After speaking with staff and faculty at a few colleges and consulting with one of my most trusted friends, I am now leaning heavily towards pursuing an Associate of Applied Science Degree in GIS at ACC in Austin. It's much cheaper than any MLA program and geared towards providing the skills that employers are looking for. It also saves me from having to exhaust the last of my GI bill, which I plan to use for a Masters of Landscape Architecture. The more I look into GIS, the more I get the sense that this is an extremely valuable degree to have. The skills can be applied to exactly what I want to do in the future, but also to a myriad of jobs and projects that I may find myself interested in or needing under unforeseen circumstances. I also like the idea of its versatility; such a degree would enable me to live securely pretty much anywhere in the world within just a couple years :)
