to be or not to be...

To those I adore,

I have made a decision over a matter that has been troubling me since arriving. For those of you I have not talked to or who can not read between the lines of my previous blogs. I do not like it here; I have not liked it here from day one. I have decided that I will either switch schools or get a job. As of about twenty minutes ago I sent an email to a professor back at OSU probing to see if there was still the funding there that he offered me several weeks before graduation. I doubt there is. I have also filled out an application to ISU and have contacted several people there. That is about all I have done for schools. The program here is not what I want. I refuse to be a code writer/modifier. I can't stand programming all day long and could not do it as a living. When visiting here I got the impression that code writing was not really part of their thermal-hydraulics program. However, since being here and taking classes it seems that programming is in every aspect of their classes. That part bugged me but did not push me to the limit.

What has pushed me over the limit is the fact that I have not time to learn. Speaking from an OSU perspective since it is the only other program I know. Busy work is for undergraduate students, while learning is for graduate. Since being here I have not learned anything because much like an undergraduate there is not time to. I have so many projects and homeworks that I can spare no time to sit down and review materials. I have had several months of graduate school and so far have not learned anything; the only thing that has occurred is me doing homeworks all the time. I spent about fifteen hours on one problem last week only to not finish it. When we arrived to class the day it was due the professor told us he didn't expect any of us to complete the problem let alone get near the answer. He showed us his nine page solution just to tease our weak and overworked minds.

It is this type of attitude towards academia that has helped encourage my bane for this university. Out of all the professors there is only one so far I have met who actually cares about the students. He has taken the time to learn our names and to stop and say hello in the halls. Every other professor is different, more concerned about their own research than anything else. It is not a good environment for learning, and I am burned out I am tired of doing busy work and not learning what I need and desire to learn. I really have just felt burned out here, I not longer have the drive to put up with this type of schedule and work load. My idea of graduate school was to get off school come home and read over materials and learn them. Instead I do not come home I am at school later and later, I am at school on weekends, am I reading and trying to learn? NO! I am trying to finish homeworks with no time to think about what it is I need to take from the assignment. Plus the program is very inbred, incase you do not know what I mean by this, it means that they take mostly their own undergraduates for their graduate program. So here you have a majority of your class who already knows the professor and how he tests/grades. They have previous students’ old work on hand at their disposal. So if you are a new guy you are already at a disadvantage to these lucky punks.

Enough of my ranting and complaining. So I have decided to apply to different schools and or jobs. I have talked about the schools to which I am applying. Now for the job aspect of this blog. So far I have researched GE, Westinghouse, and the NRC. I do not really care for GE since it is based out of the south and I want nothing more to do with the south, however they have a program up in Canada as well which would not be bad. Westinghouse would be nice; it is more in the northern states which I would not mind. They are based out of Pennsylvania, which is where my brother Rob lives so it would be nice to have family in the same state. What is more appealing is Ogden, Utah. They are hiring out of there and that is nearer to Oregon and Kailey and my families. Plus the west coast is just so so so much better than the east. As the NRC goes I am not sure about I will apply there because the pay is great, you start out low around $53k/year which still is not bad starting but by your fourth year there (at least on their trainee program) you are up around $90k/year. Plus it is a government job and there will always be regulations even if industry takes a hit. I know more about what the NRC does as well, and their benefits are nice. Anyways I have also searched for jobs on other sites and what not.

Well that is all for now.

Love and kisses,
Rick

To leave you with a quote:
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funn...'"

and an extra from the same man:

"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
~Isacc Asimov