I grew up to the phrase, “Never say never.” I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction books and watching action movies like any other boy. However, perhaps more than the excitement, I loved the story. When I got to school, I did not stop reading or watching movies. I also began getting into role-playing games (RPG’s) on both the console and the pen-and-paper variety, think Dungeons & Dragons. While those are a little beyond the norm, I took it a step further. I paid attention in history class. I heard about Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. I read about Napoleon and General Eisenhower. I watched documentaries on Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. I grew up believing a person could be great. I believed I could be one of them. Then I got older.
I was expected to find a way in life. I could not continue dreaming of being the next Michael Jordan, Steve Young, or Andy Roddick. I had to grow up. I was never very keen on the idea. By this time, computers had become an avenue to more stories and dreams. I began to pursue basic web development, and then on to programming. I could not decide whether I wanted to make games that future generations could love or websites which would open the eyes of others. I began walking down that path. On the side, I kept myself grounded with history classes. They were a constant reminder of where I wanted to be. I wanted to be in the history books.
I graduated college and got a job. I got told, “Welcome to the Real World.” It turns out it is not much different than whatever world I was in before. People have expectations, and it is my responsibility to meet them. That means even if I do not like it. I am very independent. I do not like someone else telling me what to do. At the same time, I want people to listen to me. I used to yell louder in hopes I could drown out the others until they had to listen to me. Sometimes I still do. With my job, I wanted to write code. I wanted my code to change the world.
My boss recently shifted me into a new sort of role. I coordinate developers literally on the other side of the world as we work on an application used by people in the same city as me. The new role requires getting up before the sun because people on the other side of the world work very different times than we do here. I am told it has something to do with an 11.5 hour timezone difference. I also spend most of my days in meetings. Some days I spend the entire day in meetings. Each meeting has people asking me to get work done. I struggled to understand how I was suppose to get work done while I was constantly in meetings. I wanted to be writing the code rather than sending it off to others. I could do it better. I yelled a little bit.
I still do not know whether I want to continue pursuing the road I am on or return to the fork in the road. However, in traveling down this new road, I learned something. If I want to be great, I do not have to do the things at which I am great. I just need to continue meeting the challenges laid before me. I have to rely on the people around me to help me. I have to rely on others to point me in the right direction when I can no longer see the road. I will have to try new things. I do not know where I am going. I do not know where I will end up. The one thing I know is I can never stop trying.
If you need an update, here is my first blog on grad school. On Friday, I was throwing some general questions to Dr. Wallingford about various things in relation to grad school. He asked who I am looking at. I told him Dr. Cook from UT and Jeremy Siek from CU. It turns out Wallingford knows Dr. Cook personally and has worked with him on a couple different committees in the past. This is very good news for me. Being able to have someone like Wallingford put in a good word for me and make sure my application really gets looked at very easily could be the difference between me being accepted or rejected at a large university like UT. The best thing is Wallingford knows Cook himself. It is not that he simply knows someone on the UT CS faculty. He knows the guy I want as my advisor. Then I hope my track record will speak for itself and get me in.
I am now a senior in college. If you go by credit hours, I will be a super-senior in December. Technically I am 14 months and 2 days from graduating college. What does all this mean? It means I am starting to try to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. On Wednesday, the Computer Science Department here at UNI hosted a seminar on grad school. I decided to take off work and check it out.
I had always had the idea of grad school in the back of my head as a potential future possibility (a lot of uncertainty in that phrase, no?). Last month, Dr O’Kane had brought up the GRE’s and the idea of grad school in one of my classes. It got me thinking a little more about the idea. I have really enjoyed college. I feel more comfortable sitting in a classroom than perhaps anywhere else. After all, it is the primary thing I’ve done for the past 16 years of my life. I am also extremely talented at it if I may say so without sounding a bit too presumptuous. I like listening to lectures. I learn a lot from them. I used to jokingly think I should be a student for the rest of my life. I could just continue to take various degrees and quite literally never graduate. These thoughts inevitably lead me to the notion of going to grad school. Let’s not forget that I could carry on the Dr. Sparks title too! 
The seminar turned out to be only the department head (Dr. Wallingford), a professor (Dr. O’Kane), and me. At least I got a lot of personal attention. With me not graduating until after next fall, I got told I have plenty of time to think about things and figure it out. I also have yet to do my undergrad research. I am planning on doing it in my last semester. It was suggested that I do that in a topic related to what I would like to do with my graduate studies should I pursue that particular path. I really don’t know what I would want to study if I did go to grad school. I know it would be in Computer Science. I love history, but I find myself occupying more and more of my time with computer stuff every day. I see the history degree turning into a great hobby when I need a break from computers. It also rounds out my education really well so I am glad I will have the B.A. in history. Seeing as how I didn’t know what I really was interested in yet or where I would want to go, they recommended I just start researching various universities and professors. This would be first and foremost. Once I had a few ideas, I could take the GRE next fall and any other tests if required by my hopeful schools. Then it would come to applications and seeing where I would end up.
I spent a fair amount of time later that evening when I got home looking at universities and their computer science programs. Most really did not reach out and grab my attention. The two that did so far were the Colorado University and the University of Texas. Both have some interesting software research going on. A professor at Texas definitely caught my attention the most. He does some research on web technology which I have yet to fully look into. He also does a lot of research on object-oriented ideas and inheritance. That is the stuff I am really good at and enjoy. I have actually been considering toying with some of those ideas in web applications. Now you see why this Dr. Cook from Texas was so appealing to me. I have been slowly developing ideas about doing my undergrad research on a similar topic. I also want to try it out with some of the websites I build.