Category: School

Zeke’s Life, Spring 2010 edition: Be Here Now

I don’t know where the last couple of days have gone, but I want my weekend back!

I haven’t been posting a lot about daily life this semester because I am lucky enough to actually be very consumed with school and the career search. I really didn’t expect things to hit me so hard all of a sudden, but I’ve been going seemingly nonstop since January or February. For the most part I’ve been handling it OK, though I’ve definitely had to shift gears on my daily routine.

One unfortunate truth is that I get so distracted having my desk in my bedroom that it’s pretty hard to be productive from home, so I find myself kicking myself out of the house a lot to get stuff done – to the CSU library if the time is right, but more often than not, I’m at the Alley Cat, Fort Collins’ 24/7 coffeeshop near campus. I quickly gained my FourSquare mayorship, I’ve had more than one precarious 4 AM bike ride home in varying levels of snow, and I am not going to tell you how much money I spend there. (The cost of the coffee and food is far offset by my productivity gains from the removed distractions.)

Currently on my plate are two big midterms and one case study on my own while working together on a huge paper and presentation with another group. Somewhere in there, I also need to find room to squeeze in a freelance project and the hunt for a job (Not knowing what I’m doing a month from now? Not the greatest feeling!) Despite all that, I feel like I’ve been ramping up the workload so steadily now that I can still manage to get stuff done without self-destructing. It’s interesting, though – I really haven’t felt this intense, stressful-yet-exciting kind of routine since my last senior year, back in high school. Back then I was juggling AP exams, college applications, understaffing at work, and a family with a 14 year old and a 4 year old at home. The situation has changed, but it’s the same old story: I’m super busy, but it’s almost all really worthwhile stuff that has me excited for what lies ahead.

I’m still actually working on the answer to what does lie ahead. On the practical level, I’m looking for systems analysis, sales engineer, and web developer opportunities in Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins and San Francisco. But I’m wondering a lot more about long-term stuff: what do I want my life to look like? Do I want to move to a big downtown area and try the urban yuppie lifestyle? Do I want to travel? Do I go back to Spain or do I take care of my massive international “to-do” list? Since I’m at a point in my life where I have the freedom to make those decisions, I feel like I should really think a lot about them before I commit myself to one path for a while, since I’m just finishing up this 4-year “chapter.”

I find myself thinking back to a walk I took a year ago alone on the dunes of the Sahara: it was there that I felt the most clarity and perspective I’ve ever experienced. That wasn’t really a “what am I going to do with my life” kind of moment; it was more like a time where all distractions were removed to the point where all that remained was the pure essence of being in communion with all that really matters in the world. A few months later, I was back in the daily grind when this line from Six Feet Under hit me like a ton of bricks:

All we have is this moment, right here, right now. The future is just a fucking concept that we use to avoid being alive today. So, Be. Here. Now.

I never expected to get a serious philosophical revelation from an HBO show, but it really does explain it all. The stuff I have going on isn’t necessarily irrelevant, but it’s really important to me that I don’t get lost in it. I want to go after a lifestyle for my future. My goal is not to save for retirement, or be super successful, or be the best person in my professional field. I don’t want to burn out on stress to the point that I need a vacation to recharge my spiritual batteries. I want to work towards making every aspect of my life: personal, professional, social, financial, spiritual, whatever – into things that enrich my life and the lives of everyone around me. And that’s it. Anything that doesn’t work towards that probably shouldn’t be there.

Small Victories (with apologies to Shakira)

My intensive spanish course doesn’t allow the use of English to help define Spanish words, so when we don’t know one, we have to explain its meaning in Spanish. It’s difficult at times… I’ll give you an example here. I’ll leave it alone for the hispanohablantes to figure it out, with English spoilers afterwards…

Today we were going over vocabulary for different body parts. The word caderas came up and most of the students didn’t know what it meant. It took me a minute and an example involving a dancing student and then I figured it out. Trying to define it to the class in Spanish, however, was near impossible, until it came to me:

“No mienten.”

About half the class figured it out just with that.

ENGLISH CLUE #1:
 “No mienten” = They don’t lie.

ENGLISH CLUE #2 (for the truly hopeless)

Well I’ve been in Granada for a couple of days now, and I’ve been able to adjust to the city some more. I’ll commence the unfocused mental dump of my observations from the last few days:

