Grad school worth it right after undergrad?

I know there’s a few posts about this, but felt like this deserved its own one.

Long story short, just finished my B.A. in Econ and Geography and managed to snag a part-time role in RE tech where I am slated to do data and market analysis for clients, mostly developers. End goal is to work in development as I enjoy the mix of creativity and business, and love cities.

Being that I love cities and urbanism, my initial plan was to get a Masters in Planning, work in planning for a few years, then pivot to development and focus on site selection, entitlements, and all the pre-dev stuff, with my planning background as a back-up plan if the development path doesn’t work out.

Problem is, I thought I could juggle working around 20 hours and doing grad school at the same time, but it turns out the academic workload is much heavier than I expected, and will have a negative effect on my output at work. I’m also quite tired of doing theoretical research stuff and itching to get down to business, so debating on dropping out of my grad program to work full-time at the market research thing, hoping to eventually pivot to dev when I get the opportunity.

So, here’s the dilemma. Would it be worth dropping out of grad school, working in market research for a bit, and hope to pivot to dev eventually, or should I go the ‘’safer’’ route and grind through grad school, planning work, and then pivot to dev? I know RE dev doesn’t necessarily require heavy education, but though my degree has good branding (think UBC, UofT, McGill), I honestly didn’t learn much, even though I did do some internships, and feel like like a formal planning education might give me an edge and provide a safer path.