Purpose

I've realized that much has happened since I last updated this blag. I'm not particular sure on details at this point, so this is going to be kind of the de facto Reader's Digest version of my life.

I went to Provo for about a week and filmed a TV show while there with my roommates from Spring/Summer. A couple months ago, Scott Manning applied for our apartment to be on the Food Nanny on BYU tv. This is a quintessential Mormon show in which an older lady whose kids are grown comes over and helps families "Rescue Dinner." In this case, we're not exactly a family, so there are a few deviations from the typical plot line. Overall though, it was a blast and I look forward to seeing myself on TV sometime in late January or early February. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for what happens to your ear drums if you listen to Liz Edmunds with the volume on your computer or TV turned up too loud. She's super fun, but very eccentric. Be warned.

While I was in Provo, I was able to go to both the BYU grad school fair and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) career fair. The grad school fair held very little promise since half the booths there were occupied by departments from the spU or Utah State. However, I did talk the Purdue guy who was full of useful information and got my very own University of Abalama elephant squeeze toy, which makes me want to go there, just because it's the best schwagg... ever. The career fair, on the other hand, held plenty of promise, though I'm not sure how much, if any, of it will pan out. I talked with several companies who seemed interested in hiring me. The big ones were Rio Tinto, McCarthy Building, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Vanir Construction Management, Layton Construction, and of course, Kimley-Horn. Both McCarthy and the naval shipyard were holding interviews the next day and said that they might call that night to schedule one. I didn't get a call from either of them, which is disappointing. I submitted my applications to both Rio Tinto and Vanir, and would hope to hear back from them at some point. Kimley-Horn is actually the company with which I had an interview scheduled ahead of time. I went through this interview and everything seemed to go well, however I'm merely left to wait to hear back and see if anyone actually wants to hire me. Overall, the career fair was productive, but not nearly as productive as I had hoped. Most of the civil engineering firms weren't actually hiring, but rather just looking to hand out schwagg so that you'll remember them later. However, I still hold out hope.

Since my hope has been made perfect, I have also been making preparations to submit applications for grad school next fall. On Thursday, I sent out a few emails to my former professors asking for letters of recommendation and what kind of research would be available back at BYU. Dr. Saito responded to my email within two hours. The other two that I sent out have not yet elicited a response. I hope that Dr. Hotchkiss and Dr. Gerber are merely ignoring me over the weekend as opposed to ignoring me indefinitely. That would be unfortunate. In addition to the letters of rec that I have asked for, I have also been working on a statement of purpose. After lots of deliberation and thought, I've managed to pound out an initial draft of at least Purdue's statement of purpose. I look forward to people picking it apart into tiny little bits, then restructuring it. If you want to have the privilege of reading this statement, let me know and I'll get it to you in an email.

It might be slightly confusing for the habitual readers of my blag to see me writing a statement of purpose to Purdue when, as of my last post, I wasn't even considering them. Well, way back when, I was considering Purdue. It started when fiancée #2 and I were both considering grad schools to attend so that we could go together. Purdue has reputable programs for both speech language pathology and civil engineering and her Female Parental Unit (not her mother... you don't really want to know) was living in Indiana at the time, so that choice was easy. At some point along the road, Purdue's user unfriendly website pissed me off and I decided to stop considering it. However, this week, when I talked to the Purdue guy at the career fair, I decided to look more into it. It turns out that it's still a good program and I could fulfill my dream of going there for free if I got an assistantship. In addition to this change, I've alse decided that I really don't want to go to Wisconsin because their civil engineering department is set up in a really weird way and that I wouldn't mind going to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, since the aforementioned Dr. Hotchkiss got his Ph.D. there and I could go there for free.

So, you should be pretty much caught up on what I'm up to these days... not that it's that exciting or anything. :P

Plan F

Considering that neither my post-graduate Plan A or Plan B are working out too well, I think it's about time I start working toward Plan F. Plan A is still to find an entry-level job in civil engineering, preferrably making a competitive wage at the same time. That has clearly not been working out all too well thus far, but I did only get my degree posted to my transcripts about a week ago. Hopefully, at the BYU career fair and with all the other applications I've been submitting, I can find something that actually pays in money and not in cases of hot pockets or facebook credits. Plan B was to join the military in either the Army or the Air Force as an engineer officer. Since it appears that I'm ineligible to join the military as an officer, that will prove rather difficult. Now, since I skipped letter codes C to E just for effect, it's on to Plan F. This plan involves going to grad school starting in the fall of 2011 for a civil/environmental engineering master's degree.

