I've been fighting with myself for a while over whether to take the advice of my boss at work and enroll in a Master's degree, which would be paid for by the company. Obviously, there are some pros:
-Reimbursed by the company.
-The company is VERY into people having advanced degrees.
-I would get a one-time bonus on completion.
-Higher probability of more rapid advancement/salary increase.
-Additional merits on my resume were I to want to change companies.
-The place I would likely go is an "easy" place to get your degree (though this could be considered a con, since the reduced rigor may make me look lazy to some companies).
However, I'm hesitant to take the plunge for a few reasons:
-Any reimbursement must be returned if you leave the company less than two years after a given reimbursement. The degree is about 20-30k.
-It's definitely more time out of my day for 2 years that I'm not excited to spend. I have no enthusiasm for getting the degree - it would be purely a career advancement tactic/an ego thing that everyone seems to have their master's but me.
-Husband and I have been thinking we're ready to start trying for a kid soon, for some value of soon <2 years. So there's a possibility that I would have an infant while not being done with my degree, and that seems like it would suck. I think I can handle a career and a kid, a kid and school, or maybe school and a kid. But not all three.
-Husband has the income for me to be a stay-at-home-mom if we decided to go that route (also I have the income for him to be a SAHD, but that's not relevant to this decision). To get the degree, have a kid, and then immediately leave my job to stay at home seems like a waste.
For a while we were planning on waiting until I was 30 to have kids anyway, and have recently considered moving that up, so it's not like waiting until I get the degree and almost have the 2 years service put in would be a deviation from our original plan. I'm just getting pressure from a lot of sides, everything seems like the wrong decision, and that kind of sucks.
Any advice, analytical or emotional is welcome. I'm worried about wasting my time on something I may not use, but also missing my window of the easiest time to get the education that could give me a permanent pay bump if I do use it.