I'm back after a short slumber.

[jenznat0r]

Has your degree program been in a physical university/college or self studied online? If one doesn't work, try the other. I still recommend WGU for value if you want a high paying IT job. Regionally accredited, so you can transfer any "real" college". Non profit so...you probably could pay for it off Pell grants practically free, if I'm guessing your income situation. APU/AMU are other regionally accredited options, but tbh, I think WGU is both a better program and value in it's field.

Btw: I cannot do a physical university. Everyone is different, some can't do the other way. Problem for me is I'm too time efficient to learn at someone else's slower pace. That also means my bachelor's didn't exactly take 4 years to earn

I'm studying at a traditional State University. And the traditional university format isn't working out for me at all. I like learning, but not really in the format a " physically going to class/homework" University has to offer.

Just an update, Colorado is still a remote, remote possibility. I like it here, but perhaps maybe for the wrong reasons (free state, great gun laws, no red flag laws, etc.). Sometimes I feel like my firearms ownership is keeping me here and that's about it. Like if that was totally out of the picture and off the table, maybe I'd be more open to being more flexible about going somewhere else. Maybe I need to truly journal why I want to stay in Idaho or if I want to keep my family here. Same for my wife, see what we come up with. I guess we keep going back to the fact that opportunities are less in this state because the cold, hard fact is the state has less than 2 million people in a mostly rural populated area. We keep coming back to Colorado because...just more people and more stuff. Rent is a LOT, LOT higher in CO, I get it. I lived there from 2016-2017, I remember it very well. But EVEN if I were to stay in school here and pick up a part-time job, jobs here part time pay 9 bucks an hour at best. Cost of living is DEFINITELY way lower, but IDK. I feel like CO cost-of-living proportional to ID cost of living weighs about the same when you factor out wages and rent. A GOOD full time entry level job I was offered in a interview here with some of the experience I had was 10.

The populated areas here are Boise/Pocatello/Idaho Falls and that's it. The rest is basically unpopulated. Boise has a population of 225k last I checked. Pocatello is the second largest at about 55k (where I live), Idaho Falls 48k. My wife and I talked some more on a long drive home in rural Idaho from somewhere (you do lots of driving here from one part of the middle of nowhere to another). But NOT without a safety net or a huge, laid out plan. I refuse to do it unless it makes absolute perfect sense. Until then we stay. I even suggested to my wife that if school isn't working out maybe I could try and move ahead to find a job and have some stability set up somewhat so that way even if we had to stay with her family for awhile, there's a job and some income coming in versus just totally going at it into the blind and hoping for the best.

Some of you may also wonder why I am so hellbent on Colorado, versus staying or somewhere else. I'm originally from Southern California, but there's no way I'd ever live there ever again. My mom (parents are divorced) offered if school was going rough I could move back with my family and there'd be a place for us and I could set up shop there, but I'd have to give up everything I own just to live there again. That and my wife's family are a lot more supportive than my immediate family. No thanks. In-laws in Colorado are offering something very similar but it's, well, in Colorado.

Sorry for the long post, I get this is the internet and not a counseling session. But I do believe when in doubt, it doesn't hurt to ask others for advice/counsel who might have a different perspective than you.

[MrPrena]

I remember you goto religious backed univ in idaho (no brainer to know which school it is ). I know how low the tuition it is. I think just for that reason, I would quickly finish your under/grad school. Then I would worry about moving to CO or NYC as chartered [securities] analysts and make 500k.

Last time I checked, they had 1990s' tuition rate. WOW!

[ray1970]

Update. I definitely think you should not move to Colorado.

This is based solely off the fact that you are from California.

We have a few too many here already.














(Mostly kidding. Besides, I?m a transplant myself. Not California though.)

[FoxtArt]

Yeah.. if in-house doesn't work, maybe consider the online (regionally accredited) route. Tuition is between $3,000 - $4,000 a semester for WGU *but* to really make it cheap you can pack as much as you want into a single semester - which can be motivating to some people. There is only objective assessments (multiple choice) to finish a class required, and the occasional performance, e.g. paper to finish select classes. If you already know the material you could skip right to the objective assessment.

ETA/side note:
A reality on firearms for 90% of people are they matter far, far less as you get older, btw. I wouldn't base life decisions around it. With a few exceptions, most guys who shot every weekend in their 20's once they become deeply embedded career parents (and older) might shoot once a year, at best. Just a part of natural course of life that rearranges priorities.

[ray1970]

ETA/side note:
A reality on firearms for 90% of people are they matter far, far less as you get older, btw. I wouldn't base life decisions around it. With a few exceptions, most guys who shot every weekend in their 20's once they become deeply embedded career parents (and older) might shoot once a year, at best. Just a part of natural course of life that rearranges priorities.

Yep. In my 20's I used to shoot a lot. Usually two days during the week after work were range trips and just about every weekend was some sort of competition. The weekends without competitions were usually more practice time or maybe a gunshow.

Once the kids came my free time drastically reduced and I started shooting less and less. I actually took a hiatus from shooting altogether for about a ten year stretch. It wasn't until the kids were pretty much out of high school that I started enjoying my hobbies again.

Nowadays, having multiple hobbies to occupy my time, I probably make it out to the range maybe three or four times.

I've never made any serious life decisions based off of anything related to my hobbies.

[ChickNorris]

..

[Gman]

..

What does killing sea turtles with plastic assault straws have to do with this?

[ChickNorris]

What does killing sea turtles with plastic assault straws have to do with this?

Sitfu.

[spqrzilla]

Sitfu.

Was not Chiun the last Master of Sitfu?

[Martinjmpr]

WRT the college degree, the value of the degree is that with so many people already having 4 year degrees, having that sheepskin can often mean the difference between a resume that gets looked at and one that goes into the trash.

A harsh reality, but a reality nevertheless.