For me, I wouldn’t say it held me back, but the benefits were not direct either. There was never the, I got x job as a result of y degree. My path was a bit more non traditional than most, but it’s my path.

For context, I just turned 40 a few weeks ago.

I went to community college after high school for finance because I was good at math and wanted to make a lot of money. I made it through, got an associates degree and went to a 4 year university after to finish. I dropped out after a semester or two because I had a lot of stuff going on in my life.

I ended up getting new jobs and eventually starting a business doing web dev and digital marketing many years later. I decided I wanted to finish the degree for no reason other than I felt like I was the type of person who should have a degree, so I did.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m tired of the business. I decide I want to sell it and get a masters degree in cybersecurity. In order to do that, I need to take another course first - it’s essentially a condensed cs degree. I learned a ton, got into the masters program and finished it.

The problem now is that I kind of fell for the schools marketing. It’s not easy to find a job in cybersecurity. And I’m also finding that being a cybersecurity engineer or a pen tester or a soc analyst or any of these “desirable” jobs are not really that interesting to me. After I sold the business, I found a direction, career wise, that I like. It’s in a technical space but not as an engineer and not in cybersecurity. And I think I’m ok with that. Getting my masters, I learned a lot, technically.

So to answer the original question, I don’t think either of the degrees helped me in a traditional sense, but they overall did more good than ham by a lot. Given the chance to do it again, maybe I would study something different, but I wouldn’t skip either of the degrees, even if I’m not directly using the skills today