Thursday, June 29, 2006

Musings of a graduate

As I indicated on Father's Day, I have completed my requirements for graduation from my masters program. I'm now in the twilight area between completion of the final class and conferral of my degree by the university. Waiting for the bureaucracy to work its magic is an exersise in restraint and patience. In the end, I've graduated with a 3.916 GPA but the most important fact is that I'm done. I took a week off and enjoyed spending time with my family. Now that I'm back to work, I'm starting to see the difference that not having graduate school is making on my life.

I learned a great deal, there is no doubt about it. However, it remains to be seen if the whole experience is worth it or not. I'm sure the experience will seem worth it during commencemnt in August and I'm looking forward to the ceremony.

My Integrative Project professor summed up the purpose behind a masters degree. She said that the difference between the bachelors and masters degree predominently revolve around the kind of question each graduate is supposed to be able to formulate an answer for. At the bachelors level the question is how. At the masters level the question is why. The funny thing is that "why" is embedded into most of the "how" questions within the information technology field. While the parameters of "why" are often far more rigid and better defined in the technology realm, gaining the broader perspective and acquiring some project management experience has proven to be invaluable.

The scariest question at this point remains "what now?". I've been angling for a position in another department at my current place of employment. However, the rumor mill has it that even though the new fiscal year starts July 1 and today is June 29, the budget is still pretty uncertain. Hopefully, in the next month or so, a position will open up. I'm not holding my breath anymore though. I know I need to be patient, but this week has not been the week for that (I'll blog more on that later).

Time will tell what the future holds, but for now I'm just enjoying the extra free time.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Happy Father's Day

At 2:17 am Eastern Daylight Time today, I submitted my integrative project for my masters degree. It is all in God's and my instructor's hands now. This submission marks the end of a three year journey. I'll post more later. I need to go to bed.