A Guide for Adults Going to College

>flexible hours: full-time, part-time, on-call, and working 40 hours a week in a cubicle gets really old.

Counterpoints (if in the US):

Capitalism is a real thing. If you work in a hospital you will be pushed to the point where things are unsafe for the patient, and if something goes wrong, you will be blamed and lose your license. A culture exists where everyone tries to cover their ass.

If you work as a contractor (i.e. you work for a firm that sends you to different hospitals based on shortages), you will be the first person to be blamed.

Unlike in tech, seniority is the main way to get better salaries and benefits. You won't get too far by performing really well.

The attitudes and behavior of fellow coworkers (nurses and nurse assistants) would be considered quite unprofessional in a typical engineering workplace.

Depending on which unit you work, patients can be horrible. You'll get all kinds of attitudes. Psychopaths, etc.

If you stick to it, expect long term injuries:

https://www.npr.org/series/385540559/injured-nurses

"James Collins, a research manager in the NIOSH Division of Safety Research, says before studying back injuries among nursing employees, he focused on auto factory workers. His subjects were "93 percent men, heavily tattooed, macho workforce, Harley-Davidson rider type guys," he says. "And they were prohibited from lifting over 35 pounds through the course of their work."

Nursing employees in a typical hospital lift far heavier patients a dozen or more times every day.

"That was my biggest shock and surprise," Collins says. "And the big deal is, the injuries are so severe that for many people, they're career-ending.""

(Experience will vary with what type of nursing you work - some nursing is a lot milder - but pays less).

Most of the UCs in California (i think all except UC Berkeley) are on the quarter system (10 week quarters) 3 during the normal school year, and then an optional summer quarter.

I've been curious if there are any creative financial or work/education balance strategies for a tech professional going back to school, that might not be obvious?

Networking with professors? Working at the university? Or finding an employer that subsidizes grad school? Haven't seen too much on my radar in this area but have heard there are unconventional ways to offset the cost or level up by leveraging my network & career.

(For context - I'm in my late 30's, ~17 years in tech though my degree is from a trade art school, and in an engineering management role these days in Los Angeles. I've been seriously considering grad school either for CS or MBA.)

I did my first few years of college at a community college and my experience was that the college had to be very strict about attendance and dropping students who didn't show up. Frankly a lot of them were stoners who were only in school because their parents would cut off support if they dropped out.

The professors were underpaid and many of them didn't care -- some did care and were excellent teachers, but a lot of them were bitter about their career outcomes and just went through the motions. My best professors were the ones who had careers outside of the community college and taught part time, including a tenured professor at Stanford and a professional archeologist.

Honestly it's hard for me to recommend community college to people who are driven and dedicated to their educations, because so many of the other people in those institutions are not like that.

If I could go back in time I would gladly borrow an extra $20k to go to a university from the beginning. Over the time scale of a lifetime, or even just a decade, that's not a lot of money.

What part of the world is that? In the US it's typical to have 2 16-18 week semesters per year, usually with a job or internship for 10-12 weeks in the summer.