Why I got a Master’s Degree for AI / ML

Is additional education worth it for data science careers? One nerd’s opinion.

This summer I completed my Master’s of Science in Data Analytics through Franklin University, and I’m already reaping benefits to my career with a recent promotion to become a Wizard on the Innovation and Excellence team at Leading EDJE. But is a data science related master’s degree right for everyone?

Let’s talk about my experience in the program, my reasons for pursuing it, and who a data science master’s degree would be right for.

Why I pursued a Master’s Degree

A number of years ago my father’s health declined suddenly and we lost him to cancer detected just 6 weeks earlier. My dad and I had been close, and he’d helped me discover programming and even artificial intelligence as a kid. I was devastated by the loss, and over the course of the following months turned to fun game development courses on Coursera as a way of processing that grief since very little brought joy in the immediate months following that loss.

I eventually ran out of game development courses to take, so I switched to courses on Python and AI, recalling how much I enjoyed AI in my teens and twenties. These AI / ML courses brought a lot of joy and…