Want to Start a Master's to Move to the HF Space, but Earliest Chance is Fall of 2022; What to do Until Then?

Right now, I work in CRE, but I'm very underpaid and finding the work extremely mundane.  I'd like to move to a more quantitative sector in the hedge fund space and it seems like my only option in doing that is going back to school to get a master's in finance, but the earliest I could start that would be Fall of 2022.

Since I'm not looking to continue in CRE post-master's and since I'm quite underpaid now, I'm wondering what I should do in the time between now and fall of next year.  Should I start a new job for only a bit over a year? Should I just continue on at my current job that I dislike even though the extra experience won't help with anything?  Or is there a third option I'm not thinking of?

I should mention that I've been taking NYU and WorldQuant University Courses on the side for some extra knowledge, but obviously these aren't game changers and I can't quit my job to do something like that full-time.

Any advice would be appreciated!

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