I used to think I was done with school.
That was the plan.
Finish what I was already working on, close the laptop, breathe like a normal human being, and finally say, “That’s enough academic suffering for one lifetime.”
Apparently, I cannot be trusted with my own life plans.
Because now the plan is different.
I plan to pursue the Master of Science in Computer and Network Administration at Southeastern Louisiana University, then continue into the PhD in Cyber Defense at Dakota State University.
The goal is to finish everything in about six years.
Yes, I know how that sounds.
A reasonable person might look at work, bills, deadlines, responsibilities, and the circus of adulthood and say, “Maybe I should rest.”
My version of rest is apparently looking at another master’s degree and a PhD and thinking, “Yes. Let’s give the calendar a nervous breakdown.”
Very normal.
Very balanced.
Absolutely no signs of poor decision-making here.
Why Keep Going?
The easy answer is this:
Because the work keeps changing.
IT is not just passwords, printers, and restarting things until morale improves.
Networks are not just switches, cables, blinking lights, and hoping nobody asks why the internet is slow during a meeting.
Cybersecurity is not just firewalls, antivirus, policies, and annual training videos people click through like they are defusing a bomb made entirely of boredom.
Everything is connected now.
Systems, networks, servers, cloud services, users, compliance, security, operations, and risk all overlap. The more complex the environment gets, the more important it becomes to understand how the pieces fit together.
A water district, city, public agency, or critical infrastructure organization depends on systems that must be connected, secured, maintained, and understood. If one part fails, the rest feels it.
That is why this path makes sense to me.
The MS in Computer and Network Administration gives me a deeper systems and infrastructure foundation.
The PhD in Cyber Defense gives me the long-term path into research, strategy, resilience, and higher-level thinking around cybersecurity.
Together, they are not just degrees.
They are a way to build depth.
A very expensive, time-consuming, sleep-stealing kind of depth.
But depth still matters.
Especially in a field where everyone wants simple answers to problems that were created by years of complexity, underfunding, duct tape, vendor promises, and someone saying, “We’ll document it later.”
Spoiler alert: later never came.
The MS CNA: Strengthening the Technical Backbone
The first step is the MS in Computer and Network Administration at SELU.
This is the practical side.
Networks.
Servers.
Operating systems.
Administration.
Security.
Infrastructure.
The things that keep organizations running quietly until something breaks and everyone suddenly discovers IT was not just sitting around waiting to be useful.
Because in the real world, nothing works by magic.
Servers do not maintain themselves.
Networks do not secure themselves.
Backups do not verify themselves.
Users do not read emails.
And printers remain proof that civilization is still unfinished.
The MS CNA makes sense because strong cybersecurity depends on strong infrastructure. You cannot defend what you do not understand. You cannot secure systems properly if you do not know how they are built, connected, managed, and maintained.
The goal is to get better at seeing the whole environment, not just one piece of it.
Not just the server.
Not just the network.
Not just the firewall.
Not just the user who definitely did not click the suspicious link, except somehow the suspicious link got clicked.
The goal is to understand the system.
Because once you understand the system, you stop chasing symptoms and start seeing patterns.
And in IT, seeing patterns is the difference between solving the problem and becoming part of the problem with a nicer job title.
The PhD in Cyber Defense: The Personal Mountain
After that, the plan is the PhD in Cyber Defense at Dakota State University.
That is the long game.
And not gonna lie, the PhD is for me.
I can dress it up with career goals, public-sector technology leadership, critical infrastructure, cyber defense, and all the proper professional language. And yes, all of that is true.
But the honest answer is simpler.
I want to do it because I want to know if I can go that far.
Not because someone requires it.
Not because a job posting told me to get it.
Not because it will magically make life easier.
It will probably make life harder, actually.
That is the funny part.
The reward for finishing hard things is often being qualified to attempt even harder things. Wonderful system. No notes.
But it is personal.
At some point, the goal stops being just practical. It becomes a mountain. You either keep staring at it, or you start climbing.
For me, this is the climb.
The PhD is where I want to think deeper about cyber defense, resilience, risk, infrastructure protection, governance, and how organizations actually defend themselves in the real world.
Not the fantasy version where every organization has unlimited money, perfect staffing, perfect documentation, perfect policies, and users who treat suspicious emails like radioactive waste.
I mean the real version.
Limited staff.
Limited budget.
Old systems.
New threats.
Compliance pressure.
Operational demands.
