I had been thinking meetup (as in meetup.com), but certainly tweetups seem to be happening a lot.

I do not recommend the slashdot anniversary parties - awkward! (I'm looking at YOU, Ann Arbor-ites)(yes, I'm kidding. mostly)

Most of my geeky friends ended up with people who aren't quite as geeky as them - definitely look outside the geek stuff.

Classes are great if you're interested in something, but definitely go because you're interested, not just to meet people.

And ballroom dancing is way more fun than you expect - even if you are looking at your feet counting '1-2-3-4' the whole time...

This is only partially true.

Education will delay your earnings. However, given the current environment, your earnings may be delayed anyway.

More important, and I've had this conversation again and again with decision makers, is that the Master's degree is the new Bachelor's degree.

In the US, and in much of the English speaking world, university degrees are becoming more common. A Master's is a signal that you have put in extra effort, basically.

We recently hired a helpdesk position, and the HR drones were requiring a Master's. While this is an extreme example of HR going crazy, it doesn't change the fact that, before any calls, before any interviews, the non-Master's people were thrown out.

So to return to the post I am replying to, while you might benefit from earnings now, you might not, and in future, you will definitely want the second degree if you plan to earn anything.

For the first job, though, it probably isn't necessary, and taking a couple years off from school to see what the 'real world' is all about isn't a bad idea. It will also, if the degree means more to you than a sheet of paper, make the Master's program more useful to you, because you might have a better idea of why the stuff matters.

It can't be emphasized often enough that once you have a plan, you need to stick to it, and therefore you need to have a very good plan.

Of course, you never -actually- stick to the plan, but emphasizing that every change means delays of X helps to stem the tide of changes people come up with.