Maybe I'm not quite ready to begin writing about 9/11 or graduate schools just yet.
In 1998, after 14 moves in 6 years, I decided that I wanted to settle down for a little while. I wanted the chance to stay put. While I had friends on campus and locally whom I had kept in touch with as I ping-ponged between work and school, I wanted the stability to be in community, to stay put for a while.
So I redid my plan of study to add a sixth year. I didn't have very many engineering courses left, which gave me time to continue my language studies. I turned both of my languages into Minors.
My second summer on campus, between my fifth and sixth academic years... the Cooperative Education program rules said that I had to take classes or work every semester. There were not many summer classes for a super-senior going from 5th to 6th year; none of the engineering courses I wanted, nor language courses.
I was able to negotiate an independent study with my Spanish Literature professor, to continue some of the reading I had done for that class. That left me with 9 credits to play with.
My sophomore year, I had begun to take History of the Ancient World, but I dropped it after starting Russian. It was offered as a Maymester course (an intensive, one-month long class), so I signed up for that.
Then, for the regular summer term, I took Religions of the East and Religions of the West, two survey classes that built on my previous religious education. I figured that religion is a key component in the global world that we live in. I had a good foundation in my parent's Catholicism, but I wanted to know more about the others.
A classmate, when we discussed taking the two classes, mentioned that it was halfway to a Religious Studies minor. So then I looked into the requirements, saw that she was right. For my independent study of Spanish, I worked with St. John of the Cross's "Dark Night of the Soul," and compared it with Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy. I was able to count that towards both Spanish and Religious Studies. Then I added a philosophy class to my final semester, and had a third minor.
My senior year of college was not perfect, I both failed an elective and managed a "B" in band. But it was, overall, a good year.
I made time to work on my job search, and did about 50 job interviews. Believe me, not every one of those 50 interviews went well. Some were excellent, some I bombed. Over the course of the year, I probably made every mistake they warn you about.
I applied to one company, went to their information session. I quickly realized that, as traumatic as moving had been for me, the road warrior life of consulting was not for me, right then. I was upfront about it with the interviewers. They encouraged me to practice interviewing anyway, which I did. After that, I was careful to avoid similar postings.
My first goal in my college job search was to have an engineering job, with a reasonable (market value) salary, that would support myself and my husband, and so at first I cast a wide net.
Given that there are many different engineering jobs that met these requirements, my second goal was to find one in the aerospace industry, preferably on a NASA project. As I got a better idea what kinds of jobs were out there, I narrowed my focus more.
Then I got the offer I wanted, and began to look forward, to Houston.
In 1998, after 14 moves in 6 years, I decided that I wanted to settle down for a little while. I wanted the chance to stay put. While I had friends on campus and locally whom I had kept in touch with as I ping-ponged between work and school, I wanted the stability to be in community, to stay put for a while.
So I redid my plan of study to add a sixth year. I didn't have very many engineering courses left, which gave me time to continue my language studies. I turned both of my languages into Minors.
My second summer on campus, between my fifth and sixth academic years... the Cooperative Education program rules said that I had to take classes or work every semester. There were not many summer classes for a super-senior going from 5th to 6th year; none of the engineering courses I wanted, nor language courses.
I was able to negotiate an independent study with my Spanish Literature professor, to continue some of the reading I had done for that class. That left me with 9 credits to play with.
My sophomore year, I had begun to take History of the Ancient World, but I dropped it after starting Russian. It was offered as a Maymester course (an intensive, one-month long class), so I signed up for that.
Then, for the regular summer term, I took Religions of the East and Religions of the West, two survey classes that built on my previous religious education. I figured that religion is a key component in the global world that we live in. I had a good foundation in my parent's Catholicism, but I wanted to know more about the others.
A classmate, when we discussed taking the two classes, mentioned that it was halfway to a Religious Studies minor. So then I looked into the requirements, saw that she was right. For my independent study of Spanish, I worked with St. John of the Cross's "Dark Night of the Soul," and compared it with Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy. I was able to count that towards both Spanish and Religious Studies. Then I added a philosophy class to my final semester, and had a third minor.
My senior year of college was not perfect, I both failed an elective and managed a "B" in band. But it was, overall, a good year.
I made time to work on my job search, and did about 50 job interviews. Believe me, not every one of those 50 interviews went well. Some were excellent, some I bombed. Over the course of the year, I probably made every mistake they warn you about.
I applied to one company, went to their information session. I quickly realized that, as traumatic as moving had been for me, the road warrior life of consulting was not for me, right then. I was upfront about it with the interviewers. They encouraged me to practice interviewing anyway, which I did. After that, I was careful to avoid similar postings.
My first goal in my college job search was to have an engineering job, with a reasonable (market value) salary, that would support myself and my husband, and so at first I cast a wide net.
Given that there are many different engineering jobs that met these requirements, my second goal was to find one in the aerospace industry, preferably on a NASA project. As I got a better idea what kinds of jobs were out there, I narrowed my focus more.
Then I got the offer I wanted, and began to look forward, to Houston.
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