There is a light at the end of the tunnel
Today, after 8 quarters (2¾ years if you're counting), I went to school and did something "fun": I picked up my cap, gown, and hood. It's been a very long time since I last did that. The last time I went through two schools (not because I got kicked out of one, but because the partying was so serious that I didn't think I'd ever get anything done), studied about seven years, suffered through two years of "liberal arts" requirements (German Feminist Film Studies anyone?), and was put on probation three times. Let's just say I wasn't a great student the first time 'round.
This time things were a little different. I didn't get put on probation and didn't have any grade issues (this time I pulled a 4.0). I think a few things went into this one. I wasn't working first and going to school second (or third, or fourth). I was working and I was going to school in equal parts, but I think I've learned a lot more about time management and that made a ton of difference. Time management the first time was wondering how I could trick physics into sneaking in at least one additional hour each day. This time I was simply looking at the workload and making time to do things.
The last three quarters were interesting to say the least. Fall quarter I took a third class (the normal workload is two classes because the school expects about 3 outside hours per week per class and "working professionals" don't have much more time than that) that I hadn't planned on taking. But, through the past year, I've worked on some pretty cool things for my thesis. In essence I kick-started a process that, for the second time in as many years, revamped the program's curriculum. The outcome was a bunch of new courses, a new way to structure those courses, a set of "rules" for teaching them, and co-authoring of a paper just submitted to IEEE.
When that paper is published, assuming it makes it through the peer-review process, I'll post a link to it. There aren't too many people interested reading something titled "Integrating Academia and Industry Best Practices in Designing a Software Engineering Curriculum". But, somebody might want to read it.
Anyway, thanks for reading…