A Masters Degree While Working Full-Time: Worth It?

From 2018 to 2020 I did a Masters of Science in Information Technology at The British College while working full-time as a senior software engineer. Office until five, classes in the evenings and on weekends, assignments eating whatever was left. Juniors on my team still ask me whether they should do the same, and I've never been able to give them a one-word answer — because the honest answer is a real yes and a real no, and which one applies depends entirely on what you want from your career in Nepal's IT industry.

The case for yes

The credential still opens doors here. Nepal's software startups and outsourcing houses hire on skill, but a large part of our economy doesn't: banks, government bodies, telecoms, INGOs and universities still screen and promote on paper qualifications. If your path ever bends toward management in those organizations, a masters is often the difference between being considered and being filtered out before anyone reads your CV.

It matters even more if you're looking beyond Nepal. Points-based migration systems — Australia, Canada, the UK's routes — literally score you higher for a masters, and it's a prerequisite for most funded PhD and scholarship paths. A huge share of Nepali engineers will weigh going abroad at some point; the degree keeps that door open before you know whether you'll want to walk through it. Closer to home, it's also what lets you teach — most colleges won't put you in front of a classroom without one, and part-time lecturing is both real income and real standing here.

Then there are the benefits I didn't see coming. My classmates were engineers, sysadmins and managers from companies all over Kathmandu — in a market this small, that cohort became a professional network I still use. The coursework forced breadth I'd been skipping: research methods, systems thinking, writing that wasn't code. And finishing two years of evenings without dropping either the job or the degree taught me more about managing energy and time than anything before or since.

The case for no

Nobody in a Nepali software company has ever paid me more for the letters after my name. Development roles here — and the foreign clients much of our industry serves — care about what you can ship. In every technical interview I've sat on either side of, the degree came up exactly never. If you're expecting a masters to raise your salary as a developer, I have to be blunt: it almost certainly won't.

The curriculum will also lag the industry — that's not a British College complaint, it's true of masters programs everywhere. A meaningful chunk of what I studied, work had already taught me; a chunk of the rest dated quickly. Compare that to what two years of focused evenings could otherwise buy you in Nepal's market: cloud certifications, a serious open-source portfolio, AI/ML specialization, freelance clients. Purely as a developer-career investment, those alternatives return more, faster.

And the cost is real. Private masters fees are heavy against Nepali engineering salaries, and the two years are heavier: I lost evenings, weekends, side projects, sleep, and more social life than I like to admit. Doing it alongside a demanding senior role is survivable — I survived it — but nobody should sign up for it casually.

A masters won't make you a better engineer. It makes you someone with more doors. Whether any of those doors lead anywhere you want to go — that's the question to answer before you enroll.

So — worth it?

Worth it if: you see management or senior roles in banks, telecoms, government or large traditional organizations in your future; you're keeping migration or further study abroad open; you want to lecture; or you know you learn best with structure and deadlines external to yourself. In those cases, yes — and doing it while working beats pausing your career for it, painful as the juggling is.

Not worth it if: you're doing it to become a better developer, to raise your pay at a software company, or because it vaguely feels like the next step. The industry that hires on skill will keep hiring on skill, and the degree will cost you the very evenings you could have spent building the proof.

For me it was worth it — narrowly, and mostly for reasons I didn't have when I enrolled: the discipline, the network, the breadth, and doors I wanted open even though I've stayed in Kathmandu and stayed technical. If you're deciding now, don't ask "is a masters worth it?" Ask "which door am I buying?" If you can't name the door, save your evenings.