business out, whether you're employed, or not.

Part time students take longer to complete their degrees.  You will tell them you didn't want to stretch it out over three years, when you could get it done in one year.  You'll tell them that you are/were a two income family and so finances didn't prohibit you from going full time.

Chris

Never been unemployed since high school. Never fired, either.



 

MSF and CFA. Lots of overlap between the two, but a CFA makes your dick 12" long in Finance.



 

How long ago was that, how many years?

If you have at least 5 years experience at one employer in your field since your undergrad, it would not impact me when hiring.

I have known people to do it part time while employed. It consumed their life for years until they were done. I would suggest anyone that wanted a masters or such to do it full time if they could. I would also say that Masters means diddle-squat if you don't have any real work experience in your field.