In the end, the determining factor in whether you can land a translation job depends on one thing: your ability to do the work. Either you can translate or you can’t. Probably no one will want to pay your while you figure out how to do it. Any master’s degree will land you in a similar position to where you are now, unless you start to change your day to day habits.
- Start amassing random knowledge (learn kanji, vocab, grammar)
- Get a tutor (or native) to help you synthesize the random bits of knowledge you’ve learned into something you can use in practical situations (as in, explore nuances)
- Start doing the thing you’re trying to get paid to do (translation or interpretation)
Given your interest in books, I’ll plug the following:
I don’t like shilling my own stuff but it seems suited to your purposes (and will help you with point 1).
Point 2: go on iTalki, get a tutor, or join a Japanese exchange student conversational club if your school has one.
Point 3: Go join a fan translation team or start clipping + translating vtubers (the hololive discord server exists) or something like that.
You probably don’t even need a master’s degree to translate if you can produce a credible body of translated work.