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I'm 24 years old, work in NYC, live on Long Island, but making a puny 40,000 a year. I work in the financial services industry at a back office/business analyst type role. I also have my own apartment but my frugality is allowing me to support myself. There's a hell of a lot of motivation for me to improve but I'm not feeling challenged at my current company.
I have a BS in mathematics from a reputable college but would like to pursue a master's degree to make myself more useful. Only problem is, my company only reimburses about 10000 a year so my options are limited to Baruch...I couldn't afford NYU. I don't want to pick the wrong degree because I'm afraid job prospects might be bad, or I may find myself in a field that is easily outsourced, etc. Math is one of my strongest subjects so might choose that combines a lot of quantitative thinking and business. Too bad any degree related to business is frowned upon these days. I've looked into choices like MBA in information systems or statistics, but that MBA in IS is basically a poor man's computer science degree. Statistics would be awesome but job prospects are pretty low from the research I've done. MBA in finance would be nice but that's also a poor man's CFA designation.
I might have other options, but am not sure if I have the means to pursue them.
CFA: It costs like 1000 to take each test and sign up. If you fail, you have to renew your books for the next year's curriculum. That's another 400 down the toilet. Besides, this market is oversaturated to begin with.
Actuarial field: Took first 2 exams and passed...with 7 more exams to go. Honestly this field relates to me but I've had internships and is not really what I'm interested in. My parents basically pushed me into this at first.
Computer science: I've never felt confident in my programming - I do use a bit of VBA on the job. This was my original major in college but couldn't quite wrap my head around java. Now, 6 years later, I may be a in different position, but of course most programming jobs are easily outsourced. Then again, I'm not too familiar with this field enough to know other possibilities in computer science.
Anyway, just feeling really stressed at the moment. Certainly a master's degree (with my company paying for it) would allow me to make some progression in my life, but for all the time I put in, I really would want the benefits to be more than just marginal. That's my main concern.
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