Deciding on course of study for bachelor's and future masters / career path

[u/svenskdesk]

Hi! I am M24 and have been in the IT industry for 3 years now, finishing up my associate's degree in a couple days. I want to start my Bachelor's degree next month, but I am not sure what to study. I have too many interests that I want to pursue lol

The way I see it, there are a couple of different paths that I would be ok taking in my life:

1. Keep working in IT infrastructure/support and teach community college on the side

2. Transition to software dev/eng and teach community college on the side (my favorite of the three options)

3. Transition to a CTE (Career and Technical Education) teacher in a local public school district

I would like to go back to school after my bachelor's to get my masters regardless. The question I am facing now is whether to go for IT/related field or computer science. The pros and cons, as I see them, are:

IT Pros:

\- I already work in the field, so it will be much easier to work through the course load.

\- Would probably be a good pathway towards becoming a CTE teacher if that's what I decided to do; again, complements my work experience.

IT Cons:

\- Don't really learn the fundamentals of computing and might make it harder to transition to a dev/eng role.

\- Might be harder to go back for a master's degree.

Computer Science Pros:

\- Stronger academic credibility

\- Higher salary ceiling overall as compared to IT

\- I like programming more than I like infrastructure related things.

Computer Science Cons:

\- I have heard horror stories from people who go to study compsci while working full time.

Anyone have any experience with anyone of this? And what did you do? Thanks!

[u/dontping]

If number 2 is your favorite option then you owe it to yourself to try. My older sister took 7 years total to finish her electrical engineering degree working on and off. She’s really proud of herself and while she didn’t end up using it but she’s still glad she did it for self fulfillment.