Back to school?

I can clearly remember my mindset during my senior year of undergrad. I couldn’t wait to graduate and enter “the real world.” I was over $80,000 in debt, working 15 to 20 hours a week, all while balancing two majors. I was sick of being poor and sick of going non-stop.

So you can only imagine my excitement when I learned that I would be working at Google immediately after I graduated. I knew that not only did this mean that I was going to have a good paying job in an exciting and innovative work environment, but that this meant I also didn’t really have to enter “the real world” quite yet. Couldn’t get any better than that!

And it has been great. I’ve worked on some exciting projects, met some incredible people, made a dent in my student loans, and even finally had some free time to enjoy my life. What else could I need? Well as it turns out, that same ambition that pushed me through school and got me into Google is now telling me I should go back to school and struggle through it all over again. This means taking on more debt and probably working part time to support myself while taking on a full course load — the same situation that I couldn’t wait to get away from only a few years ago.

It’s taken about a year of thinking to come do this decision, but I’m pretty sure it’s the right one. My interests have gravitated towards UI design and I’ve discovered that a Human-Computer Interaction master’s degree can be very beneficial in that career path. Ideally, I’d like to complete my degree in a year. I’m shooting for starting in the fall of 2010.

I’d also like to use grad school as a way to fulfill another personal goal of mine, which is to return to the east coast. I find it a bit disheartening that with all the universities in Boston, not one of them offers an HCI program. However, CMU has the best HCI program in the country and I could definitely live in Pittsburgh for a year. I don’t think I could ever be a Steelers fan, but I’m more than open to embracing the Penguins as my new favorite hockey team.

So with my decision made, I’ve been studying like crazy for the GRE lately. I’ve got plenty of time to take the test, but I signed up for June just to get it out of the way. I also suck at standardized tests, and my vocabulary is sub-par at best, so I’m spending a lot of time preparing for it.

That’s why this is my first blog post in over a month. Don’t expect another one until after June 13th.

Oh, since I talked about my employer in this blog post, that means  you should read this disclaimer.

Posted in life | 6 Comments »