Grad School Lessons, Final Take

I feel like there's a tapeworm clinging for dear life to the walls of my small intestine.  It knows that it's lost and that it will soon die.  However, it's trying to inflict as much pain on me as it possibly can in the mean time.  The life-sucking parasite that is ravaging me is not a tapeworm; it's my thesis.  I've basically finished my thesis and I've even defended it, but it's still trying to suck as much life force out of me as it possibly can.  Endless typographical adjustments and the fact that I can't get the -freaking- title on the first page of the text will probably haunt my dreams tonight.

The last grad school lessons post that I made was when I had hardly even begun my research.  Now, there are only a few days of pain left before I can finally rid myself of its parasitic influence.  These are some of the lessons that I've taken away from the last year plus of grad school.

• Academia is a Sick System.  Over the last few decades, many in the western world have fallen, helplessly into the idea that more education is better.  In American primary and secondary education, children are passed along from one grade to another and from one level to another, and occasionally given some accolade or certificate of accomplishment.  They are taught that greater occupational and economic opportunities will be available to them if they simply prove their mettle with more education.  While this is true up to a point, more education is not always more advantageous. Getting a (Philosophy) Doctorate often greatly reduces the variety and number of occupational options for an individual.  With a doctorate, one is often bound to do research at a relatively small number of institutions.  It's like a pair of Palladium handcuffs (like golden handcuffs, but not actually that valuable.)
• It's a trap.  Many prospective academics hearken to the ideal that they'll be able to change the world with their free thinking and applied knowledge.  These unfortunate souls think of academia as an ivory tower in which they can get paid real money to philosophize for a few hours a week and not take life too seriously.  The sad reality is that they are still servants to those who are above them.  The grad student or post-doc bends to the will of his advising professor.  The assistant professor contorts himself into knots to meet the whims of the tenure committee.  The tenured professor conforms to the will of the department head.  The department head does his best to not be a complete puppet to the administration.  And most ironically, they all perform in a dog and pony show to impress the funding agency, so that they can get the money to live their "ideal" lifestyle.  The only difference between industry and academia is that the deadlines are softer.  Speaking of which...
• I Thrive on Deadlines.  Academia is a nebulous space in which deadlines, but are always secondary concerns.  Academics are always busy, in part because there are few, if any intermediate deadlines.  Work gets done in a haphazard and capricious manner with *lots* and *LOTS* of wasted time.  Unlike most academics, I'm an almost obsessive-compulsive planner.  While I don't necessarily plan each of my daily activities, I typically have a very good idea of what I'm going to accomplish on that day, and intermediate deadlines help me to efficiently prioritize that time. The "Here's a huge task, I'll see you in a year" model hasn't been helpful or enjoyable in the least.
• The Ph.D. is Indentured Servitude.  Many people think that Ph.D.s are really smart because they have a lot of education (à la my first point).  However, the reality is that the Ph.D. is much more about tenacity than anything else.  An average Ph.D. takes about 5 years.  Basically anyone who's smart enough to finish a bachelor's degree at a respectable institution could get a Ph.D., it's just a matter of how long it will take.  Devoting years of your life to a Ph.D. is just that: years of your life.  And hey, at the end you get another certificate of achievement! >:-|
• Assistant Professorship is Pure Hades.  In the two years that I've been in grad school I've watched both my advisor and my friend's co-advisor change from bright-eyed, optimistic Ph.D. grads to the jaded cynical professors that we all know and love.  It's not a matter of being more optimistic than previous candidates, it's simply what the system does to you.  If all Master's candidates had to have an assistant professor as their advisor, there would be *significantly* fewer Ph.D.s.
• The Graduate School is the Byzantine Empire.  All the paperwork.  Margin restrictions.  Insanely anal table of contents and listing requirements.  Requiring students to finish ALL degree requirements a month in advance to be eligible to walk at the once-annual commencement ceremony.  Taking 3 months to process a 2-page form and finishing only after consistent badgering.  If you like bureaucracy, you'll love the graduate school administration.
• Also, This.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to the God who created me for the opportunity to receive the excellent education that I've received.  I'm even more grateful for the funding that I've received that has allowed me to minimize my debt and to have enough money to serve a full-time mission.  My degree will have value, particularly as I'm trying to find my first job.  As I found out in 2010, most employers of civil engineers are looking for master's degrees in their candidates.  It's become kind of a de facto requirement, particularly if you're looking for a job doing anything remotely specific.  However, my experience as a master's student has killed all desire that was ever in me to get a Ph.D. and then some.  While I'm sure being a tenured professor has its perks, I'm wholly unwilling to endure the 5+ years of indentured servitude and 6-8 years of pure Hades to do a job that I don't necessarily enjoy that much.  The sick system of academia is right for some people... but I'm not one of them.

Grad School Lessons, Take 2

As I finish up the winter quarter at Oregon State University, I've been able to pause an look back on the things that I've learned over the last 3 months.

• Sometimes you have to throw out style points and just grind through it.  Because I've already blagged twice about structural dynamics, I won't go into too much detail.  Suffice it to say that it wasn't pretty, but I managed to get through it by little more than pure tenacity.  And I'd even say that I learned a thing or two in the process.
• Only trust people to do your work as far as you can throw them.  This term, I had one class for which the homework was too be done in pairs.  My partner was a not-too-bright structural major (see previous post) who was in his last term and had already mostly moved to Portland.  Needless to say, I didn't trust him too much with the workload.  I let him spin his wheels on certain parts of the assignments, but in the end, I fixed everything that he did wrong and made sure that it was all up to my standards before turning it in.
• You'll probably adjust to your surroundings, eventually.  I already felt pretty comfortable at Oregon State when I walked through the doors, but it still took some adjustment from life at home and at BYU.  After six months, Corvallis pretty much feels like home (minus the spatially convenient Wal-Mart) and I've even gotten used to smell of coffee that penetrates the entire OSU campus.
• Sometimes, self motivation is hard to find.  Before I started grad school, I read most of the archive of Ph.D. comics and chronicled the pronounced theme of procrastination and not working all that urgently on research.  When you've got over a year (or several if you're a Ph.D. candidate,) to complete your research, there's a tendency in most people to put it off and read the College Football Nation blog on ESPN instead.  I'll finish the rest of this point later...
• Calling in sick isn't always an option.  I was sick for like the last quarter of this quarter (a sixteenth, if you will).  It wasn't anything out of the ordinary; just a common cold and/or upper respiratory infection.  However, it was quite miserable.  My throat burned and I was tired all the time as my immune system tried valiantly to stave off the illness. Then it somehow managed to skip right past my sinuses and go straight to my ears, causing swelling and mucus buildup that left me all but deaf for the last 2 weeks.  In a 10-week quarter, it's not possible to just take a week or two off.  I just had to suck it up, take lots of cough syrup, and ask people to speak up so that I could hear them.

