[jpasmore]

I would highly recommend that you pursue this. I'm quite a bit older than you and am pursuing and CS degree at Columbia part time as a General Studies student.

My motivation is different than yours in that I don't see myself writing code professionally, but believe understanding technology, from logic circuits, to math and data structures begins to reframe how you think/how I think.

Also learning within a university setting is a great addition to all that you can continue to teach yourself remotely which is generally more tactical, like learning R via Courseworks.

You may also find that the diversity in the course-work may point you in a direction where you're more naturally drawn. Maybe you'll find a different path, meet your future wife, meet a business partner, or some other unexpected outcome. At the very least you will learn something.

All the best...

[bra-ket]

I studied at the same school while working full time (got my bachelors when I was 39)

It was a great experience, besides taking CS courses and Columbia Core I've also done some undergrad research in machine learning in one of the labs. It helped landing a job in R&D while I was still studying.

I'd recommend to contact professors doing interesting work and volunteer as a 'research programmer', previous SW dev experience helps a lot. They get free labor and you get to work on exciting stuff that changes your career.