Refining goals
Every so often it becomes necessary to refine out goals to maintain realistic expectations for ourselves. Sometimes this means cutting back and reevaluating a time frame, other times it may be an expansion of that goal because there is more that is achievable than you first thought. Today, I’m changing that goal that I set forth for myself earlier in the year.
If you recall, I mentioned that this year my goal was to learn the art and science of running a business. Well, I’ve changed my mind, for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I’m probably not cutthroat enough to run any sort of retail operation. I empathize far too much with people, and that would prevent me from screwing them on prices and actually making money. Second, I want to be doing something far more dynamic than the same thing day after day, and if I am going to be doing that, it better be for a good reason.
So with this taken off the table, I went back to the drawing board. The question then was, “if you aren’t necessarily interested in running your own business at this point (or running a business utilizing current skills and abilities), where are your interests leading you? Clearly you need to go back to school and learn new skills and pursue a new field.” After taking several days to ponder this (and playing some xbox 360), I realized that I never should’ve convinced myself that I didn’t want to pursue computer science. Now, that is not the same as saying I regret the path I took, don’t get me wrong. What I am saying, is that I had one of my big interests identified and ready to act upon, and turned away from it. I believe the words I said to myself were “do you really want to spend the rest of your life in front of a computer screen?” Clearly, I didn’t accurately project where a career in political science and politics would take me. It plopped me right in front of a computer screen. While cold calling people. Most of the time.
Now, there’s something else I should clarify. I loved working with my coworkers, and we did some amazing work and accomplished some pretty amazing things while working for good causes. I don’t regret that, and if any of them called me up today asking for help, you bet I would answer that call. The thing that sparked this whole career change idea was the fact that I didn’t see myself wanting to advance further in the field. The lifestyle wasn’t agreeable. That and it’s very difficult to go out day after day, make headway on certain aspects of your campaign, and then see how the media reports on it and that progress isn’t made. It feels like you’re working long days only so that you can repeatedly ram your head into the wall. That’s pretty much how trying to show the other side of the aisle that you’re right and this is what’s good for the country goes. Of course we don’t present it like that. Duh.
Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent. Back to the point at hand: I know that I want to do something involving computers and computer science. But I don’t necessarily want to be a code monkey. That just doesn’t seem rewarding to me. So for the past several days I’ve been further looking into what I can apply such a thing to that would be interesting to me. What I’ve come up with is pretty much electrical engineering/robotics. Or more to the point making pretty awesome machines that help scientists explore such as ROVs and AUVs in the marine environment. Time and time again, I’ve said I don’t want to live anywhere away from the ocean, so it fits. Throw in the fact that I was always interested in those things as a kid and it seems to make sense.
So with that in mind, I’m currently taking a programming course to begin laying the foundation of that aspect of things ahead, as well as starting to review math up through calculus so that I can get to the point where I can take courses in linear algebra and differential equations which would enable me to jump into master’s level programs, and that’s no small feat. At the same time I’m also going to start learning the basics of electrical engineering and electronics. The real goal with that and the math on my own time is to test out of the undergrad courses I would have to take in order to have the knowledge base to apply to a grad program. So yes, I have a lot of ground to make up. I want to keep to a minimum the number of undergrad courses I actually have to take to a minimum.
So, I have a lot of work ahead of me. Is it going to be easy? Not by a long shot. But I figure if I can get the math up to where it needs to be, and get a basic understanding of how electronics actually work along with at least one programming language under my belt this year, then there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to do this. After all, I’m only 24 and I’ve got the time and the drive to do this.
To bring this around full circle: out with the old goal of learning business, and in with the new goal of everything that I just outlined. This should be an interesting year.
Recent Comments