Overall, this term wasn't too bad.  My first grade has even been posted; I got an A in my advisor's class.  Spring term holds Earth Structures (Seepage and Consolidation), Earth Retention, and Bridge Design, but I'm not going to think about that too much until after Spring break.  

Grad School Lessons, Take 1

In addition to teaching me about important technical skills like geotechnical lab work, foundation engineering, and structural seismic design, my first term of grad school has taught me some important life lessons.  Here's a quick summary of each, in no particular order:

• Check out the neighborhood before moving in.  Seriously, if 3/4 of your prospective neighbors speak little or no English, it might be worth it to pay twice as much to live twice as far away from campus.  Here's hoping that my car is still there when I come back from winter break.
• Don't trust other people to do your work.  In two of my classes this term, the homework was assigned as group assignments.  Suffice it to say, I found out why I always did my homework by myself during my undergrad years.  My grades in the two group classes were significantly lower than the one that had individual assignments.  It would have involved a lot more work to do the homework myself, but I think I would have been more satisfied with the results at the end of the term.
• Sometimes you're the dog and sometimes you're the hydrant.  In the seismic design final, I was the hydrant.  Dr. Miller feels that he wants his seismic design classes to learn the codes that govern design of structures.  This would all be well and good if he actually showed his seismic design classes how to use the code.  He told us what was coming, but we were still woefully unprepared because there was little teaching of the code and no assignments based thereon.
• Most people love alcohol more than life itself.  In grad school, most everyone is over 21 and is fully capable of consuming alcohol at any given social event.  Most everyone also exercises this right to the degree that they're pushing the limit of being too impaired to drive, but generally chooses to drive anyway.  I'm seriously thinking about upping the insurance on my car... assuming it's still there at the end of the break.
• People drive like they're impaired even with no help from alcohol.  Everyone in Corvallis drives 20 mph regardless of what the speed limit is.  I don't think the cops even bother setting up speed traps, it's not like they'd be good for anything.  The best one I've seen is a guy who changed his mind as to whether he wanted to turn at a particular intersection about 3 or 4 times and made a swerving half-lane-change for each one right in front of me.  In all fairness, it was right by fraternity row, which leads me to believe he was, indeed, impaired by alcohol.
• It can always get stupider.  I thought BYU CE's undergrad stupid seminar was stupid, then I became acquainted with Oregon State CE's graduate stupid seminar.
• Be grateful for what you have.  BYU's football team had at least a 10-win season every year that I was a student there, and stands a good chance of doing it again this year.  I got used to going to a school with a winning football team and it's kind of tragic that my current school's football team is arguably the worst in its conference. 
• My grades are always lower fall term/semester.  Speaking of football, when several hours of your Saturday are taken up by awesome football action both live and on the TV, it's hard to get any work done.  Winter and spring terms should be easier on my GPA.  Though, next fall I'm going to really need to focus and get it done.

Well, that's pretty much all I've got for now.  I've listed this as 'Take 1' because I assume that I'll have other lessons that I'll learn as grad school progresses. In the mean time, I think this should be sufficient.

The 3rd Degree

A little while back, I set a goal for myself that I'd like to get another degree in addition to the Master of Science in Civil Engineering that I'm going to get from Oregon State starting in the fall (Go Beavers). I've talked briefly about possibilities for a terminal degree, but I haven't really gone into detail. The way I see it, I have three options: A Ph.D. in civil engineering, a second master's degree in mining engineering, or an MBA.

Piled Higher and Deeper

Long ago, my mother suggested to me that I was too smart for industry and should instead enter into the shiny ivory tower of academia. To a certain degree, she's got a point. Wading through endless concourses of the bullfunky that contractors, governments, and lawyers dish out isn't my favorite part about the civil engineering profession, but I'm pretty sure that I'd still enjoy the heck out of it. However, I've been inspired on multiple occasions by professors who don't actually work that hard and don't make bad money doing it. Professorship is one of the few professions where you're paid basically on your ability to be a genius, which I think suits me pretty well.

My master's degree is going to be in geotechnical engineering, which means that it would save me time and energy to get a Ph.D. in the same. Like most other things, not all geotech grad programs are created equal. There are also some places where I just do not want to live, ever. Inasmuch as Boston, MA and Northern California are two of these, MIT and Cal would not be viable options even though they have insanely good research programs. At this point, the three schools which I would be considering are the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, GA, the University of Texas in Austin, TX, and the newest addition, the University of Illinois in the Urbana-Champaign area of Illinois.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign academic logo.

I've chosen to add the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign because of a textbook that I purchased for the master's coursework that I'll begin at Oregon State. I bought Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice by Karl Terzaghi, Ralph Peck, and Gholamreza Mesri. Terzaghi and Peck especially were at the forefront of the research that became modern soil mechanics and Mesri worked with them in earnest later in their careers. Well, Terzaghi was a guest researcher at the University of Illinois, Peck was a professor there for years before he retired and later kicked the bucket, and Mesri still does some research there at least in some capacity. The University of Illinois has a fantastic geotech group and the civil engineering program overall is ranked 2nd in the nation (behind the aforementioned Cal.)

Before I move on, allow me to say that I'm going to work in industry for several years before I even think about going back to grad school. Even if I can't get a job in geotechnical engineering, I'm still going to find something. I don't care if I have to work 35 hours a week at Taco Bell, I refuse to go back to school immediately following the master's degree. Considering that most of Dr. Benzeley's master's grads had jobs last August when I graduated from BYU, I feel fairly optimistic about my prospects. I also have the goal of getting licensed as an engineer which is probably more important to me than the 3rd degree. In order to get licensed, one has to have at least 5 (or 4 with a master's degree) years of experience working under a licensed engineer. In honesty, it'll probably be another 10 years before this is even applicable, but I have nothing but time to contemplate the future and my career goals, anyway.

If I do decide to get a Ph.D., I'm not going to try to matriculate during an economic downturn like right now, where demand for research is low and supply of cheap researchers is high. No, I'm going to try to ride a wave of economic prosperity, when there's plenty of government research money to go around and, comparatively, not a lot of people who want it, because they're all in industry, making money.

As a side note, the PhD webcomic is hilarious. They're also coming out with a movie that'll be screened at university campuses all over the country. Check it out.

More of the Same

At the onset of this blag post, you may or may not have wondered why I would consider getting another master's degree in mining engineering. If you've read this post, you know why, but for the rest of you, allow me to explain. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel a couple years ago about guys who blew up buildings for a living. Needless to say, I found this to be awesome and would not mind pursuing this as a slight career change.

