Felicidades. Sometimes I think about returning to a public university to have something structured to do, especially since I've been in a way educating myself through AI and I appreciate the idea of an environment dedicated to people with a similar intellectual interest. I don't really care about academia, if I do it it would be an experimental change of environment. If there is even a place for people like me in that public university at all (older people).
We will be hopping over to Italy/France/or Croatia in the next year or so. Work will not be the motivator, but we both have options.<p>In the states during late covid, I thought the downtime would be good to do a second masters in something unrelated to working in software. I chose a remote program with a univeristy here in the states, I did the first year, but it reminded me that studying - especially a program unrelated to anything you have currently done - is actually not easy.<p>I chose Geology. I have BS/BA in Comp Eng and Chemistry and an MS in Comp Eng. So this was personal interest.<p>Revisiting math I hadn't used in awhile was the easy part. Making the time, while working, reminded my why I also ended up ABD (all but dissertation - toward PHD) post masters. Sometimes your brain needs to relax.<p>Glad it worked for you. And the European Universities are <i>significantly cheaper</i> than Universities in the states (this was a state univerisity which is - per state - considered a step above a state school. For instance a UC vs a CSU in california).
Now we just need the pics of beaches, bars, and your presentations!