If you follow the blog at Re-Cycled Air, you’ll know that I’ve been contemplating making a break from school and starting real life. After much job searching, I ended up with three local interviews and two job offers (I canceled the third interview, but that’s a story for another day). What I’ve realized is that I really like college. I know that good things can’t last forever, but I really enjoy learning. I have the chance to stay in a great place for another 1.5 years, so why shouldn’t I?
During the job interview process, I came across 3 distinctly different companies:
- Company 1: A small GIS startup that is still in it’s early phases of development. It’s profitable, interesting, flexible, and the partners are dedicated to what they do. They’re also laid back, nice guys.
- Company 2: A medium size web development business. It’s well established, has a profitable base of customers, and the people are nice. However, after extensive interviewing and research I’ve found that their implementation and code seems to be sloppy.
- Company 3: A fortune 500 company with great benefits, better pay, and semi-interesting projects. No flexibility, very profitable, and filled with boring people.
Company 2 and 3 would require me to quit Grad School. At the time this seemed like a great choice, but after much thought, I’ve determined that the only thing that will really make me happy is staying right where I am. After the undergraduate degree, most people assume that you have to jump right in to work and so called “real life”. I’m suggesting that you don’t need to do that. Real life is wherever you are. I might be in college, but this is still real life. I have responsibilities, a car payment, a wedding to pay for, hope, dreams, and everything you do…. except I’m having more fun while doing it.
Working a 9 to 5 job isn’t a bad thing, but for those of us blessed with the intelligence to go on to grad school, I think that the 9 to 5 paradigm isn’t the right way to go. That said, I chose to continue school, continue to learn, and continue to teach. After this epiphany, I decided Company 1 was the place to be.
Wish me luck!