Now, the guys who were on this show had Ph.D.s in mining engineering and had spent most of their years blowing up dirt for mining operations. Considering that I'm getting a master's in geotechnical engineering with a "minor" per se, in structural engineering, learning to blow up dirt and/or buildings would be right up my alley.

The programs that I think would be best for learning how the blow stuff up in a safe and professional manner would be either the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) in Rolla, MO, or the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. There's a guy or two at each of these institutions whose blasting research would pave the way to a prosperous career blowing crap up.

Massive Bullsh*t Ahead

At a time or two, I've thought about getting an MBA in entrepreneurship and/or engineering management and starting my own civil engineering consulting firm. Considering how many engineering firms I've seen close their doors and lay off their staff in the recent months, this isn't at the forefront of my mind. I'm going to keep the door open on this one, but I don't plan on visiting much, or anytime soon. I also have no idea where I'd want to go for it. I've looking into the programs at BYU, Georgia Tech, and Purdue, which would all be options, but really I don't have much preference at this point.

So there you have it. My options and plans for a third piece of paper that I can hang on my office wall, and more opportunities for people to say, "Wow, your* smart!"

* Yes, I did that on purpose.

The Final Report

So, after spending the last seven months applying to master's programs at grad schools all across the country, I have finally made my decision and will be attending Oregon State in the fall. After going through the application processes, there are some schools that I won't be attending on which my opinions have changed significantly and some that really haven't changed at all. With this post, I will be pretty much closing the book on the 'grad school' tag that I've used in many posts before (not that anyone even pays attention to those things) unless I start thinking about a Ph.D. which, I hope, will not happen for at least another 12 years, but who knows. But don't worry, I will blagging plenty about my experience in grad school under the tag 'Oregon State.'

Here's how I feel about each of the schools to which I applied:

CU Boulder - Stock: way up. - I wasn't terribly impressed with the application process to the university, but after visiting the campus and the civil engineering faculty, I was pretty much hooked. I grew up cheering for CU and it would have been really interesting going full circle and matriculating to their grad school. If they had had funding for me, I totally would have been heading to Boulder in the fall.

BYU - Stock: high as ever. - BYU will always be my alma mater, and there will always be a special place in my heart for the BYU campus and Provo. It saddens me that I will have to leave on a permanent basis.

Purdue - Stock: pretty much the same. - I was never terribly excited about the prospect of moving to West Lafayette and going to Purdue, so it didn't break my heart too much when I didn't get in. Though it was shocking, considering that I would have been an above average admit two years ago.

Virginia Tech - Stock: down slightly. - I have been, and will continue to be, impressed with the academics at Virginia Tech. They manage to produce cutting-edge research that's useful in industry as well as in the ivory tower of academia. However, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed if I never had to step foot in Blacksburg again. One of my fellow prospective grads at the geotech group visit said, "I like it here, because I think that anyone could fit in here." In a sense he's right. The students come from all different backgrounds and geographic locations and they are bonded together by a common thread: the copious consumption of alcohol. Yes, you can fit in in Blacksburg... as long as your liver sports the school colors.

UCLA - Stock: down. - My initial distaste for UCLA came from them not telling me that letters of rec had to be signed in ink until after my recommenders had already all submitted their letters. This boondoggle was, at least mostly, ameliorated when I found out that my application had actually been completed and that I had been accepted. However, with the application letter came the notification that they had no funding for me. This was followed by an email to my hypothetical adviser that went unanswered for 6 weeks and to which the response was two sentences. On the net, I'm just much less excited about UCLA than I ever was in the past.

UW - Stock: way, way down. - UW began crapping on me from the moment that I started filling out their obnoxious application and didn't finish until I filled out the last piece in a large pile of profoundly Byzantine paperwork, which told them that I would not be attending. I was absolutely shocked that the application process would be THAT terrible for a school that's not even THAT good. Oh yeah, and don't forget that tier III (the tier system is just a testament to how awful the bureaucracy really is) graduate tuition is $8,600 A QUARTER!!! Oh, and that's going up 16% each year for the next two years... which means that, by the time I finished my master's degree, I'd be paying about $11,500 A QUARTER for tuition. The list just goes on and on.

There's a good chance that I will never step on and any of the campuses in the latter 2/3 of this list (again, in one case.) If I was going to apply for a Ph.D. at some point in 12+ years, The University of Colorado at Boulder would probably be the only one of these 6 to which I would consider applying. Also, at this point, I've been reading about how profoundly weird Austin really is, so I'm not even sure I would want to go to the University of Texas at Austin. However, I'm planning on making that decision in the distant future, so I'll have plenty of chances to expand my possible list of schools from just Georgia Tech.

I've said a lot about different schools in this blag post. In all this smorgasbord of information, let's not forget that I will be going to Oregon State in the fall and that my master's degree will say, "Oregon State University" on the front. Let's go Beavers.

Edit: [On second thought, Austin might just be the best place for me. :D]

The Megathrust

So, this weekend, I realized a few things that impact my graduate school experience. The first is that, on the application to Oregon State University I indicated that I would be completing a master of science degree. The second is that I was awarded a graduate teaching assistantship because I indicated that I would be completing a master of science degree. The third is that, once one accepts department funding, one cannot switch from a master of science degree to the master of engineering degree except in extraordinary circumstances as deemed by the head of the school of civil and construction engineering. The fourth is that, as far as I know, those supported by graduate funding must produce a research thesis as part of their graduate work. The fifth is that graduate students cannot walk for graduation until they have completed all the requirements for their degree. So, it looks like I'm going to be writing a thesis and walking (if I choose to do so at all) in June of 2013.

To tell you the truth, I'm not terribly upset about having to write a thesis. I'm good at writing and I've been contemplating a career in academia, for which the research of the master of science degree is a good springboard. (I've already thought about going to the University of Texas at Austin or Georgia Tech for a Ph.D., but that's far enough away that I'm not going to be too concerned with it.) The only things that worry me are how long it's going to take and how it's all going to be paid for. Before I had this series of epiphanies over the weekend, I was thinking that I was going to be able to finish up a master's degree in about December of 2012, after the end of the fall 2012 quarter. With additional time for research, I may be looking more at March 2013, after winter quarter, or even June 2013, after spring quarter. It's still possible that I could finish in December of '12, but the combined responsibilities of coursework, working 20 hours a week as a teaching assistant, and performing independent research all at the same time rather daunting. I'll have to talk to my professors and advisers as the time draws nearer, but for now, it looks like I'll be finishing in the 1st half of 2013. Also, money is always an issue. I'll be going to Oregon State because I was following the money and my thesis will also be a product of where the money takes me. If I can get funding for a particular project or interest, I will doing research in that area, even if it's not my first choice of research.

