appsdba,
I have seen your postings on (ahem) "other" boards, as well as this one. We are all in the same boat, what with the economy and flood of visa labor. Sorry you got canned in favor of one of them. I did, too, last go-round. I even had to train my replacement or forfeit my severance. Really a miserable situation.
You are very wise to use this downtime to consider your future. Below are a few comments, some of which suggest further web research on your part.
(1) Lived in Denver for ten years before moving, mainly for family reasons but also economic. I.T. was pretty bad there after dot-com crash, as everywhere. I expect it is pretty bad again. But if you can land the 120k perm spot and sit on it a while, it would give you time to really research what to do next. True, no ocean there, but some really nice outdoors activities. The snow is not really that bad. I remember mostly that a storm would come through, then it would all be melted off within a few days due to the bright sunshine (hey-closer to the sun by a mile!). Real estate should be knocked down pretty well now, and mortgage rates will probably remain 5-6% through end of year. With the economy starting to turn now, you could buy low and sell higher two/three years from now (if you decide to move on), pulling out cap gains at 0 tax (I think the rule is still you must live in the property 2 out of last 5 years, so you would qualify after two years).
(2) You need to consider the opportunity cost of downtime--what you might have made had you not gone back to school. I assume that the economy is rebounding, at least that is what the stock market has been saying (up 60% in last 12 months), and it is usually predicting 9-12 months ahead. I personally do not think going MBA or law or nurse anesthetist would be good risks for payback, unless you can at least start one of them part time (nights) while holding your dba job. That would give you time to see if you like it and get some exposure to the professors and people already in that new field, without throwing your current skills under the bus. That said, if you really have a burning desire to do an MBA/law/n.a., well, then, of course--you only live once. But you mentioned saving for retirement was worrisome, so I am guessing that you want a good chance of payback for whatever you choose next.
(3) I am not sure that *not* having a masters will be such a problem going forward. Education is getting devalued in the U.S.--wife and I have bachelors, masters, dba certs, and (her) PhD between us, and we joke that the more education we get, the worse off we are. I believe, if I have followed your postings correctly, that you are in the top echelons of your field, at expert level, up quickly on new releases, etc. So, by leaving the field, you are walking away from much more than others would be.
(4) Please google about medical outsourcing. It is hard to tell how it, and the U.S. health care legislation, will turn out. I'm not convinced that health related careers will be the end-all. As for visas flooding the health care area, see in this thread:
http://www.indeed.com/forum/job/nurse-rn/which-hospital-sponsor-nurses-H1B-visa-seattle-bellevue/t141153 "Oh very very easy, all non for profit hospitals have unlimited supplies of h1b and they can sponsor all year round, they do not have a cap on their h1bs. Once you are a Nurse practitioner or Nurse anesthesist just apply and ask them to sponsor you, you will be in EB 2 category for green card, which means after people who are famous scientist, researchers or polititians, you will be next in line for green card. Its an expediated process and there is hardly any one in EB1 category."
(5) We need a little time to see how the Neufeld memo will be enforced. Do you remember how section 1706 was jammed into the 1986 tax reform package at last minute, and, who woulda thunk it, changed the lives of U.S. I.T. contractors forever? If this enforcement holds up, it will at least cut the h1b body shoppers out of the market. I don't know about you, but these job shops have been more of a problem for my work than the larger outsourcers. At least it is a move in the right direction. To see how worried "that" community is getting about this CIS memo, just google NEUFELD MEMO + 2010.
We also need to see how immigration reform will pan out--supposedly this year.
(6) To summarize, I am not sure that going back full time for an advanced degree for three or more years is really going to give you what you want at the end of it. And a minimum three or four years is probably what you are looking at, what with meeting pre-reqs at the front end, internship at back end, etc. Only you can say. If you are just burned out on I.T. and just cannot do it any more or really do not want to do it any more, then, hey, many people have "been there". I'm pretty much at that point, too, but, being older, I have fewer alternatives. In that case, just getting away from I.T. will be like a new lease on life. But you still need to choose your next career with care and keep retirement in mind--if your next career goes twenty years, it will be both your next and about your last career.
