Through my entire schooling I always looked forward to the day that I would be done and be able to join the work force. Now that I am here it has led me to some conclusions about school and the life thereafter. Things I though were true have now been proven true and things I had always thought to be true are now false. Life has most definitely thrown me a curve ball and it is taking a lot of getting use to.

I always thought that school was expensive and stressful. I never was able to hold a steady job while in college and it seemed like I was in an eternal game of catch up that I would never win. Now that I am actually making money nothing has really changed. Now I just have more bills and more living costs. Expenditures have just seemed to grow in proportion to how much money I make not really allowing me any wiggle room or room to save. I know that as time goes on I will be able to bank more since a lot of my costs are in the up front costs of moving and not so much in the long term. It still is a lot of stress though and I think it may give me an Ulcer.

I figured once I got out of school I would be able to enjoy my free time a little more than while I was in school. This one has actually proven to be quite true. I will end up working into the day later than I anticipated but once I do come home that is entirely my time. Sure it is impossible to completely leave work at work in your thoughts but I am not forced to work on it in my free time like I was with home work in school. I have also come to appreciate weekends a lot more. When in school the weekends were a healthy mix between a time to relax and a time to catch up. It has now mostly just turned into a time to relax and I must say that I like it.

A lot of times when sitting in a class I found myself thinking, “how is this going to help me.” Well, unlike in high school what they have taught me has indeed turned out to be useful. Now that I am interfacing with students from other schools you can pretty easily tell which students focused just on theory, which focused only on application, and which had a healthy mix of the two. I have come to determine that Rolla has given me a good mix of the two and I must say that I am quite happy they did. I see many kids now who can give me the super details of why something is better or why it works the way it does. However, when these kids are asked to put it into an implementation they seem to freeze and have a hard time putting into words. On the other hand you have people who are able to churn out code faster than anyone I have ever seen. I can not help but think though that these kids really don’t have any understanding of what they are doing or if it is even best practice. It seems that they have basically just been sent to school to be code machines and to question absolutely nothing.

Whether I see life after school as better or worse is really irrelevant. I think for every problem I can find I am able to find a reason that makes seem so much better. It is definitely an entirely new experience that seems daunting and scary at first. You will find thought that in no time at all you find a certain pride in being on your own and truly making your own decisions. Whether they are good or bad decisions you can’t help but be happy that at least you made the decision and that you have truly made it to adulthood.