Speaking of my first choice of research, I should explain the title of this blag post. I would like to do research with soils in western Oregon under loading from a megathrust earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone. This seems incredibly relevant, since a megathrust quake is exactly what happened off the east coast of Japan in early March that threw the entire nation into turmoil. The Cascadia subduction zone occurs as the Juan de Fuca plate is forced beneath the North American plate just off the coast of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. A similar earthquake and/or tsunami would have a devastating effect on the whole west coast, and it is in this vein that I hope to perform my research. Considering the circumstances, I would think that there would be funding for this project in the near future, but in order for me to get any of this funding, it would almost undoubtedly have to be a joint effort with Dr. Scott Ashford at Oregon State and several of his graduate students; I cannot spearhead this research by myself. It's also possible that it could take several years for funding to appear for such projects even though the consequences of an imminent megathrust earthquake would be devastating. Bureaucracies of any sort may take years longer than I have at Oregon State to approve their various Byzantine budgets. At this point, I don't know if I will get my first choice in research, but it's at least worth a shot.

I don't know whether my commencement for Oregon State will be on the 8th of June or the 15th of June, but it should be one of those two. Anyone who reads this and actually knows who I am is invited.

At this point, I'm excited about the prospect of being able to produce a thesis and get the master of science degree. The devil is in the details, however, and how I feel about it in a year will heavily depend on what happens in that mean time. For now, I'm just going to try to get started with the MS, even if I don't have perfect foresight of exactly how I'm going to finish it.

Let's go Beavers!

Brethren, Our Prayers Have Been Answered

I knew a guy at the Colorado School of Mimes who was a member of the church and attended the institute. He told me a story that I found very entertaining, that I'm going to tell you now. To put this in context, Mines is a school wholly dedicated to engineering, and as such has gender ratios similar to the engineering building on any campus. The recruiters were actually being congratulated because they were up to 24% women. Well, as you could image, the student ward in town was one in a series of unfortunate dudefests. Basically, it was a bunch of single engineers, a couple people from Metropolitan State College of Denver who lived in the area, and a few married engineers with their wives. Single women were a scarce resource. So, this guy's story was that, one Sunday, he was attending the area family ward instead of the student ward. While he was in that ward, the BYU women's basketball team walked in and sat down among the congregation. And in his own words, "If this had been in the [student] ward, the bishop would have stood up and said, 'Brethren, our prayers have been answered.'"

That's kind of how I feel today, but not about women, about money. This morning, I emailed Kathy Westberg at Oregon State to confirm that she had received a written confirmation of my acceptance of the graduate laurels scholarship. She responded that she had received it and that everything was set. Literally 5 hours later, I received another email from Kathy saying that I had also been selected to receive a graduate teaching assistantship. Needless to say, I was very flattered at that point that the school of civil and construction engineering thought that high of me. I have asked the Lord repeatedly to help me find graduate funding and he has clearly softened the hearts of those at Oregon State University such that money has been flowing in my direction therefrom.

So, this assistantship involves basically the same thing as the scholarship plus a job. So, I still get three quarters of tuition remission, but along with it, I get $1738.03 a month in exchange for 20 hours of work a week as a teaching assistant. Is the equivalent of about $20 an hour more than I've ever made? Why yes... yes it is. By about double. I like this.

The only caveat to this assistantship is that I have to have health insurance. Thanks to our good friend Barack Obama, I am still covered under my parents' health insurance, though Oregon State really wants you to buy theirs. In order to waive the university's insurance, you have to provide proof that yours provides at least as good or better coverage than theirs. I called my parents' insurance company today and requested a copy of our insurance coverage that will be here in 7 to 10 business days that I can then send to the university along with an insurance waiver form. I'm going to submit the paperwork, even though it's hardly even worth it at this point. The university's health insurance only costs $43 a month, which is deducted from the stipend tax free. Put simply, I'm going to turn in the insurance waiver, but if it gets rejected, it won't hurt my feelings too much.

On a somewhat separate note, I found out from the Corvallis institute website that you can submit requests for roommates by sending an email to the institute. This will make finding a roommate with morals significantly easier. I like this as well.

Brothers and sisters, my prayers have been answered.

Decision 2011

For those who have not investigated my crackbook profile recently, my graduate school decision has been made, and, as you can expect after reading the previous post, Oregon State University is the big winner. I contacted both Virginia Tech and CU Boulder and both said that they would not have funding for me anytime soon. I also calculated my total costs per quarter of attending Oregon State with a scholarship and it comes out to about $2,500 per quarter. That means that, even with an additional quarter at full, out-of-state tuition, I won't have to borrow any more for grad school than I did for my bachelor's degree, which is a welcome relief.

I think the most ironic part of choosing Oregon State as my final destination for grad school is that I have literally never been to Oregon. Also, Oregon is one of only 9 states to which I haven't been, along with Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, and West Virginia. Needless to say, a road trip to the Beaver State is in order. And as long as I'm in the neighborhood, I'll probably stop by Washington as well.

At this point I'm planning on finishing up a master's degree in December of 2012, yes within days of the Apocalypse as inferred from the Mayan calendar. Also, I already know when I will be wearing the legitimate black robes of the false priesthood, not the fake blue ones I got in August, in a commencement ceremony. It will be June 9th, 2012, so mark your calendars if you want to join me in Corvallis. I don't know whether I'm going to end up doing the Master of Science (thesis/project) or the Master of Engineering (coursework) just yet. This will depend on what sort of research and continued funding I get for the fall of '12. Though, rest assured, I will not be doing a thesis just for fun, so if I don't have any research lined up for next fall, I'll be getting a M.Eng and hopefully wearing a cool, orange tassel to complete the school colors effect.

Go Beavers!

Powered by Orange

Yesterday, I received an email from Kathy Westberg at THE Oregon State University telling me that I had been awarded the "Laurels Block" scholarship for civil engineering graduate students. This scholarship, for which I had to do little in addition to my application than just submit a paper that said I wanted to apply for it, covers the full costs of out-of-state tuition and fees for three quarters. Under this scholarship, I could take whatever classes I wanted that applied toward the Master of Science (Thesis/Project) or the Master of Engineering (Coursework Only) degrees. Considering the course scheduling that's available at Oregon State, I could probably finish either master's degree in four quarters, meaning that I would need to take an additional quarter beyond the scope of the scholarship. The cost of out-of-state tuition for a single, full-time quarter is about $6,000, which isn't bad at all as long as there's only one of them. In addition, it would be possible that I could procure some sort of assistantship for that final quarter that would provide additional funding.

