I have been thinking non stop the past few days about what I am going to do from here. I have been able to think a lot clearer since deciding to take a break from University of Phoenix, and have been able to come up with a rough draft of my future plans.
I will not be returning to University of Phoenix. I do not like how each class only lasts 9 weeks and that they are back-to-back with only one break a year that lasts two weeks. I do not think that this is giving me enough time to digest all the information or to enjoy the education process. I love learning and this process has been making it not as fun.
I am going to spend some time away from school to do two thing. Pay off this first years student loans and evaluate what it is I want to do in the future/research new options. I have decided that I will go back to school for sure, but this time it will be different.
The problem I had the first time around is that I was unwilling to pursue an option that took longer than 4 years to complete, and I let other peoples ideas of what is best for me push me in a direction I did not want to go. I am not saying that it is other peoples fault. I fully realize that it was my unwillingness to go to school longer than 4 years that made me make a fast decision that was not that well thought out. If I had been more willing to look into other options when people pushed me forward I may not be in this position. However, many of the people pushing me forward did not take the time to truly understand what my goals were.
When I started at the University of Phoenix I had this idea that I would get my firs degree from them and then get a job that would allow me to pay off my student loans and get into a position that would allow me to attend school on campus at the University of Arkansas. Now that I think back this was a DUMB plan. I was so against having my degree program last longer than 4 years, but my plan was to take 10, 12, 14+ years to get where I want to be… It just doesn’t make sense, but it was my idea and it made me feel in control of my future. Somehow that made it make sense. So this time I will take as long as is necessary to get it done and done right the first time. So if I have to take 2 classes a year to get to where I want to be then fine.
So I have figured out, somewhat, how I want to get to where I want to be. Now the hard part. Where is it that I want to be? I have a problem where just about anything sounds interesting to me. There are so many degrees I would love to have. I just don’t know what I REALLY want to do with my life. I have tried to think about my skills and what it is I love to do.
- One of the big things is I love to talk to people. I could sit and talk to people all day long. I think that is why I always enjoyed my retail jobs.
- Religion is another big interest to me. No, not Christianity, all religions. I love nothing more than to talk about religion with people or even just to sit and think about it. I do not believe in any religion really, but I do believe in something (a post to talk about this will follow someday). I think it would be great to study the world’s religions and maybe write a book on the subject and my opinions on it.
- I love teaching other people how to do something that I am knowledgeable about, and I love learning from people.
- I would love to help work towards alternate sources of energy and the devices that would run off that energy source. Which is why I want to study electrical and mechanical engineering.
- I always enjoyed making websites. Mostly the coding aspect of it. I enjoyed when things did not work exactly right and I had to search through all the code and find the errors, or when I had to search for a way to accomplish the effect I wanted to do but did not know how to get it done. I thought that the software engineering would be good because of this, but the real problem with that is I am worried about job availability in my area. I may still try for the software engineering, but not at University of Phoenix.
These are the only things that I have really thought of so far but I do not know what that really tells me about what I should try to do with my future. I have time to figure all this out though so I am not worried. It will all come to me and I will be happier with myself in the end.
On to a new subject. My Dell laptop has recently decided to tell me that the power supply wattage could not be determined. Because of that the computer can run off the power supply, but the battery will not charge. Great! I contacted Dell though their live chat option and talked to a representative named Abel (rep# 200050) and after running through a few things he determined that the power supply would have to be replaced, but they would also like to check out the motherboard and make sure there is nothing wrong with that either. My laptop is still under warranty though so this is all free for me. They are going to send me a box in the mail to package up my laptop and send it to them. He said the whole process should only take 7-10 days. Which is fine because I have two desktop computers and Julie has one so we will not be without a computer at all. Abel was very helpful and the whole experience so far has reminded me why I love Dell so much. Have I mentioned that one of my desktop computers is a Dell that I bought about 7 years ago and it is still running perfectly?
Anyway, if you have any input on any of this I enjoy hearing outside opinions in a respectful non-forceful way.
No comments:
Post a Comment