Grad School is hard...

Honestly, why am I here?

SPRING BREAK!!!!

If I don't kill myself first.

It's a hard knock life.

With only a couple weeks left of Real Work (TM), I have started my preparations for school. I may have mentioned this already: my hope for this blog is to give people a sense of what graduate school is like. The only easy way I know how to do that is to bore you with my every step through it. So, while the last few posts have been all evangelical and flowery, the majority for the next few months will be more technical/concrete. I will discuss all aspects of my schooling that I find relevant, from course load to lifestyle. I will also write about the actual work I am doing, knowing that not everyone will be interested in that. It will create an overall theme.

Anyway, time for my first gripe. I have been waiting... and waiting... and waiting... It seems like everything I want to know or need to get done involving grad school takes forever. I only have two weeks left of my current job, and still have not heard anything about how/when/where/why I will be paid while at school. I have this great offer letter outlining the situation that I accepted months ago... but still no details. Patience is a virtue apparently.

On to more fun things: orientation! Everyone remember that? Well, I don't think it will be the same as undergraduate orientation, which was basically an all day mixer that reminded me of middle school dances. (Girls over there, boys over here, no talking) There are a couple workshops, all the usual setting up of accounts and such. Unfortunate for me, because I know I should and will attend it, there is an all day writing workshop for graduate students, aiming to instruct people how to write at a graduate level. Ugh.

I recently registered for classes. I am pretty set on this schedule, but, since I haven't heard anything from my fellowship/advisor, this could change at any moment. I ended up taking a Principles of Databases class and a Parallel Computing class. Both should be interesting, and count towards my breadth requirement for either a MS or PhD. Also, as a PhD candidate, after the first year you have to take these WPE exams, or as I like to call them, your OWLs. They correlate directly to some of the classes offered, such as that databases class I just mentioned. I will also need to do some weekly work for my fellowship, no clue what yet.

Who cares, because I will only have one class a day, two classes total - frickin' awesome! For the past year, I have been forcefully seated in a cube for 8 hours a day, now, 1 hour in a classroom. Obviously, a lot of work will be needed for each one of those classes, but on my own schedule. Life will be good.

The computer science department also has an orientation for grad students, where we will be getting accounts to the CS machines and labs. I will do a writeup of the whole orientation process once I finish it. Currently though, I am in wait mode.

Just got to make it two more weeks...

Opportunity Costs

So far I have been unsurprisingly positive about my transition to grad school. But don't think I haven't had to face some demons - namely greed. Ask anyone - I love to spend money. My boss knew me well enough to point out that I would be losing out on roughly $350,000 if I stay in school for the full five years. And to make that back in any reasonable amount of time, I need to get a job starting at $130k when I get out. Not going to happen.

On that note, I want to play a little devil's advocate as to why I shouldn't go to grad school. Keep in mind, I have yet to start my first day there, but, I have a pretty good idea on some of the things I will be missing out on. I already talked about the money, that is just a given. In the end, my idea is to have a job that is worth more to me than money.

With a undergraduate degree in Computer Science, I was a hot commodity in the job market. Honestly, the variety of careers was astounding. The world of IT at my company alone deals with all facets of work life - Servers, phones, Internet, networks, mainframes, applications, etc. All of which are interesting in their own way. If I didn't go that route, I could make video games, or be a web designer, basically, all these things I have been trying out and thinking about doing my whole life. A PhD doesn't really mesh with any of those careers. I worried about how valuable I will be, obviously most companies will have no use for me. I will be competing with kids far smarter than I for some exciting, but niche, jobs.

God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.

- Elbert Hubbard

Experience is the one thing you can't teach. My first year of work has taught me things that are hard to learn, painfully. Yes I was also taught all about Java Server Faces and mainframe languages, but the valuable lessons came from interactions with my team, and the business areas. The lessons learned through strife here will no doubt stick with me and change the way I do things. As painful as making those mistakes was, giving up five years of work experience is going to hurt worse. I doubt I will pick up the same kind of experiences in grad school, and most employers wont count grad school as 'work experience'. I don't think I need to expound on how valuable potential employers value solid work experience. Along with that, there also is a lot of growing up done in the first five years of work, which will be at least partially pushed into the future for me. My friends will surely outpace me on this.

But, honestly, when I try to talk about the negative sides of going for a PhD, I have trouble coming up with good reasons for me personally. I am sure a lot of people like the stability that comes with a career. But, why wouldn't I want to postpone real life? Doesn't everyone say that being young is priceless, a treasure, something they wish they could go back to? I saw a chance to extend my youth in some way, and in doing so, possibly fulfill some dreams.

I've got my whole life to grow up.

And I ask myself, how did I get here?

