On the master's front, I went down a slightly unusual path. I enrolled in a master's program in music technology at NYU [1]. I already had a master's in enginee

On the master's front, I went down a slightly unusual path. I enrolled in a master's program in music technology at NYU [1]. I already had a master's in engineering from Princeton [2], but after time away from the software world, I wanted to retool for a return to engineering, but with a focus on applications that actually mattered to me. It turned out to be a very expensive, but very fulfilling decision, and it paved a route for a very successful past four years. Compared to my first master's, it was less theoretical and much more project-based. In that sense, it was fantastic preparation for career work, because every semester, I had to conceptualize and ship 4-5 different projects in all sorts of subject areas. The value of that shouldn't be underestimated. It also directly led me to cofounding a startup that had a brief lifetime, but effectively converted me to a full-stack engineer. Today, I don't use much of the subject matter I learned in my day-to-day, but I draw on the creativity, problem-solving skills, and work patterns every day. My Princeton program was great too, but I thought I'd share about the NYU program, as that was the more outside-the-box choice. There's something special to be said for a master's degree, when it's interdisciplinary and let's you focus on the intersection of engineering skills and subject matter expertise. [1] http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/technology http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/technology [2] http://ee.princeton.edu/graduate/meng-program http://ee.princeton.edu/graduate/meng-program