This doesn't all mean that I will necessarily be booking it to Corvallis this coming fall. There is still a possibility that I could get funding from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and I haven't heard back from Virginia Tech that I won't be getting funding, though it seems unlikely. I have to make a decision on this scholarship by April 15th, so my prediction that I'd make my decision by mid-April was eerily accurate.

Here's hoping all this wasn't just an April Fools Day joke.

Edit: [It was not an April Fools joke. Now busting out the sparkling cider. :D]
Edit: [New grad school odds, as of 4-3-11: Oregon State - 3:2, CU Boulder - 4:1, BYU - 30:1, Virginia Tech - 36:1, Washington - 90:1, UCLA - 90:1.]

Y?

I've been thinking about the reasons why I wouldn't necessarily want to go back to BYU for grad school. BYU is cheaper than any other school to which I've applied (as the tools who wish they could go to USC know very well,) and I already have a healthy number of friends there who would be there for the whole three semesters of my grad program. However, there are some solid reasons why I wouldn't necessarily want to go back.

1. There's a reason I didn't get married in 3 years as an undergrad. This negates one of the biggest reasons I would return to BYU: WifeQuest v. 2.0.
2. The Civil Engineering grad program is not in the top half of US News & World Report's rankings. #73 out of 124.
3. Employers hate Mormons. While technically illegal, employers can discriminate against whoever they want, because there's no effective method of quality control.
4. They will have 1, count them, 1 geotech professor. Dr. Gerber is getting canned, so they will only have Dr. Rollins. Dr. Rollins is a quality teacher and researcher, but it's just him.
5. I couldn't augment my list of contacts. Going to a different school offers me the opportunity to get to know more people who know people.
6. I'd like to learn finite element analysis... but not from Dr. Balling. CE En 506 at BYU is a beast because it's taught by Dr. Balling and it's a combined class with continuum mechanics.
7. The Jimmer is a senior this year. If he had one more year, I would be much more likely to go back to BYU just to see the Jimmer Show.
8. There's no spring break. This week is spring break for many universities. Not having some time off is ridiculous. Call it conference prep week if you must.
9. The Beard Code.
10. The CE department doesn't have a coursework only option. Many schools have a master's degree that's just 30 hours of coursework. At BYU, one must complete either a thesis or a project.
11. The Utah legislature passed HB116, though Utah Valley's representative, Jason Chaffetz says that it has no chance of being implemented.
    

There are probably a few more that I may or may not add to this list at some point in the near future. I think this should do if for now.

(Image courtesy of the BYU Alumni Association.)

Edit: [New grad school odds as of 04/01/2011: Oregon State - 2:1, CU Boulder - 3:1, BYU - 10:1, Virginia Tech - 30:1, Washington - 60:1, UCLA - 60:1.]

The Moratorium

Ever since about April of last year, I've had the sneaking suspicion that there's a federal moratorium on giving me money. Much like the moratorium on gulf-coast drilling, all donations or compensations of cash flowing toward me have been banned. This moratorium extends to trade as well as wages. Let's examine the evidence, shall we:

• My last "permanent" employment was in April of 2010 with the civil engineering department at Brigham Young University. Though the moratorium may have actually taken effect before this, I was the only one who was willing to TA environmental engineering with Dr. Williams during winter semester, so they had to keep for at least a few additional months.
• Even though I was employed with tαr3eI for a couple of weeks during this winter, the compensation that I received was negligible and they dismissed me well before the January 10th deadline to retain holiday employees.
• I filled out over 300 job applications and got 3 interviews, all of which were within 50 miles of the campus of my Alma Mater. And out of these 3 interviews, zero offers were extended.
• I've tried to sell both my dirt bike and my engagement ring from fiancée #2. The price of both of these was probably under what they're actually worth, but I got about 4 calls between the two of them. (And on a side note, Craigslist is nothing but crime!)
• It's too early to call 'game over,' but universities and civil engineering departments seem hesitant to offer me any sort of funding other than loans. And btw, only getting money that someone expects you to repay isn't sustainable, just try paying off a credit card with another credit card every month, it doesn't work.

This is all granted that my mom has given me money in the recent past, but that's nothing unusual. I wouldn't expect her to stop giving me money now, even if there is a moratorium.

I'm looking at you Obama... What should I do?

[New Grad School Odds: CU Boulder - 2:1, Oregon State - 5:1, BYU - 5:1, Washington - 20:1, Virginia Tech - 30:1, UCLA - 60:1]

sqrt(Evil)

Holy crap, I forgot how much is actually costs to be a perpetual student. I made a spreadsheet of how much it would actually cost to go to grad school for a semester. I actually counted monthly expenses and then multiplied by 4, but that's a technicality. The moral of the story is that I can't afford this S#1+. Also the difference in tuition between BYU and CU Boulder is only about $3500. The difference between $42,000 in total debt and $30,000 in total debt is mostly negligible. I ask all 3 people who read my blag to pray that I get funding... I could really, really use it.

Yeah, seriously...

Edit: [New odds effective 12p EST 03/11/2011, CU Boulder - 5:2, Oregon State - 4:1, BYU - 5:1, Virginia Tech - 15:1, Washington - 20:1, and UCLA - 30:1.]

The People's Republic

This last Friday I went up to the People's Republic of Boulder for a visit to the University of Colorado at Boulder and their Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) grad program. Even though the city of Boulder is one of the most liberal cities in the United States, full of hippies, stoners, and homosexuals and is practically the opposite of Provo, where I got my undergrad, I really enjoyed my visit there. The CEAE program is perennially ranked in the top 25 of civil engineering graduate schools, and I can see why. In no particular order, here are some of the things that I liked about Boulder and the University of Colorado at Boulder:

• It's close to home. The location is totally out of control of the university, but it's important nonetheless. I grew up in the Denver/Boulder area and have made many friends nearby. It was good for me to live 500 miles away from my parents during my undergrad. I really enjoyed not having them looking over my back all the time. Now that I'm 22 and will be 23 when I start grad school, I'm not too worried about their hovering because we both realize that I'm an adult and I'm mostly capable of functioning on my own. It would also be nice to go back to my parents' house when I run out of food.
• The centrifuge(s). The University of Colorado at Boulder CEAE program has a 400 g-ton centrifuge that can be used for geotechnical modeling. The centrifuge spins around, applying a load greater than the acceleration of gravity, but always perpendicular to the model ground surface. This is incredibly useful for research and makes the University of Colorado at Boulder the center for small-scale geotechnical modeling research. They also have smaller centrifuges that are useful for smaller projects and instruction.
• Dr. Dashti. Professor Shideh Dashti is a geotechnical professor at CU Boulder who specializes in geotechnical earthquake engineering. On a side note, she is also the skinniest woman who I've ever seen; probably a dress size 0. I could almost touch my thumbs and middle fingers around her waist at the narrowest point, but that's tertiary. The real reasons that Dr. Dashti could influence my grad school decision is that her research comprises the exact kind of things that I would like to work with and she is an active member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI.) I talked to her about EERI and she said that she would love to start a student branch at CU Boulder if she had a student who was will to spearhead the group. Not only would this be a fabulous opportunity to learn, but it would look really, really good on the resume. Dr. Dashti was also one of nicest people I've ever met and one can tell that she enjoys what she does.
  
