That's awesome.

The majority of people in my MSSE program were also heavy on work experience. It made for a far more interesting peer group than the few that had just come in from undergrad. Having that work experience meant that you could look at the coursework from the framework of how it would play out in an actual corporate environment.

It was really fun discussing how to apply the SQA and Project Management coursework in the workplace with people from very different companies.

Lovely.

This is on my mind too.

Am an engineer (EE + CS) with 25 years of work experience, with a passion for Physics. Am widely known in my circles as a scientist/physicist, however, I do not actually know much. Learned some Lagrangian and Hamiltonian classical physics recently.

I personally do not mind going for even an undergrad in Physics if that would be a better fit for me to learn. :-)

That's super cool! Good for you!

I'm kind of contemplating the same thing - not leaving the corporate world, because I have too many bills and debts for that - but getting a PhD in something, maybe math or CS. I don't know that anyone really does that in their forties, though...

That's awesome. I often dream of returning to a formal learning environment, I didn't appreciate how special dedicated (extended) time for learning was when I was in school.

Best of luck!