I’ll say as someone in a similar situation, and from what I can tell, private companies don’t give a hoot nowadays if you got a master’s or bachelor’s. All they care about is if you got the skills necessary for the job or the field you want to go into. So keep it up with the side projects, because that shows you know how to apply it rather than just repeating what school has.

Lately I’ve been using the curriculum as a guiding point, finding a book or two on the subject and self learn with maybe a discord channel to ask questions. Far better an experience.

Again, it’s just my opinion. Save the money for fun.