Quote:
Originally Posted by jmakinmecrzy
Also, steve, you may have mentioned this earlier, but is going back to school an option for you?
I had similar feelings as you do a year or two ago, and going back to school gave me a sense of purpose and coincidentally I found a field of study I really enjoy and want to pursue. Try to think of it this way - most people spend their entire lives working 40+ hours a week to achieve what you already have. You've basically skipped that, and I know it feels like a negative thing, but a lot of people would kill to be 40 and effectively be retired. No one on their deathbed says "Aw man, I wish I had worked more."
I guess going back to school is always an option, and I test well, so I could probably make that happen if I wanted to. I've been through a lot of schooling already though, and the thought of going back just basically makes me feel sad. I'm not saying that's any kind of a reason, but that's how I feel about it, so there. My schooling history in brief:
I was a zero effort B student in high school but did well enough on the PSAT & SAT to be a national merit finalist. So of course it was assumed by everyone that I'd be going to college. I really didn't want to go. High school sucked and that felt like more of the same. But I also didn't have any kind of a plan about what else to do, so college it was. My dad, now retired, was an engineer and ran a manufacturing business and he thought I should be an engineer too. I thought, whatever, I have no idea. Physics maybe? But like I said, I didn't much want to do anything other than be done with school. Ended up in the electrical and computer engineering program at Carnegie Mellon, put in a pathetic effort that was just barely enough to keep me from failing. Dropped out on my own after 3 semesters. I knew what I wanted to do in the following sense: "Anything but this." Bussed tables at Big Boy for the next year (I had a vague sense that there was a sizeable stock portfolio with my name on it, but wasn't really sure it was actually mine to do with as I please, and my dad was non-communicative on that point. What he did make clear was that if I wasn't going to school I would damn well get a job.) That was fine with me. Honestly I was happier bussing tables than being an engineering student.
But after a year of that, I started to get the idea that it was time to go to college. Since I still didn't know what I wanted to study though, I got the idea (and in retrospect I think this is pretty dumb and a waste of money) that I would pick the most general major possible while I figured it out. With my barely passing grades from CMU I couldn't get into University of Michigan, so I ended up at Michigan State as an interdisciplinary humanities major. At least this time my effort level was decent and I got the degree.
After that I worked at Borders Books, which for an entry level job in retail wasn't too bad. Working at a bookstore you get to spend time around people who read. Eventually I'd been there long enough that it was time for me to make the move up to a management position, but I found the idea of being in charge of anything at all and having people report to me really unpleasant. Time to go back to college! Like I posted earlier, I'd always had some level of interest in computers, so I enrolled in the computer science department at a local tech school. I might be misusing that term, it was a four year university, but not very prestigious and pretty small.
This time I was pretty focused on my studies (by my standards anyway), and found that computer programming and the related mathematics were a natural fit. Since it was a small school and I was one of the star students within the department, all the professors knew who I was and I was being strongly encouraged to go for a PhD. (to be continued)