Is it me, or are there a lot of birthdays around this time of year? Many, many of the people I know seem to have birthdays in January and February. Perhaps it lends creedence to all of that astrology crap, and I just tend to hang around Aquariuses. Or maybe it reveals preferred times of the year to make babies. Who knows.
The last couple of weeks of work have been relatively quiet. Sgt. Rhino is back from leave. He had an excellent time while he was home, but coming back was painful, both with the emotional parting and the difficult process of making his way back to Iraq. I get that report quite often, actually. Traveling with the military is less than glamorous. Sgt. Rhino has decided to step back a bit from day-to-day office management, allowing Sgt. Antonio to make project decisions and keep track of scheduling. Also, Sgt. Rhino has blessed off on the days off scheme. I'm very happy, because I'm still enjoying my reset days.
Over the past couple of days, I've been plotting my return to the world of academia. I've reached a Junior standing in college, but based on the courses I still have to take, it will take me another 4 semesters to complete my degree. That means I still have two years before I can start working full-time. It's a little disheartening that classmates from high school who stuck to the 4-year plan in college already have their bachelor's degrees, and I'm still two and a half years away. I probably would have taken an extra semester or two if I had gone strait through school, but even then, I would still be very close to finishing by now. I've had to put my education on hold twice because of the military. On the other hand, I don't regret my decision to join the military. I have a lot of experiences that will help me in life and give me perspective. Plus, hopefully my student loans won't linger as long as some of my old classmates' loans will.
I do have one exciting new finding from planning out the rest of my college career. I had heard people mention it before, but only looked into it recently. Because of all the math courses required by the Computer Science degree, it's not difficult to pick up an Applied Math minor. The minor consists of six courses. While none of those courses are required by the degree, three of them can be applied to specific slots in the degree. I've already taken one of those. So basically, by taking three extra courses, I can pick up the minor! And really, these are math skills that will be synergetic with my Computer Science degree: vector calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, statistics and probability. As much as I hate doing math, I love the things that math can do for me. The real trick is to learn to harness math to my needs. I haven't figured out how to use all of this advanced math in computer science, but I know it's possible, and it's the path to being a great programmer and innovator. So, I'll slog through the classes and make it happen.
You'll have a carrer when you're done. Some of us that did the 4-year degree thing, well, are meandering. Trying to figure out if we should go to grad school, what we want to do, but with a degree. So, if you have a job that will pay well and that you enjoy with your degree as soon as you're done, you will be ahead in the game.
ReplyDelete