  • Granada feels way more urban than I had expected. I thought it would be a small to medium-sized town like Fort Collins, but it’s about twice the size of that – around 250,000 people. I’ve been saying for a while that I’d like to try living in a big city, and while Granada is pretty small relative to Denver, Phoenix or Madrid, it’s still way more urban than anywhere I’ve lived before. Maybe it’ll make for a good trial of a somewhat larger city before taking the plunge into a city of millions.
  • Living in an old city with old streets is a very – well, foreign – concept. It’s obvious that there was no master planner in Granada, and it’s really easy to make a wrong turn that takes you way farther away from your destination than you had intended. I’ve gotten lost several times but the major streets and landmarks in the city center are starting to become familiar. I know enough to get home and get to class 😀
  • The weather here is abnormally cold. It snowed yesterday, which is very rare. Many, many scarves. I’ll probably pick up the trend this weekend.
  • Because of the crappy weather, I haven’t bothered to go anywhere near La Alhambra yet. I want to tour it when the weather is just a bit better.
  • Going out tonight for the first time, not counting the pool hall I went to in Madrid. I’ve heard good things about the nightlife here, so I’ll have to report back on that.
  • I have one class for the next three weeks. It’s four hours long every day, with two profesoras that teach for two hours each. Neither of them know a word of English (or at least they claim) and it’s not allowed to define or translate an English word for another student – we have to try to define the word we have in mind in Spanish. It’s more difficult, and after several hours of this  my brain definitely starts to hurt. We won’t be learning any new grammar in our class, but instead will be reviewing everything we’ve learned and perfecting it in order to correct all of the little mistakes. It’s exactly what I need, so it’ll be hard, but I’ll be glad I did it by the end of the month. After that I’ll advance a level and take my semester classes one level up.
  • I’m resisting the temptation to eat at Burger King. My roommate went there today and he says it’s better than it is in the States. I’m going to guess that I’ll cave in in another day or two.
  • Everything they say about learning a language by studying abroad is definitely true. Being around it all  for just a week has helped me to pick up so much, and I’ve met a few students who were here for the last semester that are excellent with the language.
  • My English writing has gotten sigificantly worse because my mind keeps trying to form sentences in Spanish structures.
  • In the last day or so I’ve started correcting myself constantly, even mid-sentence. I think it’s good that I’m thinking about the “little rules” that I so often break, but at the same time it’s probably annoying to try and carry on a  conversation with someone who can barely complete their sentences.
  • Spanish food is hearty and healthy. I’m still adjusting to the meal schedule but the food is great (and it’s nice to not have to find a million restaurants of varying quality and prices, like we had to for the first week). It is a bit more bland than some of my favorite foods, like Mexican or Thai, which definitely are a bit more strong in their tastes. I’ll have to go in search of some cayenne or something.
  • Starting to look at plans for my ~10 day break after the intensive month class is over. Ryanair is amazingly cheap, I can fly from Granada to Italy for like… 4 euro. I don’t have a huge list of “must-sees” for while I’m here, but I would like to see Belgium, Prague, Rome, maybe Amsterdam. Overall I’d like to stick to Spain, though. I don’t like the idea of spending lots of time in a place where I don’ know any of the language.
  • Before getting to Granada, I definitely felt like more of an observer than a participant in Spanish life. I’m starting to blend in a bit more and I’m sure that within a couple of weeks it will just come naturally to me.
  • Navigating streets and crowded areas is pretty strange – there really isn’t much of a concept of personal space here. I’m noticing little things I do to get out of others’ way that nobody else does, and realizing how funny it must look. I normally have great “crowd navigation skills” but here people have different fixed habits of which side to move to when you’re in someone’s way, and other things too.

Study Abroad?

I went to the CSU Study Abroad fair today- got me very excited about the possibility of going to Spain sometime.

My thoughts, in completely random order:

  • When should I go? I’m a second-year student taking 100-level and 300-level classes at the same time. I don’t want to go too late when I can’t take anything that applies to my major.
  • I really need to bring my GPA up. If I do well this semester, I’ll be good for most schools, but the most interesting one is more selective and I probably can’t even get into before 2009.
  • Where to go? Barcelona seems the most interesting, except that I’m more interested in mainstream Spain than I am in Catalonia. Granada also seems really cool. Maybe Madrid.
  • LA SAGRADA FAMILIA.
  • How long? People say I should go for a longer amount of time, but that would mean harder housing arrangements while I’m gone, taking a long time away from the band, et cetera.
  • So long to graduating without debt!

So yeah. It’s very exciting to think about- I’ll be meeting with advisors and people in the study abroad department to figure out what fits me best.

Any advice on España? I am interested in any that you may have. 🙂

Technical School?

Right now I’m in a program that is half general business classes, and half information systems classes. Most of the general business classes bore me to death (except management) and a fraction of the IS classes also drive me crazy (I like server technologies, web design, and database-driven apps, but not much else).

I’m starting to think that maybe I should ditch the typical university approach to these things and get into some kind of technical school where I only have to take the classes that are directly pertinent to my field of interest.

Part of me feels like it would be a step backwards from where I am now- some of these programs don’t finish with a bachelor’s degree, and that could limit my future career options if I decide to do something different. People don’t care so much what kind of bachelor’s degree you have, just that you have one.

But at the same time- my biggest interests, both tech and music, are definitely fields where employers care a lot more about your skills than your academic rap sheet. With the classes I’m taking at CSU, I can only take one or two interesting tech classes at a time because of all my other requirements. I’d rather immerse myself in the interesting stuff, since my learning is kind of slowed to a crawl right now.

I don’t know if I’ll follow through with the idea of a tech school or similar program. Part of me really likes it, and part of me is uncomfortable with it because the “Go to a University and get a bachelor’s degree” thing has drilled itself pretty deep into my conscience.

