I am embarking on an exciting new journey soon: I’m going back to school! I’ll spend two years working towards a master’s degree.

Since I’ve started sharing with people my intentions to become a student again, I’ve gotten a lot of questions. “How are you paying for it? When does it start? How long will it last? What will you do with it? Why did you pick this degree? Will it help your career?” And most amusing to me, “Why would you want to go back to school?!”

Before even diving into the technical reasons why, my personal reasons are straightforward: I love to learn new things. School is something I always liked, and any opportunity to explore a new subject or dive deeper into an area I like is appealing to me. I also started noticing that people who were leaders in their fields, both inside and outside the world of engineering, were people who invested in their education and applied the hard AND soft skills to help advance their careers. That became my personal drive: continuing education not only fed my desire to always be learning, it was going to be an important part of finding the place where I would make an impact.

There are many practical reasons to go back to school after getting a bachelor’s degree. The Society of Women Engineers put together a handy guide for working through all the why’s and how’s of picking grad school as a career option. What it all boils down to is this: does the degree you want match your interests and vision for your career?

After working through my bachelor degree studies in Mechanical Engineering, I knew I wasn’t going to stay exclusively academic or do extremely technical research. Going into an industry job after graduation made more sense at the time than going straight into grad school because I wanted practical application experience to work out what I would want my next degree to be in and to give context to my studies. I also knew that, as a bonus, many engineering-focused companies would offer funding toward schooling. By my senior year, I knew that I really liked the process involved in early product development. There was no specific product development degree at my school at the time, so I went on the job hunt with the intention of finding a degree within the next 5 years that I could work toward.

There was my practical drive: a master’s degree in product development would fuel my interests and match my vision of a career path in early product development. I’m sure there was more to learn in this area, but the where and how would come in time.

Fast forward 6 years, and here I am about to dive into a product development master’s degree. This program was near to my home and designed for working professionals, and as I looked into the classes, topics and projects, it hit all of my career advancement points as well as focusing in on the topics that I was being introduced to in my new job that I knew I wanted to dive deeper into. A couple years ago, it had seemed like a good option. Now, with the context of my new gig, it seemed necessary AND a good fit.

Logistically, the program fits well into my life and career at it’s current point. It’s sponsored by the company I work for, so a nomination would mean that it becomes fully funded. Without a nomination, there is still a yearly stipend the company will pay out (although it is much smaller than a year’s tuition) and I would either need to prolong the program or take on student debt if I wanted to follow the normal track. So, while there are options financially, they aren’t as ideal as two fully-paid years of school.

The school itself is close enough to both work and home that I can attend the classes without too much disruption to my life. I had been looking at a lot of programs, many of which were either in other parts of the country and/or were geared towards non-working, full-time students. As a married person with a house, dogs, and a position in a company I actually like and want to foster, not take leave from, I wasn’t at the right point in my life or career to pursue a degree that would require me to quit my job and move across the country.

So there you have it: my reasons for going back to school for a master’s degree are because it’s a program that fits well into my current position at work, my future career aspirations, and my life. It touches on areas of product development that I want to learn more about and will help me bring skills back to make me more effective in my current job and help me understand what I need to do to propel my career forward. Everyone’s programs of choices, life situations, and reasons will be different when they decide whether or not to get another degree, but as long as you like and are committed to the path you’re on and think it will be a good stepping stone along the way, you can’t go wrong.