Two years gone by
November 16th, 2008
It’s difficult to grasp, but already two years have gone by since I first visited California. More shocking is that this fall marks eight years since I began my undergraduate education. Now I am approaching the end of my second college tour, so it seems like a good time to look into the crystal ball.
What would I like to do in the next year? Some things come to mind:
- Get a job. Yes, I want to be employed after I leave school. Fancy that! This might sound shallow, but one of the most important criteria will be location. I’d like to stay in the Bay area, but I’d also be willing to move to the area around Boston. I miss winter(!), which brings us to…
- Resume playing hockey. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have stopped. The area around Palo Alto isn’t exactly a hotbed of hockey activity, so moving someplace with a deeper hockey tradition might help with realizing this goal.
- Keep photographing. I’d like to get involved with some organization, perhaps a small newspaper, that will allow me to continue doing sports photography. I don’t see this as a full-time career, but I enjoy it enough to moonlight.
- Have another adventure, preferably outdoors in a land far away. Some of my “adventures” in the past eight years include: snowboarding at Steamboat, visiting Paris, backpacking around Europe (including running with the bulls), snowboarding at Whistler, visiting England, backpacking on Isle Royale, backpacking in the Grand Canyon, and leaving a good job to go to Stanford and live in California. What will the next adventure be? I’m thinking of something along the lines of an extended backpacking trip this coming summer in either Alaska or New Zealand.
I’ve had mixed success with these lists in the past, but I enjoy writing them to show me how my ambitions change over time.
i don’t think that location is a shallow criteria. what sort of job do you want?
Fair question. I’m open to a variety of options, but the most important criteria will be location, a good team, and a role that I actually like (as opposed to one that I merely don’t hate).
I’m not too particular about the industry. I’d like to travel a fair amount (but not all of the time). I’d like to have a lot of interaction with customers (as opposed to living in a cubicle). I’d like to be involved with the engineering process (but I don’t want to be a line engineer). Some options might include system engineering, product planning, certain forms of consulting, project management, and the like.
This all probably sounds hazy and indecisive, but I’m in no rush to get a job just for the sake of getting a job. Life is too short for that. There are so many interesting possibilities out there…