Success by Degrees

My diploma arrived in the mail the other day. Got my name on it and everything.

Now it really hits home what I've accomplished and how hard I had to work for it. It's been a month since I finished my last class. I have since tried to replace the time with other projects and spend time with my family, but the intensity of these activities does not match what was required to finish those classes. I've been mostly hanging around the house not knowing what to do with myself, getting under foot and driving my wife nuts.

Conversations of the Damned, Part XXIV

After a week of getting in my wife's way, she'd finally had enough...

Mrs. Gnu: "Get outta my way, will ya? Don't you have homework to do?"

Me: "Umm.... NO!"

(Pause)

Mrs. Gnu: "Wasn't there a PhD program you were interested in...?"

God help this poor woman the day after I retire!

Victory Dance

I've paid my dues, time after time,
I've done my sentence, but committed no crime.
And bad mistakes, I've made a few,
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face,
But I've come through.

We are the champions, my friends!
And we'll keep on fighting till the end!
We are the champions,
We are the champions,
No time for losers,
'Cause we are the champions of the world!

I've taken my bows, and my curtain calls.
You brought me fame and fortune, and everything that goes with it,
I thank you all.

But it's been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise.
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race,
And I ain't gonna lose!

We are the champions, my friends!
And we'll keep on fighting till the end!
We are the champions,
We are the champions,
No time for losers,
'Cause we are the champions of the world!

Queen
We are the Champions

Grades were posted last night. I got my A. That gives me a perfect 4.0 GPA for my Master's Degree.

Holy Cow. A perfect score. It belies the fact that this was two long, hard years of intensive study like on other I've attempted. It may look easy, but I put a lot of hard work and long hours into it. And I definitely believe that I got a lot out of this effort. I'm a lot better prepared to tackle my career path, especially now that I've moved up into management. There's a lot I still have to learn, but I've learned a lot already that I can use every day.

Test anxiety has now been packed away and sent off to cold storage.

Now all that's left to do is order my graduation robes an mortarboard. My wife and daughter got a big laugh from the order form: it asks for my height. Smartasses.

Will I wear anything underneath?

Stay tuned...

Two Weeks Notice

Yep, that's right. Two weeks.

No, I'm not quitting anything. Tomorrow starts week 7 of 8 for my last class at the Graduate School. Wow. After two long years, it's finally coming to a close. The finish line is in sight. One last surge, the final push, dig deep and run like hell, eyes on the prize...

Just. Don't. Fucking. TRIP!

I'm holding on to an A in the last class, I. T. Project Management. With a death grip. Not letting go. I've maintained a perfect 4.0 average all the way through. All A's. Whoodathunkit?!?!

I kid you not, this has been a tough degree curriculum. This school is no easy ride. I put a lot of long hours into this, and I took every assignment seriously. That's just what you have to do to be successful. That's the advice I give every prospective student from grade school to grad school: you get out of it what you put into it. So dive in like there's no tomorrow.

Two more weeks, one more final exam, then I can start planning the party to end all parties. This one's gonna make the evening news.

Going Global

Well, it's a holiday weekend, and what do you suppose I'm doing to celebrate it?

Yep, you guessed it. Another class has started and I have three assignments due by tomorrow. Finished one last night, two more to go.

This one is Global Information Technology Management. Should be fun. The books are actually really good reads, consisting of Michael Porter's seminal tomes on competitive strategy (only one was required, but Amazon had a great deal on the 3-volume set so I picked it up for less than half what the University bookstore wanted for it) and good study of how to apply Sun Tzu's Art of War to modern business.

It's not often that you run across textbooks that are actually enjoyable to read. In all fairness, however, these books weren't written as textbooks, but rather as books. For some reason, that seems to help. The closest approximation I've run across to a readable textbook was Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics, and the follow-up volume, Applied Economics.

Update from the last posting: There is no update. Still pursuing leads to explain what happened. Apologies to friends and family for the scare, but this is how life goes. One day you're running around the house with a red towel wrapped around your neck and your Underoos on the outside of your pants. Next day, you keel over. Life happens in between. Don't forget to live it.

Okay, enough morbid thoughts. Off to write papers!

Aces High

Whew! I am finally done with the financial courses in my degree. This fall has been nothing but repetitive number crunching. I know finance and accounting are important subjects to understand in a business and technology management curriculum, but I've had enough. I've learned a lot about money and finances that I've ben needing to know for a long time, but I feel like it has come at the cost of - well, what's the best way to explain this...

Momentum.

I feel like I lost momentum, as if I were sidetracked into a tangential line of research. I was on a roll, knocking out heady management topics and then got pulled aside to balance the damn checkbook. Now I've got to get my head back into the game with four more courses to go. The next four classes cover big topics: Global IT Management, IT Security, Project Management and the Capstone. I have no idea what to expect for that last one, and it's recommended to be the last course we take in the degree program. So I have definitely got to regain the momentum I had before I got dog-piled by balance sheets, capital budgets and call margins!

On the plus side, I aced both courses. The last one solely by the grace of a kind professor on a curve. Most of us tanked on the final exam so he cut us a break. Special thanks to Dr. Z for the holidays!