EDIT: Did a lot more digging around to find schools that have web development or web design programs. The vast majority of them are at art & design schools – I can picture myself doing that, but I am not a person who is very artistic visually. I can’t draw for crap. But then again, I need to learn a good deal of that anyways if I want to do good web design.

Less attractive is the fact that most programs are either:

  1. Stuff that I could/already have taught myself. (“Here’s how to make static HTML! Have a crappy degree.”)
  2. Very similar to my current CIS program. (Basic web design + ASP.NET + basic business classes)

There are a few (VERY few) schools that offer a “B.A. in Web Development.” This is a brand-new field in academics (most people just self-teach) but it seems like just what I want – graphic design, XHTML/XML/DHTML, database-driven apps, server-side languages beyond ASP, and a few business classes here and there.

Pretty much any of these schools are more expensive than CSU, and I’m only going to move somewhere more expensive if I’m really excited about it and convinced that it will offer me something much better than I’m getting right now. After looking at 20+ schools, the only one that even comes close is the International Academy of Design & Technology. It would be a 100%-online degree, which would take some adjustment on my part. I’m contacting their advisors and admissions departments to find out more, but I’ll only do it if they can convince me that it’s much more than what I’m getting from CIS right now.

If I come up dry looking at other schools (which is likely), I will probably do one of the following:

  • Suck it up and take the boring business classes with CIS
  • Switch to Applied Computing Technology (less business, more tech)
  • Get an easy blowoff bachelor’s degree and teach myself the development stuff.

Fall 07

So I’m almost done with the first week of school. I’m taking some good classes (Networks/Operating Systems, Database Management Systems, Business Management) and some not so fun ones (Accounting, Statistics). Not a bad combination overall.

One thing I’m liking is my schedule – last year, I had class all day for two or three days a week from 8 to 4 or so. On the days I didn’t have class, I had work all day. It wasn’t pretty. This year, My classes are spread out to a few each day, and I work the lunch shift six days a week (including Saturday). This means that on most days, I can be home by 2:30 or 3:00 if I want to be.

I have run into a few friends from the dorms. It’s nice seeing them – everyone leaves town for the summer – but I still miss my friends in Arizona most, despite the fact that I’ve been here for over a year now. I have learned that I am very good at wearing both the introvert and extrovert hats, but that I am happier when I’m around people that I can be myself around. Up here, aside from my folks, I don’t really have that.

In other news, I passed my audition into the music minor program at CSU. I can’t take anything this semester, but it means that I’ll be able to take the piano and theory classes I’ve been wanting to take. I am very rusty on some things (namely marimba) but this isn’t a super-serious thing, just something I want to do on the side.

Time for the Yearly Identity Crisis

Something interesting happened in my business calculus class today. The prof gave a quiz that had questions that we’d never seen before, but with some understanding of the concepts we did know, could be solved with a couple of smart realizations.

To the tell the truth, the quiz knocked my on my butt- I had been slacking for a day or so, and in an accelerated 4-week course, that is all you need to be in deep water. But pretty much everyone didn’t get the problems, even though they weren’t all that hard.  In fact, after the quiz, the students pretty much revolted against the prof. They seemed to think that she couldn’t test on anything that wasn’t on the homework. But she wasn’t testing uncovered material, she was just giving us problems that were slightly different from the ones we already saw on the homework.

I was flabbergasted by the reaction. Here were at least fifteen students who sincerely believed that they were only responsible for rote memorization, and not the critical reasoning and analysis skills that they should actually be learning.

Then I remembered: These are business students. They are not engineers or scientists, whose whole professions revolve around innovation and challenging our preconceptions. Business, in free market capitalism, often thrives on imitation and adopting others’ ideas. Simply put, there is little incentive to bother with analysis and creativity in business.

For the first time, I realized why they have a separate calculus class for the business majors! Simply put, they would die in Calc for Scientists. But that puts me in a strange position: I am very happy with my business major, since it gives me the technical software engineering skills as well as the business communication and management skills that will differentiate me from the next guy applying for a tech job.

But every once in a while, I get the feeling that my job isn’t enough on the tech end. It’s too biased towards proprietary Microsoft technologies, and doesn’t expose students nearly enough to UNIX/Linux environments or industry-standard languages like C, Python, Java, or PHP. And like my business calc class demonstrates, there isn’t a true push to understand or innovate.

I’ve considered adding a Computer Science major, or switching to Applied Computing Technology (Really CS with a business minor, as opposed to my current Business Major with the CIS concentration.) But to do so, I would have to retrace my steps in the introductory classes; they’d be different programming languages, but essentially the same basic concepts.

Also, I don’t think it means that much of a difference in the job field. They will be more interested in what I can actually do, not which degree I have. Since I already have the motive to learn the extra UNIX skills and non-Microsoft languages, I could easily teach myself the stuff. It would avoid annoying course prerequisites and save me some money.

Really I’m most concerned with the innovation, with differentiating myself from my competition. I guess that it may prove to give me an edge in the future, but whatever I choose to do, it’s gonna be a rough road ahead while I learn all of this stuff. (And I’m gonna have to put up with – sigh – being a Business major.)