CSCareerQuestions

By graduate, I'm assuming undergrad?

I'm in my 40s and I'll try to contextualize my advice.

• College degrees are all but unnecessary at this point. If you are taking college courses paid for by your company, I'd keep going but if you are paying out of pocket, I'd really wonder if it's worth it. If you are only a few credits shy, it might be worth it to continue.
• Money buys happiness. I hate that it does and I hate the state of our late-stage capitalism but you can't do much if you don't have money unless you're willing to significantly lower your standard of living. Maybe you're willing to. I wasn't. That said, you can travel but finding a remote job that allows you to work anywhere can be extremely challenging. I just wrapped up my job search and every interview I got was for a remote job except two. I got an offer for a remote job as well as an on-site job and ended up taking the on-site job because the salary and benefits were much better. I'm not going to tell you what to do because it really depends on your priorities but if I were in your shoes, I'd rather focus on building savings and then spend that savings to travel than try to travel and work at the same time.
• It's hard to answer your question regarding where to take your career. I'd say it's better to expand your skills since you never know what's going to be in demand when you job search next. AI is the hotness right now but most of my interviews have been in the DevOps space.

I have spent most of my career in consulting and contracting. You get exposure to a bunch of environments and leads and different ways of doing things. It has mostly been a boon to my career and knowledge. I recommend it for anything for whom west coast big tech isn't in their future. It builds a solid foundation of knowledge — though often in the form of object lessons.

That said, they rarely invest in your education, the benefits are garbage, and management is often... uneven. Pay is decent but job security is utter shit.

Remote jobs can be conducive to travel domestically, but most partitions I've had barred taking devices overseas. I wouldn't recommend part time work unless you intend to put your career on hold while you finish school.

That said, I never got a 4-year degree so I can't really comment on school. I wouldn't recommend going my route. You need a lot of experience and big names under your belt before anyone will overlook lack of education — consulting is actually a good way to work for big companies that would never hire you based on resume. I was a rock star when I worked at automaker, but they auto-rejected my resume when one contact closed down and I tried to get direct hired. I got back in on another contract easy, though. Same story with home improvement store. But having those on my resume 100% helped me land my current role.