Grad School

I am now a senior in college. If you go by credit hours, I will be a super-senior in December. Technically I am 14 months and 2 days from graduating college. What does all this mean? It means I am starting to try to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. On Wednesday, the Computer Science Department here at UNI hosted a seminar on grad school. I decided to take off work and check it out.

I had always had the idea of grad school in the back of my head as a potential future possibility (a lot of uncertainty in that phrase, no?). Last month, Dr O'Kane had brought up the GRE's and the idea of grad school in one of my classes. It got me thinking a little more about the idea. I have really enjoyed college. I feel more comfortable sitting in a classroom than perhaps anywhere else. Afterall, it is the primary thing I've done for the past 16 years of my life. I am also extermely talented at it if I may say so without sounding a bit too presumptious. I like listening to lectures. I learn a lot from them. I used to jokingly think I should be a student for the rest of my life. I could just continue to take various degrees and quite literally never graduate. These thoughts inevitably lead me to the notion of going to grad school. Let's not forget that I could carry on the Dr. Sparks title too! :D

The seminar turned out to be only the department head (Dr. Wallingford), a professor (Dr. O'Kane), and me. At least I got a lot of personal attention. With me not graduating until after next fall, I got told I have plenty of time to think about things and figure it out. I also have yet to do my undergrad research. I am planning on doing it in my last semester. It was suggested that I do that in a topic related to what I would like to do with my graduate studies should I pursue that particular path. I really don't know what I would want to study if I did go to grad school. I know it would be in Computer Science. I love history, but I find myself occupying more and more of my time with computer stuff every day. I see the history degree turning into a great hobby when I need a break from computers. It also rounds out my education really well so I am glad I will have the B.A. in history. Seeing as how I didn't know what I really was interested in yet or where I would want to go, they recommended I just start researching various universities and professors. This would be first and foremost. Once I had a few ideas, I could take the GRE next fall and any other tests if required by my hopeful schools. Then it would come to applications and seeing where I would end up.

I spent a fair amount of time later that evening when I got home looking at universities and their computer science programs. Most really did not reach out and grab my attention. The two that did so far were the Colorado University and the University of Texas. Both have some interesting software research going on. A professor at Texas definitely caught my attention the most. He does some research on web technology which I have yet to fully look into. He also does a lot of research on object-oriented ideas and inheritance. That is the stuff I am really good at and enjoy. I have actually been considering toying with some of those ideas in web applications. Now you see why this Dr. Cook from Texas was so appealing to me. I have been slowly developing ideas about doing my undergrad research on a similar topic. I also want to try it out with some of the websites I build.