• The rest of the faculty. While I was there, I met 3 other members of the faculty and have corresponded with one more via email. The three other faculty that I was able to meet were Drs. John McCartney, Richard Rigueiro, and Dobroslav Znidarcic (who is very Eastern European.) They were all very personable and passionate about their research without taking themselves too seriously. For the civil engineering grads out there, they all kind of reminded me of Dr. Richards at BYU. I also emailed Dr. Ronald Pak after the visit since he wasn't there at the time and he seemed like a pretty cool guy as well.
• The administration's attitude toward alcohol. Granted, it hasn't always been this way, but the school administration tries to discourage alcohol use as much as they can. After CU Boulder was jacked up a few years back for NCAA football recruiting violations involving alcohol and loose women, the administration has taken a much more conservative stance on alcohol consumption. As with many other universities, the students don't exactly share this view. In the civil engineering computer lab, I found a drained six pack of Coors in the recycle bins (like I said, liberals.) However, the CEAE department was not handing out beer, like another University that I've recently visited.
• The campus looks familiar. Much like the campus of BYU, CU Boulder has a mountain backdrop and very few roads crossing campus. The campus was also built like a hospital, (on a funds-available basis), which means there's no easy way to get from one end of campus to the other. While at BYU I kind of got used to a campus that felt this way, and I like that aspect of CU Boulder. The campus does not totally resemble BYU, since the university requires all buildings to be covered in at least a certain proportion of red sandstone. The buildings all kind of look the same. However, I'm okay with this inasmuch I won't have to find buildings other than the engineering center all that often.
• The football stadium. I've rooted for CU football off an on for a while now, and I really like the stadium in which they play. In a way, it's like coming around full circle.
  

To be fair, I will also make a list of things that I didn't like or that are still unknown.

• As previously mentioned, the buildings all looked the same.
• The engineering center is a deep, dark labyrinth in which each department gets its own wing.
• There may or may not be any Mormons. I've heard good things about them so far, but visits to the institute and Boulder single's ward are in order.
• People may or may not actually stand up and cheer at football games. The student section looks good on TV, but that might not reflect the actual situation. Sadly I will have to pick a grad school before the next football game for any of them.

What this all adds up to is that I would be very excited about going to CU Boulder if I got funding there or if I failed to get funding anywhere else. Even though CU would be more expensive than returning to BYU for tuition, I think it would be worth it if I could actually find a job outside of Utah when I graduate. To the chagrin of my friends at BYU, the only way that I can see myself returning is if Dr. Rollins can get me funding by April. Additionally, the passage of Utah HB116 through the state congress makes me even less excited to return to Utah, but we've already been there and done that. If I was to make odds right now, I'd say CU has a 2:1 shot, 4:1 for Oregon State, 10:1 for Virginia Tech, 12:1 for Washington, 18:1 for BYU, with the remaining 90:1 chance going to UCLA.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

About six months ago, I did a SWOT analysis of my life. In this analysis, I detailed what I thought my greatest weaknesses were at the time. In the mean time, I have put a finger on exactly what one of my greatest weaknesses is.

I realized this when I went to a graduate open house for Virginia Tech, one of my prospective graduate schools. During this open house, professors gave presentations about their current research and prospective students were encouraged to talk to them about it and ask them questions. The fact that current graduate students were passing out more beer than I had seen in one place in my life up to that point put me somewhat on edge. It was this slight discomfort in the situation that pushed me over the edge and allowed me to realize a greater source of anxiety and dread in this situation: that I was basically be told to go up to these professors and ask them for research money. I was absolutely paralyzed and realized that I could not be effective in this act, and this is my greatest weakness.

I feel incredible discomfort and anxiety when I ask anyone for anything.

To put it in microeconomic terms, there is nothing from which I get more utility than not having to ask people for things. In more practical terms, there is almost nothing in the world that's worth the anxiety of having to ask for it. I would and have passed up money, notoriety, help, and love because they would have to be asked for. In the case of the Virginia Tech open house, I was unable to approach professors with questions on their research, and along with it, a vastly increased possibility of going to a top-10 civil engineering school for essentially free because the anxiety I felt over asking for something outweighed even these great benefits.

Just in case you haven't made the connection yet, this is probably the best reason that I have been on a whopping 4 or 5 dates (depending on your definition of a date) in the last two years. Asking for dates and general companionship from women is and even greater stressor, because it compounds the anxiety I feel over asking for things with the fear that I have of ending up in a relationship like my parents'. Those who are really quick might be inclined to ask, "Well, weren't you engaged? Twice?" To you I say, "Well aren't you perceptive." Yes, I was engaged twice. However, both of these had flown pretty far over the cuckoo's nest. Far enough, in fact, that they were even willing to ask guys out. And that's how they started, both of them. This isn't to say that I've never asked a woman out; I have. Suffice it to say that these were not pleasant experiences for me and never progressed past that one date.

When I realized that I avoided asking for things because of the anxiety that I felt, I sought to know where this behavior came from. With only a little self-awareness I was able to identify the cause: Operant Conditioning. In this blag, I've placed the blame for many of my emotional issues on my mother. However, both of my parents can share the responsibility for this one. Since my mom spent money like a drunken sailor on a three day pass, it was in my dad's best interest to prevent her from spending as much money as he possibly could. My dad, thus, punished me every time that I asked for something that cost money. I don't know about you, but when I was five, everything that I wanted cost money. I don't remember what most of the punishments were, but I distinctly remember my dad saying, "Boy, every time you say 'I want,' I'm gonna beat your @$$." Granted, he didn't actually beat my @$$ all that often, but that phrase definitely stuck with me. I learned to simply not ask for things.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea how I would overcome all the years of learning that I have experienced. I can tell you one thing: I certainly won't be asking for help any time soon.