And everyone still expecting technology to work like electricity: invisible, constant, and only noticed when it stops.
That is the world I want to understand better.
Not because it is easy.
Because it matters.
The ROI Question
Now, let’s talk about return on investment.
Financially?
Maybe not much.
That is the honest answer.
At this stage, another master’s degree and a PhD may not suddenly open some magical salary door. There may not be a clean spreadsheet where I can say, “Here is the tuition, here is the pay bump, and here is the happy little profit margin.”
This is not that kind of math.
The ROI for me is more personal.
It is about achievement.
It is about proving to myself that I can go this far, especially when the road growing up was not easy. I did not always have the financial support or emotional support that would have made the path smoother. That kind of thing stays with you. It shapes you. It leaves marks.
So yes, maybe the financial ROI is weak.
I know that.
But the personal ROI is different.
It is being able to say I kept going anyway.
It is being able to build something that the younger version of me probably could not even imagine.
It is better understanding, better judgment, better perspective, and better decisions.
It is also a form of quiet defiance.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just steady.
The kind that says: I was not given the easiest road, but I am still here, still learning, still climbing, and still refusing to let the old limits have the final word.
And honestly, I am just glad we have tuition reimbursement.
It is still $5,000, so no, it does not magically pay for everything. This is not some academic fairy godmother waving a policy manual over the tuition bill while student accounts suddenly discovers mercy.
But it helps.
Five thousand dollars is still five thousand dollars. That is money that does not have to come straight out of my pocket, and when you are looking at another master’s degree and possibly a PhD, every bit helps.
So no, the financial ROI may not be dramatic.
But the achievement matters.
The understanding matters.
The climb matters.
And with tuition reimbursement reducing some of the cost, the plan becomes a little easier to justify.
Still ambitious.
Still probably exhausting.
Just a little less financially stupid.
And sometimes, that counts as a win.
The Six-Year Plan
The timeline is ambitious, but not random.
The plan looks like this:
Step 1: Complete the MS in Computer and Network Administration at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Step 2: Continue into the PhD in Cyber Defense at Dakota State University.
Goal: Finish the full path in about six years.
Will it be easy?
No.
Will it be clean and perfectly scheduled?
Also no.
Life does not care about academic calendars. Work does not pause because a paper is due. Systems do not politely wait until after finals to break. And there is always some project, outage, audit, upgrade, report, or surprise problem waiting in the hallway with a cup of coffee and bad news.
Graduate school is already hard.
Graduate school while working in IT is a special kind of comedy. You spend all day solving problems, then go home and pay tuition so professors can give you more problems.
Beautiful system.
Very efficient suffering.
But six years will pass either way.
That is the part I keep coming back to.
Six years will pass whether I do this or not.
The question is what I want to have built by then.
Why I Am Doing It
This is not about collecting degrees just to decorate an email signature.
Although, let’s be honest, the alphabet soup after the name will not hurt.
But that is not the point.
The point is depth.
The MS CNA helps build stronger technical understanding.
The PhD in Cyber Defense pushes that understanding into research, strategy, and long-term thinking.
Together, they give me a path to better understand systems, risk, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and defense at a higher level.
And yes, part of it is professional.
But part of it is personal.
Maybe a big part.
I want to know if I can do it.
I want to know if I can go that far.
I want to take the mountain seriously enough to start climbing it.
There is something honest about that.
Not every goal needs to be explained with a business case, a salary chart, or a ten-slide presentation with a tasteful blue theme.
Sometimes the reason is simpler.
I want to become better.
I want to understand more.
I want to prove to myself that I can keep going.
That may not fit neatly into an ROI calculator, but it is real.
Final Thought
I once said I was done with school.
I take that back.
The new path is MS CNA, then PhD Cyber Defense.
It sounds exhausting because it probably will be.
It sounds ambitious because it is.
It sounds slightly ridiculous because, honestly, it kind of is.
The financial ROI may not be impressive. I know that.
But the return I am looking for is not just money.
It is understanding.
It is depth.
It is growth.
It is proving to myself that I can go that far.
And yes, the $5,000 tuition reimbursement helps. It does not make the plan free, but it makes the cost hurt a little less.
That matters.
I am also thankful that my wife supports the plan, because this kind of goal is not climbed alone, no matter how stubborn I pretend to be.
Because even personal mountains are easier to climb when someone helps pay for part of the boots, and someone else is standing beside you reminding you why you started.
And sometimes that is enough reason to keep going.
Even if the calendar is crying.