It wasn't so much the water or the bland color palette, for me. The literal smell of shit that envelopes the place when the wind blows in juuuuuust the right direction is a deal breaker. Such are the penalties of a town rooted in the livestock industry. I put up there for one single night before I knew that I couldn't cope with Lubbock livin'.

Online education scares me. The lack of a personal, human connection with your professor just doesn't cement relationships that last long enough to be beneficial. Hell, I only formed a true relationship of mutual respect with one of my upper-level undergraduate coursework professors. None of this is applicable if you're looking to just get certified/qualified/etc. for the next career tier, and I'm not familiar enough with the software industry to know what you want to shoot for, especially with your focus in functional languages.

Regardless, much respect, software engineering is a noble pursuit. I can't imagine writing the inner workings of a 3D-CAD software kernel or whatever. Lately, my pathetic attempts to use IDL for relatively simple data processing have humbled me. To functional programming languages I say... "I'm busy that day, sorry".