Teh Grad Skoolinz

Since several people have asked me about the grad school situation, I figure I should offer a bit of an update. As you may or may not have read in this post, I applied to 7 universities to pursue a master's degree in civil/geotechnical engineering. At this point I have made no final decision on where I will be attending school in the fall. I am still waiting on admissions decisions from two schools and, to date, no school has offered me funding. This will probably happen sometime in March or April, so I don't expect to make my decision before the ides of April (the 15th for you non-Shakespearean types.) Here are updates for each of the schools to which I applied:

• Virginia Tech - I got an admission letter to VT about a month and a half after I finished the application. I also found out that there is indeed a single's ward in Blacksburg, though it would most likely be the next in a long series of unfortunate dudefests. The Virginia Tech geotechnical group is also having a graduate open house next week on the 25th and 26th. They offered to reimburse me for travel costs up to $600, thus I will be in Virginia at the end of the month.
• CU Boulder - I haven't yet gotten a physical letter from the university, but the geotechnical group and the civil engineering department have recommended me for admission, which means that it's coming any day now. They're also having an open house for admitted civil engineering grad students on March 4th to which I have already RSVP'd. The university hasn't offered to reimburse for anything, but the professor who sent me the admissions email offered to pay out of his own pocket for my parking because he was excited to meet me.
  
• Oregon State - I received an admissions letter from Oregon State a couple of weeks ago. As unfortunate as it is, the graduate open house for OSU's civil engineering department is on March 4th, the exact same day as CU Boulder's. I found this out from the department's prospective grad student website and not from a formal invitation, which is one of the reasons that I'll be attending CU Boulder's. The other reason is that CU is 20 miles from my house and I will have just gotten back from Virginia 4 days earlier. Under the circumstances, a 20-mile trek sounds much more inviting than a 1300 mile one. I will still probably visit OSU/ Corvallis, but not for the civil engineering grad open house.
  
• Washington - UW has found a little favor in my sight since I made the last grad school post. This is mostly because they confirmed with me that they had received everything they needed for my application, which at least partially made up for their previous ridiculousness. However, my impression so far is that the university as a whole is massively bureaucratic and runs like molasses in a Minnesota winter. I think I'd still like to go there, but it seems that other universities want me a whole lot more than UW does. I haven't heard anything about my admission or a graduate open house, but they have received my FAFSA, which is a good sign.
  
• BYU - All of the components to my application were received by the university on the 11th of this month (4 days before the deadline.) I expect to hear back from them in the affirmative sometime soon. The problem with BYU is that I'm pretty certain that I won't have funding for the first two semesters that I'm there. Dr. Rollins has the funding for earthquake drain research all lined up. The problem is that the proposal detailed using the shake table at the University of Buffalo, which is booked until the spring of '12, thus I cannot take advantage of funding until after Winter semester '12.
• Purdue - I didn't get into Purdue.
• UCLA - After dealing with all the bull detailed in the last post, I've decided to strike UCLA from the record. I'm also thinking, at this point, that I didn't get 3 signed letters of rec to the civil engineering department at all, much less before the dealine. I'm also pretty sure that no one has even looked at my application, or any of the others, since they were submitted, even though UCLA had the earliest deadline of all the schools to which I applied.

I'm excited about the prospect of going to grad school for a master's degree in the fall. However, at this point, I'm even more excited about the prospect of the waiting game being over.

A Faire

I really don't like to set new year's resolutions. I don't know that there's any particular reason why, I just don't. Though I don't particularly like resolutions, 2010 sucked and there are a few things that I'd like to accomplish in 2011. I won't call these resolutions, since many of them are partially or completely out of my control. I think I'll just call them my goals and hopes for 2011:

• At long last, choose a graduate school. (Purdue and UCLA are already out, btw.)
• Start grad school (or get a job, which is drastically less likely.)
• Move out of my parents' house (again). Like I tell my dad, "Dad, no one wants me out of your house more than me."
• Get an internship. After I choose a grad program and adjust my résumé accordingly, I hope to expand that résumé with some internship experience.
• Get a car. If my mom gets some cash from her deceased father anytime soon, I might just have a brand new car fall into my lap (figuratively speaking). If not, I'm going to get an older, crappier one. I've had a driver's license for 6 years, and an adult not having a car anywhere west of Jersey is bullsh*t.
• Turn 23. I'm a big fan of Milan Hejduk of the Colorado Avalanche, who wears number 23. Also, ever since I was exposed to fiancée #2's strange fixation with even numbers, I've developed a strange fixation with odd numbers, especially 3's and 7's.
• Figure out a really good and relevant Halloween costume by the time October rolls around.
• See at least 6 football games. In 2010, I only saw one football game in person. It was a good game and I got to chill with some friends, but I just need more football in my life.
• See at least one BYU football game. If I go to Oregon State for grad school, this will be easy, since BYU comes to Corvallis in September, otherwise I'll have to make a trip to Provo, probably for either the Idaho or Idaho State game, but I'll see how my schedule looks in 10 or 11 months.
• Get a new cell phone. I feel pretty confident that my phone isn't going to make it through 2011. The other day, the hinge popped open and the top half separated from the bottom. I was able to fit them back together, but it's pretty clearly broken.

I think that pretty much wraps it up. If I could accomplish the first four or five things on the list, I would consider 2011 a very successful year. Let me just say that if this year is as bad as last year, I'm going to start organizing a French Revolution-style coup d'état to overthrow the reign of the nouveau American bourgeoisie. :P

Oh, and btw...

...I have, more or less, finished submitting my applications for graduate school next fall. I ended up applying to 7 schools, most of which I've mentioned before. Up to the beginning of the application process, these were pretty much the only schools that hadn't given me some reason not to go there. Any school that was ranked below BYU (#73) in US News and World Report's grad school rankings was pretty much automatically out, because the only reason that I would not go back to BYU is to go to a more prestigious school. Many of the other schools were in places that I no desire to live. Others didn't have very much emphasis on the areas of civil engineering in which I'd like to concentrate, ie. geotechnical and/or structural. Others didn't give full tuition waivers for those with graduate assistantships, which would be the whole reason that I'm even bothering to apply to grad school at this time, since I clearly can't afford it otherwise.

At the onset of the application process, there were 2 of the schools to which I applied whose application process made me really, really not want to go there. These shall be at the bottom of my list for the time being. Now, in order of excitement about the possibility of going there, the schools to which I applied:

1. Virginia Tech - A quality school for any sort of engineering discipline. The only thing that I dislike about the school is that there are 4 NASCAR tracks that are closer than the nearest LDS temple. The tracks at Bristol, TN; Martinsville, VA; Charlotte, NC; and Richmond, VA are all closer than the Raleigh, NC temple, which is the closest to the campus. Additionally, there is no singles' ward in Blacksburg, all the singles just get thrown in with the family ward... not that there are that many singles to begin with. The only thing that I didn't like about the application process was that all documents had to be in Word 2003 format, though that was only a minor inconvenience. And as a bonus, the graduate school was efficient enough that I have already received an acceptance letter; if there was an assistantship offer with it, I might be packing my bags for Blacksburg right now.
   
