the past, the future, and options circumscribed to a very few possibilities…
This semester has been interesting, both because it’s been uncharacteristically fulfilling and because there’s this interesting confluence of events working together that really seem to be sharply delineating the end of a part of my life and the beginning of some other part.
Both prongs of that warrant some exploration.
==Fulfilling==
For the last … I don’t know, 5 or 6 years, I’ve been sort of unhappy with my curriculum, with my studies, with where I’ve been, with where I saw things leading. But I’ve sort of ridden the wave of time, figuring “well, I’m here, I don’t see anywhere better that’s open to me, I guess I’ll ride it out.”
As I slogged through classes I didn’t really care about (compilers, architecture), and as I tacked on a second major that I was only casually interested in (psychology) and a minor about which I’ve consistently found myself less than enthusiastic, I’ve repeatedly wondered why I was doing it, where it was leading, and whether any of it made any sense to pursue. Many times, I’ve felt my environment seemingly shrink due to my own growth — or maybe just the growth of my professional ego.
But now, as I’m finally landing in courses that I’ve really gotten into — databases, theory of computation, more databases — I’m coming to realize that the pond that I’m seeing shrink is a reflection of my own growth, but it’s just a very, very tiny pond, and it’s a very short jump to the ocean.
The last couple weeks of databases, we did projects in SQL, in PL/SQL, and in Java using Swing. This has been surprisingly satisfying. The SQL was pretty easy, and the PL/SQL was pretty quick to pick up too. Swing was fun to learn, probably because I did it the hard way (in eclipse, hand-coding things instead of in netbeans guibuilding). It’s amazing how satisfying it can be just writing code and being able to immediately see that code do things. And as I dig more into the information systems stuff, into other database models and things like that, I find the material keeps getting deeper and keeps staying interesting. It’s like … there’s finally things I can do, and things I can see in reality, and all of that is just neat.
==Confluence==
For the last 3 years or so, I’ve maintained between 2 and 4 distinct groups of users that I’ve supported: “SEAS Lab”, “PHSI”, “Thad and Sandy” and “Everyone else”. A week ago, moved the PHSI group, and Thad and Sandy to a new building, and am working on completely handing off supporting them to another group (or rather, two other groups: ECN and E-Enterprise). “Everyone else” is basically Alok and any other wayward SEAS- or PHSI-related faculty that have wanted something from me, and Alok’s going on sabbatical for a year starting in June. SEAS lab is also getting ready to be moved around the building musical-chairs style because of this big window renovation project that’s going to hit midsummer or so.
All of this right as I’m getting ready to graduate. It’s sort of crazy. Basically, as the PHSI/SEAS split gets finalized and the SEAS move preparations get made, I’m going to quickly run myself out of enough work to keep me busy (because I’m consolidating machines and setting things up to be simpler than they were). That split solves a lot of outstanding problems for the lab configuration.
So this is interesting stuff. Basically, right as my life is telling me “you should get a full-time job, you’re done with school and need to make some money”, my job is telling me “you should get a full-time job, there’s about to not be enough work to keep you busy here”. A confluence of factors pulling me away from my nice comfortable rut.
==Results==
So Monday, I got a call from an ECN guy who I discussed a bunch of PHSI move/migration/support handoff issues with a couple weeks ago, and he was reminding me that he’d like to see me apply to available ECN positions. Which reminded me, I needed to do that. Now I’m waiting for the HR department to process my resume and forward it to 8 or so open sysadmin jobs on campus that appear to be hiring through HR. I guess I don’t really see system administration as my “calling” in the long term, but it’s something I know pretty well and am going to be able to find a job in that’ll let me open the doors to where I might see myself going.
For now, I guess that’s how it is.