Monday, January 22, 2007

Would You Like Anchovies on that?

I got a part-time job in the burgeoning field of pizza delivery. Hooray!

I'm working for a local pizza company that makes the best pizza in Seattle. They have 35 call-center employees and make thousands of pizzas every night for folks all over the area. And they are a good company who has an excellent training program and nice people working for them. And I get to eat free pizza every night until I get sick of it!

I'll be making some money and I'll have time to look for something else during the day. It only took me a week to find a part-time job this year. Unlike last year when it took months and months.

With a door opening so quickly, it helps me believe that I've made the right decision to discontinue graduate school and enter the workforce.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Big Changes

I guess I jammed my fist on my reset button (see last post).

In a surprising move, I withdrew from the University on Monday. Here is why:

1. They denied me in-state status for tuition, even though I've been here for 13 months. Which means my tuition was 3 times what it should have been.
2. An alcoholic, depressed and psychotic professor gave me a 2.9 in his class when a grad student needs a 3.0 for the course to count.
3. There is absolutely no mentoring in my program. Professors are simply not available to discuss grades or what one can do to improve in their class. This is probably due to the fact that the program lost 50% of its funding last year and all of the profs are very, very bitter.
4. I found out I needed to take 9 EXTRA classes for pre-requisites, and that these classes had to be taken in a specific order. I was not told about this before enrolling or starting classes and missed the first course in the sequence. This added 2 years on to the program, making it 4 years for a Master's degree.
5. I was totally uninspired with the coursework and as I looked more into career prospects, found them to be sorely lacking.

And in 2 unrelated events:

a. On the first day of classes, my laptop got BOTH a virus and a hardware issue. It costs more to repair than replace ($ 400).
b. World's cutest dog, Dudley, ate my eye glasses.

I do not regret trying this out. I truly believe I gave it my best shot, even if it was only for one quarter. And, I met 2 wonderful fellow students. I hope we can be friends for a long time.

Now it is back to the classifieds. Time to earn some money and get back on my feet.