A Revelation

All 4 people who read my blag will know that I've recently been considering where I should go to grad school for civil engineering. I've previously been planning on postponing this decision slightly, but the recent epic nose-dive of death in the economy has caused me to move up some of the decisions that I've been considering. I've been planning on working for a few years before I even start applying to grad schools, but my lack of possible job prospects has lead my to look into grad school as more of a short-term option.

Today I had an interesting thought: "Let's just see where those skanks up at the U of U are ranked in terms of civil engineering grad schools." When I looked up the University of Utah on several ranking sites, I found that they were ranked anywhere from 6th to 24th nationally. Needless to say I was shocked that a school in which I could qualify for in-state tuition would be ranked so high. I figured that it was worth at least looking into the Civil Engineering Program at the U, since it is so close by. What I found was interesting to say the least. I found that they have a very good program for things about which I am passionate in civil engineering. Their classes and research for bridge design and the use of prestressed concrete were awesome, and I liked their program for water resources, hydrology, and hydraulics.

I also looked up when the application deadlines for both fall and winter semester, and it turns out that the application deadline for fall 2010 is... drum roll... today. I figured that I would not be able to apply for this fall since I have not yet taken the GRE. I continued reading on the University of Utah's civil engineering website and found that candidates for non-thesis master's degrees who had GPAs above 3.2 could apply without a GRE score. Sensing that the opportunity was mine to grab by the man-parts, I decided that I could finish the application in one day. The online portion of the application was easy... getting my official transcripts and letters of recommendation up to Salt Lake in time was another story. Nevertheless, I conquered and got all of my application materials up there in time.

While I was on the campus of the U, I decided that I fairly like the environment there. There weren't any drunkards or skanks walking around. The people there just seemed relatively normal. I also looked around the facilities of their engineering building on campus and rather liked what I saw. I mean, it wasn't some masterpiece of architecture, but I enjoyed my brief stay there.

I know this would be a rather drastic change of pace for me. I've been bashing on Utah ever since I started going to BYU, but I just think that I would enjoy the environment and academics going there for grad school. If I did end up going there, I'm not sure I could ever advocate University of Utah football and would probably still cheer for BYU when they played each other. Overall, I just think that the University of Utah wouldn't be too bad of a place to go to school after all. :)

[For all reading this post at this point, check its date. Yeah, April Fools. ;) ]