A Tale of Two (Univer)sities

I think that picture pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

For a little background, I am currently employed at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. It was my first job after my Master's in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. When I graduated from PSU I swore I was done school forever... after all, I crammed the whole degree into 1 year, and...it...was...awful.

Fast forward 8 months, and my job is so boring I can almost feel my braincells committing Seppuku in my skull. One of the first things I did after coming to the lab was write a few computer programs to automate the extremely boring tasks I had to do. As a result, I had to push a button and wait for said boring tasks to complete. In order to satiate my remaining, dedicated brain cells, I went back to school.

A little over 3 years ago I started my Doctorate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. 2 years later, classes were done, and it was time for the Quals and my research. At this time, I changed groups at work to concentrate on my research which is in... ahem... Experimental Measurements of Pyrolysis Gas Chemistry Under the Influence of a Plasma Environment. While this year has been an absurdly painful, masochistic experience filled with the sweat and tears of shattered dreams... I am almost done, which means the defense, emasculation, and more pain... and then a degree. Perfect.

But wait! Rewind 6 months, I am bored with my lack of class and learning new things, so I have a brilliant idea... stay in school!! I started shopping around at universities for my next poison, the MBA. Well, I am now about a month into my MBA at University of Maryland, and it is going quite well. A foolish idea it was indeed to start this before finishing my doctorate, but it did save me from having to take the GMAT (they took my soon-to-expire GRE scores). All in all, the extra work hasn't been too bad, but here is a taste of what October has in store for me:

Oct 6 : final paper due in MBA
Oct 11 : preliminary defense of research (dry run, basically)
Oct 18 : Another final paper for MBA
Oct 17-21 : Finals for MBA
Oct 28 : Dissertation due.

Here is to the power of determination... and beer.