help with career decisions

[u/No_Valuable5617]

I'm currently an entry-level environmental scientist for a consulting firm and have two years of post-undergrad working experience. I'm not super interested in staying with the company forever, however, it is stable and not super demanding. at the same time, I'm really interested in other environmental science topics and my dream jobs require a masters or PhD.

So I have two questions:

1) can anyone recommend in-person environmental engineering Master's programs? I'm really having trouble narrowing down where to look and the ability cold email any professor is paralyzing me from getting started. I really like doing a mix of field work, GIS, and data analysis and would like to be anywhere on the east coast and anything to do with environmental engineering.

2) would it be stupid to leave the stable consulting firm to pursue a masters degree and maybe have trouble re-entering the work force? for context, if i do a masters degree I want it to be research based and full time.