> if I were to do that I would still feel like a massive screw-up for going back to university in my 30s
There's no shame in this; I'm wondering where you got this feeling for, especially, because radical changes in 30s/40s are generally considered success stories (when successful, of course ;)).
> until I came to university, where I could never seem to care about the course material or putting effort into my classes [...] But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree.
There's a big risk here of liking the idea of something more than something itself. The yellow flag here is that if one likes "hard CS problems", they'd find the CS university subjects tendentially interesting, or anyway, worth completing. Of course there are exceptions, but it's worth thinking about it.
> Putting my career on hold for a few years to go back to school has a very high opportunity cost right now
If your current career is not the one you want, you're paying a "very high" opportunity cost by not changing it.
This assumes that it's not an economical problem, but I read "opportunity cost", so it seems it isn't. To be kept in mind that taking a 3 years break for work, for education, especially in the early 30s, does no harm to the career.
> There's a big risk here of liking the idea of something more than something itself.
It's a good point. Worth noting that my degree was not in CS, but in another engineering discipline.
> If your current career is not the one you want, you're paying a "very high" opportunity cost by not changing it. [...] To be kept in mind that taking a 3 years break for work, for education, especially in the early 30s, does no harm to the career.
Also a good point. My friends are buying homes and settling down, and part of me feels that I should just stop worrying and do the same. Missing out on my current salary and going back to a student lifestyle would sting a little.
Did you start your education in Canada? If so, are you still in Canada? (You mention university in the initial post, and I don't hear that from Americans very often. Though, you may be outside of North America too.)
There's no shame in this; I'm wondering where you got this feeling for, especially, because radical changes in 30s/40s are generally considered success stories (when successful, of course ;)).
> until I came to university, where I could never seem to care about the course material or putting effort into my classes [...] But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree.
There's a big risk here of liking the idea of something more than something itself. The yellow flag here is that if one likes "hard CS problems", they'd find the CS university subjects tendentially interesting, or anyway, worth completing. Of course there are exceptions, but it's worth thinking about it.
> Putting my career on hold for a few years to go back to school has a very high opportunity cost right now
If your current career is not the one you want, you're paying a "very high" opportunity cost by not changing it.
This assumes that it's not an economical problem, but I read "opportunity cost", so it seems it isn't. To be kept in mind that taking a 3 years break for work, for education, especially in the early 30s, does no harm to the career.