2. Oregon State - While this one is a little farther down in the ranking of civil engineering grad schools, there is very little that I dislike about the school and its application process. The only thing that I even remotely dislike about the school so far is that their mascot is the beaver. This is not only rather emasculate, but is rather suggestive as well. The application process went about a perfectly as it could go, and my application to Oregon State was the first one that I knew for sure was completed.
3. Purdue - This is the highest-ranked school to which I applied, and it probably has the most prolific civil engineering research program, though most of it is focused on structural. The only problem with Purdue is that, the more I think about Indiana, the less I want to live there. I mean seriously, the only reason that I would even want to visit Indiana is the off-chance of meeting Austin Collie again. The prospect of living there for a year and a half to two is a little discouraging. However, the application process did go pretty much without a hitch... as far as I know.
4. CU Boulder - After moving back in with my parents in August, I'm not sure I ever want to live within 500 miles of them again, if I can help it. Not only is CU only 20 miles from my house, but it's in the People's Republic of Boulder, the land of fruits and nuts. While CU does have some nice research facilities and it would be cool to be close by my Denver-area friends, I'm not sure if the Pros could possibly outweigh the Cons. The application process to CU was pretty straightforward, though there is no way to check the status of your application materials or make any changes once you've submitted it. It's just a spray-n-pray kind of deal, submit your part of the application and then hope they get the rest. Also, since I scheduled a campus visit, they seem to be convinced that I'm a prospective undergrad even though I clearly filled out the graduate application.
5. BYU - I love BYU. I love most everything about it. However, I would like to expand my horizons (and my networking contact list) by attending a different university for grad school. I talked to Dr. Rollins about doing graduate research at BYU after the '11-'12 school year, though nothing is for sure at this point. The grad application to BYU seemed to be easier than the undergrad app, though the ecclesiastical endorsement is still as big of a pain as it ever was.
6. UCLA - This was actually a recent addition to my list of grad schools. Deciding that I wanted to do my grad research in earthquake engineering made the primary public school in LA a very viable option; and anyone who hates the University of Spoiled Children as much as they do is alright with me. However, the application process has me rather disenchanted at this point. First of all, the application is due on December 15th ( which is kind of obscenely early). Next, the school requires that all letters of recommendation have to be hand-signed by their authors. This would have been all well and good if they had told me this BEFORE three of my recommenders submitted recommendations. However, they did not, those writing me letters submitted them unsigned, and I got an email from UCLA telling me that my recommenders had not signed their letters of recommendation. Finally, Dr. Hotchkiss seems to be totally unable to submit my letter of rec even though he signed it. The application has just been a huge pain.
7. Washington - While Washington would be an all-around great place to live, go to school, and do research, the application was a total nightmare. The worst of it was that I had to upload unofficial copies of my transcripts in .pdf format. First of all, I have transcripts at 3 schools, 2 of which don't even give out unofficial transcripts. The UW application would literally not let me submit my application until I had uploaded something for unofficial transcripts for all three schools. I just ended up uploading the same unofficial transcripts from BYU that give acknowledgment of my transfer credit three times. If that's not sufficient for them, they can kiss me @$$. Adding to this craptacity is that the files had to be in .pdf format. I don't know about you, but my computer doesn't have to be a pdf writer, which makes this huge thing an even bigger pain. I ended up just using an online MS Word to pdf converter that only lets you make one conversion every 30 minutes... unless you subscribe to their services and pay them money. And as I already mentioned, I submitted that pdf file to them 3 times. The real kicker is that they didn't even ask for an official copy of my transcripts, and when I called them to ask where to send my official transcripts, they were totally unhelpful. Dear UW, [Beep] you and your incredibly tedious graduate application... and btw, I will not be bowing down to Washington, because your football team sucks.

And there you have it. I can only assume that once I decide which grad school to attend and get an assistantship straightened out, some job to which I applied 8 months before will call and want to hire me. That's just how my life goes.

Just so no one is confused, the assistantship and financial package that I get from these schools will be the deciding factor in where I go. I may very well end up going to UCLA or Washington if they sweeten the pot enough. In the words of P. Diddy, "It's all about the Benjamins."

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...

Shotgun Approach

I've decided that, instead of trying to dedicate an individual blag entry to each of things that I have floating, or dancing, or screaming in my head, I'd just say a couple of things about each of them.

• I graduated from BYU. After enduring through countless hours, tests, and erasures... and being subjected to the sadism of BYU Math and BYU Poli Sci, I'm finally done.
• GPA's: Overall - 3.54, Generals w/ Religion - 3.56, Generals w/o Religion - 3.40, Civil Engineering - 3.53, Management Minor - 3.80.
• If BYU ever posts my degree to my transcripts, I will be unemployed. Technically, you don't count as unemployed until you're out of school. However, I've felt pretty unemployed for the past 4 months.
• I actually have a job interview on Thursday for a job in Babylon. After 8 months of carefully placing resumes around the country, I finally got an actual interview.
• The job doesn't pay what I wish it did, but it would be at least somewhat related to my area of study and it would by far superior to nothing. It's for a construction materials testing technician. Basically, I would make concrete cylinders and break them according to ASTM and AASHTO standards.
• I could appreciate finding a job in Utah. I mean, I did leave BYU without a ring, after all. Between the girls and the friends I have in Happy Valley, I'd like the opportunity to work and to continue living in Utah.
• I've had the song, "Paint with All the Colors of the Wind" from the movie Pocahontas stuck in my head for the last 6 days. It all started when I heard Candace Shields sing in sacrament meeting. Her voice reminded me of Pocahontas, and now that I don't really have much in the way of responsibility or business, the song has been stuck in my head.
• Once I actually get a job, I'll actually get a car for the first time in my life. There are many ways that I want to be like Jesus, however walking everywhere I go isn't one of them. My dad and I have been talking about getting a brand new Chevrolet Cobalt. :D
• I've decided that, if I get a Ph.D. I want to get it from Georgia Tech... mostly just because I want to sing their wicked-cool fight song at a football game.
• At some point here soon, I'm going to make a poster to parody the BYU BGS poster that asks, "Leave BYU Without a Degree?" by replacing the word 'Degree' with 'Spouse.'
• I've decided that I want to name my firstborn son, 'Scott Manning,' not only after the legit rockstar Scott Manning, but also in honor of the man who came up with arguably the most useful and most controversial relationship in fluid mechanics, Osbourne Manning.
• I kind of want to change my middle name to, 'The Hands,' or 'μαλάκα,' or 'τα χέρια.'

That should pretty much do it. Now for the Georgia Tech fight song, a clear beacon of morality in these latter days :P