I already have a BA in Linguistics (French and German language teacher), but I really want to go into NLP and am doing my MA in Computational Linguistics now (my first year is about to start). I've read "Speech and Language Processing", started to learn advanced math needed for NLP (stats, the theory of probability, linear algebra) and am doing a course "Python for everybody" on Coursera now. My next plan was to study NLP for Python and try to volunteer for NLTK. But when I skim Data Scientist or NLP positions on job websites, I always read something like "the Master's degree in Math or CS" in requirements. On the other hand, when I finish my MA, I'll be 28 already, and am not sure, that I can afford to get another degree. But I have a feeling, that all the interesting things connected with NLP are more about machine learning, programming and math, and this is what I really want to do in life.