I graduated with a degree in computer science for undergrad, worked for a year in an unrelated field, and then came back to do a masters in computer science because I wanted to return to tech and do a startup later on. I understand that the value of a masters is highly suspect, but my belief was that I needed a stronger theoretical foundation before I got back into it. From my perspective, it seems that "coding" itself has always been something learned on your own time, since NONE of our classes teach practical coding.
And as a result, I'm embarrassed. If someone asks me what language I code in, I can say that I've had a good amount of experience coding in Java and C. But I have nearly no experience in Python, Javascript, you name it. Everyone tells me that this stuff is learned on your own time, but I have no time to spare.
I'm becoming frustrated as I take these master classes, as I find my time being increasingly consumed by things I no longer find relevant. Everything I do now seems geared toward acing interviews at Microsoft or Oracle (even in algorithms, my favorite class, I have heard "now this is an interview question so pay attn" all too many times). I don't have the time to learn how to do something as simple as setting up a complete backend, or learning objective c to make a fun app without my grades taking a huge hit. This is bothering me.
What should I do? I actually thought about dropping my masters and just learning what I want on my own, but I already paid for the (very) expensive tuition and it's nonrefundable. If I try to learn things on the side then I struggle academically and I probably will half ass the extracurricular programming too. If I go all in on my masters classes I will end up not learning what I want but will hopefully learn the theory well. On a final note, I'm taking internet and web systems, software systems, and software foundations class next semester, which I think is more practical....