For a good while now (since at least about 3 or 4 months ago) I've decided that I refuse to pay for grad school. While this might sound utterly absurd, there are actually quite a few programs across the country that will waive all forms of tuition and even give you a nice stipend if you go to grad school at their university if you can get a graduate research or teaching assistantship. In civil engineering programs, there are often plenty of research opportunities (though with the crapconomy, no one really knows) and with my previous teaching assistant experience, I might actually qualify for one of those. If I can find a school that will actually give me a research/teaching assistantship, I might just take the glorious opportunity to acrue more usury on my undergraduate loans and work toward a graduate degree in civil engineering.

According to my last count, there are eight schools at which I wouldn't mind pursuing a master's degree in civil engineering. More or less in the order of preference:

• Virginia Tech - VT has a massive civil engineering department with over 60 professors and a plethora of research opportunities to go with them. It's also ranked 9th in the nation according to US News and World Report for civil engineering grad schools.


• Washington - I'm not going to say too many nice things about UW right now, but I do like their program and think it would generally be a good place for me.


• California, Los Angeles (or the University of Cottonpickin', Lower Abalama, as I like to call it.) - While I may not respect UCLA's athletics, their academics and especially their civil engineering department is top notch. If I more certainly wanted to study geotechnical/earthquake engineering, this would definitely be the place, since it gets rocked frequently. And any school that hates the University of Spoiled Children is alright with me.


• Oregon State - I'm not sure how much I'd actually enjoy being part of the OSU community, but at this point, I'm a fan of the civil engineering program. I don't hate Oregon now, but I'm sure I would after being an OSU student for over a year.


• Colorado, Boulder - As much as Boulder is full of hippie stoners, I think that CU-Boulder has the best program in the state and I wouldn't mind going there if I could get an assistantship. On the upside to this one, I have many friends in the north Denver area and I would live near my parents for optimal mooching. And with the Buffs joining the Pac-12 next year, it makes the 4th consecutive Pac-12 school.


• Wisconsin, Madison - In a place where the mosquito is the state bird, I'm not sure I could make through my time there without dropping the F-bomb once or twice, though I'm not sure that anyone really cares. Wisconsin's program is ranked number 16 in the nation, though I'm not sure that it's actually worth it to live in such a dismal local.


• Notre Dame - As I've mentioned before on this blag, the price at Notre Dame is right. Anyone who is admitted to ND in for civil engineering automatically gets a graduate assistantship, and therefore, no one pays tuition. I respect Notre Dame's football program, but also think that Brian Kelly is a douchebag. The best thing about that is that BYU is going to play them several times over the next few years.


• Brigham Young - The place where I got my undergrad degree. I'm almost positive that either Dr. Gerber or Dr. Hotchkiss would want me to do research with them and I could get some sort of assistantship there. Additionally I already have good friends that alread live there, and assuming that my former roommates can manage to kick out the guy from Dell Tech Support, I know exactly where I want to live. And don't forget, I left BYU without a ring...

I'm not totally sure that BYU would be my absolute last choice, but it really depends on where else I get in. The application deadlines for most all of these schools is January 15th, so I'd need to start working on these applications in about mid-October in order to finish them. The first one due is UCLA on the 15th of December, so if I don't have a job by then, the application is going in.

Hopefully, at some point, I can get Plan A to start working out for me so that I don't even have to consider Plan F until several years down the road. In addition to Plan F, there is also Plan Z which involves finding a job that pays about $15 an hour or more, since this is about the minimum that I can make and still pay my bills, whether it's in any way relevant to my degree or not. Then there's also Plan Γ (gamma), which, as I've already mentioned, involves hopping on a train and being a hobo for about 10 years.

At this point, I'm rooting for Plan A...