An Exploration of the Grad School Decision in DF/IR
Brief
February 1, 2026
An Exploration of the Grad School Decision in DF/IR
"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."
-Epictetus
I recently decided to return to school in pursuit of a Master’s Degree in my chosen field – Digital Forensics. I often have students ask me whether or not an MS degree is necessary in DF/IR. I suppose it isn’t, depending on what you want to do. There was a lot of research and option-weighing that went into this decision.
I’m going to explore some of them here, and hopefully this will help the next person deciding whether or not to pursue a Graduate-level education in Digital Forensics. At the very least, maybe it will be a good reminder for me to return to when things aren’t as exciting as I’d like them to be in this pursuit.