Halfway There!

Oh, we've got to hold on,
Ready or not.
You live for the fight
When that's all that you've got.

Oh, we're halfway there,
Whoa-oh! Livin' on a Prayer!
Take my hand,
We'll make it I swear!

-Bon Jovi
Livin' on a Prayer

This week marks exactly the halfway point in my Master's degree program. Halfway through the sixth course out of eleven total. But it's not all downhill from here. That line of thinking leads to complacency. I can't afford to get cocky, lazy or just plain scared. We've reached the point of no return. Best thing to do now is stay the course and see this through to the victorious end.

I have learned a lot going through this program. Not just new ideas or filling in the gaps between what I know so that I can be better at my job. I've learned a few things about myself too. For starters, I can do it. However tired and frustrated I get, I know that I can buckle down and fight my way through the problem.

I've stayed up till 3am working on assignments, then got up the next day and put in 11 hours at work, come home and visit with the family, cook dinner and do it all over again till the work is done and turned in. I've read, re-read and re-re-read the same case study, rewrote the same analysis, tweaked the problem answers for the umpteenth time till they're right. I've aced open-ended essay exams on less than 4 hours of sleep.

I've had teachers and classmates tell me I'm working too hard. That I could "get by" on half the effort. Bullshit. When I write my assignments, I'm writing for myself, not the class. I'm getting something out of the exercise that I can keep long after the grade is written down. I'm learning for myself, about myself, to better myself.

I'm also learning a lot about budgeting my time. I have a feeling that once I'm done, I'll have my schedule nailed down so well that I'll end up bored stiff. What will I do with all that extra time?

Don't tell The Missus I said that!

Off Probation Now!

Okay, let me explain. No, I'm not in trouble with the Law. At least, not that I know of. Let's step into the Wayback Machine and revisit this.

Back already?

Okay, remember that letter I got from the Graduate School? It said my admission was provisional, pending my performance in class and getting some prerequisites done. Well, in the interim, they rolled the prerequisites into the regular core courses, so all I had to do was keep a B or better in my first 3 classes.

Got my final grade back today for the Management of Software Systems class. Made an A. Once again, ass kicking deferred. The final exam was crazy, though. There's open-ended questions and then there's "write me a book about ___." I wrote 26 pages, then changed the font and margins to save some trees, even still I had 21 pages to turn in. I think I heard weeping on the other end of that email.

So that's now three A's for my coursework. A 4.0 GPA. Not too shabby a start. This means that the provisional status is removed and I'm now a fully admitted Grad Student in Good Standing. Yahoo! (Or you can yell Google! Whatever trips your trigger.)

It's been hard keeping up study discipline the past three semesters. Work gets so insane that it takes time away from reading, research, writing and just plain old nose-in-the-textbook studying before test time, but that's what pays the bills, so I just cowboy up and deal with it. My boss is working on his Master's too, so he's sympathetic and helpful, too. It's good, because we can trade on-call support nights with each other for class time and such.

Besides work, I got family, community projects, lawn care (grass doesn't mow itself - but what an AWESOME genetic engineering project we could work on!!) and at some point, working off the sleep debt. Everyone has been really supportive, and I can't thank you all enough.

I've still got a long way to go, and it's only going to get harder. I hope I can stick with it. Discipline, hard work, and dedication are what it's going to take. Support from friends and family help a lot too. Onward!

Once More Into The Breach, Dear Friends!

Well, it's officially official. I'm going back to school. I've decided to complete a goal I set for myself 10 years ago and go back for my Master's Degree. I'd wanted to get started a decade ago, but the combination of a shitload of work (Imperial, not metric) a new baby (now growing up WAAAAY too damn fast) and some really bad career advice from someone I should have known better than to trust (told me it wasn't a good idea - fucker) resulted in me not getting started sooner.

I'd planned to get started this year, back when I was working for a top-ranked software firm which shall remain unnamed, but that fell by the wayside in an unforeseen re-org. That was two jobs ago, and as a consultant, there's no safety net under me anymore. So, I've decided not to wait for someone to sponsor me; I'm taking a loan from Uncle Sam and doing it myself. Sometimes you simply have to decide if the goal is worth the sacrifice or not. Maybe there will be a big payoff for this, maybe not. Screw it, I'm doing this for me.

I'm kinda scared, actually. This is kinda like the fear one gets bungee-jumping for the first time, wondering if the rope's tenuous grip on your ankles will hold up to the G-force of all those White Castle burgers from across the years. And once you take that leap, it's no longer a simple physics problem, the consequences are real.

It's been a long time since I've had to really study for real tests. Granted, I've got certifications, and I've been to scores of technology classes to keep current for work, but this is completely different. If I don't maintain a 3.5 GPA they'll toss my sorry ass out on the street. And I'll still owe Sam the dough. So, yeah, the stakes are a lot higher in this game.

Fingers crossed, I should be walking the aisle dressed in a mortarboard and robes in two years or so. Will I be naked under the robes? Stay tuned for that answer.