Not me personally , but I ' m amused by your story . Why ? ' Cause I believe the experience of an old friend of mine is relevant to your situation . In college I met a guy who had done 20 years as a reactor operator for the Navy on subs , if you care . He got out and went to work for an insurance company inspecting nuclear power plants . Basically , he would go make sure that the power plants that the company insured were being operated safely and such . Thing was , everyone around him made a lot more money than he did simply because they had a degree and he did not . So he went back to school where I met him , obviously , and in his 40 s got his degree in Mechanical Engineering . Upon graduation he went back to work for the insurance company doing the same job , but for a crapton more than he ' d been making before . Relevant , no ?