I will post about myself and my experience, because it's what I know best.
I truly support you OP.
Personally, I have a B.Mus focus on violin performance, and another diploma, Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Music focus on violin performance.
I had nothing but support and interest from everybody, but then it's a family of musicians and artists and supportive types.
Regardless, I would have done them even if everybody thought it was a joke.
It was VERY hard work, and I came away with ridiculous knowledge and abilities that I never before, well, never knew that I didn't know. ya know?
It transfers to bass and other instruments and allowed me to become a music transcriber (which I still do in my bands... guitarist writes a super awesome complex piece of music and wants me to play an instrument with him? Best way for me is to have a chart. if it's a lead sheet then I write out the full melody as well in traditional notation, otherwise it's a jazz style chord chart. I can do it in one listen for the main sketch if it's simple, 2 or 3 listens if it's a semi complex song, several listens of intense focus if it's prog, complex finger style, classical, fusion, etc stuff. But I can do it, and it's very helpful because then anybody can sit down and follow along and play, whether it's the basic chords and rhythms (which would include most serious players regardless if they can read classical notation, because there isn't any in the chord/rhythm charts), or the full lead lines and harmonies (as long as they can read music, which would include any horn players, string players etc).
My playing chops got VERY serious for a number of years, also as a direct result of the training, and competition for a preparation for, getting these degrees.
Also, as a result of all that, I know theory like a mother #@$%&!
This allows me to understand what people are talking about, without having to interject silly questions all the time. Lots of players describe music incorrectly, wrong key for song (key isn't always the first chord of the song), whole tone versus semi tone, notes on teh scale etc... but that doesn't matter so much when you are able to interpolate the correct result from what they are saying and listening to how they are playing... and then you can pick up their songs and follow along much more easily than without that extra layer of knowledge helping you to interpret, translate, and predict what is going on and going to come next.
So for me, all of that has been super rewarding and helpful, invaluable really. I also used to work as a session player quite a bit because I can sight read lots of types of charts, right up to full on classical music with every nuance explained in that language. That gave me a huge boost to get the jobs over other players.