As my senior year at SJU came to a close, I talked at length with my professors about graduate school. At the time I was working on exciting, fun projects, and wanted to do more. They talked about conferences and publishing; doing something 'new'. If only I hadn't already accepted a 'real' job... That just sounded so boring to me. But, I have an appetite for money... Anyway, my professors kept prodding me to go to graduate school, in a year. At the time, I thought, "Great idea".

Fast forward to September, and I had completely written off grad school. I was making good money, and having fun. But, my girlfriend was dead set on going to school, and pointed out that I frequently complained about wasting my life in a cube. What to do? I love the easy life of work, but I hate that my life will amount to a cog in a machine. Why not try to do something extraordinary? And, don't worry, I am being honest with myself. I am not extraordinary, but, I know extraordinary people who do ordinary things... maybe I can take their spot. To this day, I am still unsure about grad school, if it's right for me, if I can do it. But I wanted my choice to be about the actual life I would live, not how hard or easy it would be to attain. I didn't want to stick with the easy route simply because it is easy.

Realizing that I was behind the curve in a number of areas, I went out and bought piles of GRE test prep books. My girlfriend conned me into studying every weekend. Well, more her teaching me how to add/subtract. (She is from Eastern Europe, and therefore had a calculator inserted into her brain at birth).

The GRE came and went, and I did alright. Alright! I met my goal (a 700 on Math), and had to get ready for the next step: the GRE CS Subject Test. So, I repeated the process for this next test, only I had less time for harder test. Totally bombed it. I was ready to give up, "screw that". I told myself all along that I wouldn't be mad if I quit, as long as I had a valid excuse. But... I always had a problem quitting things. So I continued.

I started filling out applications. My list of schools was small and set in stone way before I ever started this process: the University of Minnesota (UMN), or anywhere in California. The driving force behind this dream of something better was a secret desire to live in California, in the hotbed of technology that is Silicon Valley. I sent my applications in around January, and forgot all about it for a few months...

My girlfriend started to hear back from schools, and was accepted to UMN early on. I still hadn't heard anything. I wasn't even sure I wanted to get accepted, then I would actually have to make a tough choice. She went on her tours, I went to work. As time passed, I became more accustomed to life in Corporate America. I was thinking long term - 401k's, houses, white picket fences. Who needs some pipe dream when I just got promoted - I can go buy the new iPhone!

In late May, out of the blue, I received an acceptance letter from UMN. Later that week, I get a call from a professor, wanting to know what I think about this particular fellowship he has to offer. Hmm...

What to do? I had spent the last couple of months planning my future, forgetting about the idea of going back to low money/high stress living. I had tons of money, which enabled me to do anything my friends wanted to do. I ate out all the time, bought tons of toys and gadgets, and went on some great vacations. It was awesome. Yet, I missed Saint John's, and became more and more depressed at work. I began to think that the money wasn't worth what I was giving up: my dreams.

Then the professor had one line for me, "Do you want to be a General - or a grunt?"

It has begun.

So, as the summer gets close to its end, so does my career in Corporate America. Time will tell (painfully, to be sure) whether this was a good decision or not... But first, let me get you up to speed. For the past year, I have been a web application developer for a midsized financial company in the Midwest. It is a cushy job: loads of vacation, great pay (55k+), and never more than 40 hours a week. On top of that, the actual work I am doing is not half bad, either. So, why would I be giving that up to go back to stress, homework, and Ramen noodles? The real answer probably lies close to an inability to 'grow up', 'settle down' and get over the wonderful life that was Saint John's University, but I will try to convince you of something a bit less pathetic...

I want to do something unusual. I have yet to run into any actual hardship in my life, and spend too much time watching movies and reading stories about people who do amazing things. So, basically, I am full of dreams that I can't possibly fulfill. But, I think that is the point. I am not ready to give up; I like the chase, the potential of what I could be. I read news stories about scientists trying to save the world, or of newly minted millionaires coming out of Silicon Valley, and I want to be them. Staying where I am would be a good life, good money, but overall unspectacular. The way I see it, money is like a bell curve; it's only interesting when you are on the sides. (translation: I could be making 40k or 90k, and my life won't change a whole ton. I would just have more/less stuff. If I couldn't afford rent, or could buy a small island, that is when it starts to get interesting...)

So, what was the logical next step? Who knows, but I chose Graduate School.

Anyway, at a later point I will talk about how I got into school, but for now, know that I am enrolled in the Graduate Program in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. I was lucky enough to be offered a fellowship with the National Science Foundation which will have me working closely with other graduate students from various disciplines on environmental topics. They are paying for my schooling, and giving me $30k a year stipend. When I know more, so will you.

Lastly, I will be most likely studying Data Mining, or specifically Spatial Data Mining. I had a class on Data Mining as an Undergraduate, but it has been almost two years, so it will be like starting with a clean slate.



Upside: I have five years to figure it out.
Downside: Can my dreams last that long?