Ardentli.Net

I’m at yet another point in my life that could be dubbed a “crossroad” or a point where my life will take a sharp turn in one direction or another. The end of summer is fast approaching and I will be returning back to college to finish my last two quarters of classes (my university does a quarter system – not a semester system).  As of September, I will have exactly 6 months left of classes and I will graduate with my BS in Information Technology at the end of February 2010.

I kind of dub that point as event horizon. It’s the point where all things including light my life as I now know it will get sucked into a minuscule little point the adult world. After that point I have no idea what I’ll be doing. I don’t really have any concrete plans at all. True I have a lot of ideas of what I’ll be doing, but none of them are set in stone and that kind of bugs me. Below are the current possibilities:

• Decide that, for now, IT is a terminal degree and get a full-time job in Rochester as a software developer. I could potentially be happy with this or I could be miserable since I can’t imagine myself in a cubicle for the next 30+ years.
• Work for 6 months full-time to get some more work experience and then enter the IT-MS program. It’d basically be free due to scholarships, but I can’t help but think this moronic since I’m not sure I want to be an IT professional forever as mentioned above.
• Work for 6 months and do volunteer work at hospitals/pet adoptions so I can send in my application for Physician Assistant school starting next fall. It’s very competitive and there’s no guarantee I’d get accepted anyway. The career change would be intense, the graduate school expensive, and who knows if I’d actually like health care more than programming anyway.
• Go the more professional route and apply for the 1 year MBA program. I do think it’d enhance my degree and give me a more cut-throat edge in the IT business world, but once again, meh.

Either way I know I want to stay local. My boyfriend still has 3 more years of college to finish his BS/MS+co-ops and I don’t think I’d be very happy with a long-distance relationship especially if I considered moving back to the DC metro area (which I’m not planning on since I really hate that place. Too freaking sweaty, boring architecture, rude people). If I decide on stopping my education in 6 months I’ll probably end up with a house and a dog within a year, which is a nice thought, but who knows if I’d be happy with that either.

Bleh, I envy my peers who know exactly what they want to do after graduation.

I’m quickly approaching the end of my undergraduate days. I have, as of this very moment, 6 more classes I need to take to fulfill my undergraduate requirements and get my BS in Information Technology. This means I have two quarters left, no matter how you look at it, since the most classes I can take per quarter is 5. I’m thinking of just going for two slightly easier quarters and dividing them equally with 3 classes fall quarter and 3 for winter.

I’ve been contemplating my eminent future with a great deal of difficulty. What do I want to do after college? Jump straight into the working world? Pursue a graduate degree in Information Technology or a MS in Business? Stay in Rochester or go elsewhere?

I sat down with a notebook and scribbled down anything and everything career related that could possibly make me happy. A horrible realization overcame me when I realized that I don’t really want to work in the web and software development industry! Well, at least, not for the next 30 years. I like learning about it and I’ve enjoyed my past four years in college learning about computing, but it’s just not something that drives me or excites me the way it used to which is a real shame.  I can see myself working in the field for a few years, but I’m just not excited about the future of my career in this field.

I’ve been thinking about what else I can do career wise that would make me excited to get up in the morning and go to work. I’ve always liked health care and honestly I think it might be a better fit for me. Anything to stave off a life in a cubicle. I feel stupid for not realizing this earlier and doing something about it earlier in my academic career, but here I stand deciding to apply to graduate school for something wholly different than what I studied as an undergrad.

*takes a deep breath*

I am in the process of speaking with the Physician Assistant program at my current college. This fall they are starting their brand new BS/MS program (previously there was only a BS program) and they said I’d be a good, competitive applicant. This means another two years academically and a third year of clinical rotations.

Why PA? Well, I was strongly considering applying to MD school a year or two after graduation. Working full time, studying for MCATs, volunteering at a hospital, and then applying in a year or two. I then realized I wasn’t sure I was willing to make the 7+ year commitment to that study path and next considered nursing. I didn’t think I’d be entirely happy with that job wanting more surgical experience/autonomy in my field, so I settled on Physician Assistant which is a happy medium.

I could see myself happy and active in this field for many years.

Needless to say, the program’s competitive and the work, difficult. I’m working now to get a volunteer experience at a hospital near my college as well as some shadowing experience. I’ll also be catching up on some more medical courses over the next year before fall to get more background and better prepare myself to enter the program.

The path ahead is a long one, but I’m honestly relieved that I’m going for something that will honestly make me happy and not just something that would be lucrative. IT is a great degree to have and I know I could easily have a $55k+ starting salary, but it’s not what I want to do. Even though this will cost a lot of money (getting degrees ain’t cheap!), I think it’ll be worth it!

Wish me luck getting in this fall! ^_^