Saturday, September 20, 2008

Bearing the Weight of my World...



This, my friends, is how I feel sometimes during school.  I suppose that I should clarify this by saying that it's not so much the weight of the things that need to be done as it is the balancing act of it all that I find challenging.  Between work, school, Brittan and just wanting to have some fun every now and then (yes, I do consider following sports to be fun), it often seems that I don't really have time to breathe.  Is that normal?  Everyone I've spoken to says that it is, but is it really?

Currently, I am just a few short months away from the end of my undergraduate college career.  I am kind of counting down the weeks (12), but I'm trying not to put much effort into it since I don't want that kind of distraction pulling at my coattails right now.  Utah State University has been very good to me, and I am proud to say that I will have graduated in exactly 8 semesters.  In case you didn't know, this is almost unheard-of among engineering majors these days.  I had a good motivator though -- my scholarship runs out at the end of the 8th semester, which just happens to be this semester.  All in all, it has been an amazing journey.

The journey continues, however.  Once I receive my Bachelor's degree, that is all the more reason to go ahead and get my Master's degree.  As I've probably mentioned here before, I am planning on continuing my schooling on a part time basis at the University of Utah.  I am not 100% sure about how I feel about that, since I really do love the Civil Engineering program at USU.  I guess you could say that I am looking at all of the positives:  
1) The U of U is much closer to home; 
2) I will be able to work full-time more consistently since I will only be taking two classes per semester; 
3) The U offers a classwork-only Master's degree in Civil Engineering, which apparently doesn't exist at USU; 
4) The U doesn't require me to take the GRE to get into the program because of my GPA; 
5) Not only will I be able to attend home football games on a more frequent basis, but the home team will often win; 
6) Do I really need anything more to feel good about this decision?

I guess you could say that my most difficult decision at this point is whether I start up at the U in the Spring of 2009 or the Fall.  Brittan insists that I should head straight up to the U in the spring, but the more I think about it, the more I think we would be more financially stable if I waited until the Fall...Tough choices...Either way, I've got my work cut out for me.