[jwlit]

I did an MSc (at Manchester Uni) after a bachelors in Modern Languages and some time as a (tech) lawyer. (Since the MSc I’ve worked in production support, mostly algorithmic trading, with some light development and integration work as part of that.) Although I don’t think there was anything that I learned there that I couldn’t have got from some dedicated self-learning, I do think the requirement to do some things that were quite difficult or intimidating was very rewarding and has also given me a lot more confidence to dig deeper into the patterns below the surface of program behaviour. (For example, I found the maths behind signals processing really hard, but although I’d imagined that assembly programming would be incredibly difficult I actually found it quite enjoyable to work direct with the “bare metal”.) I thought it was worthwhile. I think the benefits are likely to be more oriented toward your own intellectual satisfaction and depth of knowledge than career enhancement though.