Melancholy Reflections on University Subjects

Welcome to new Blogger. I thought the old one was working just fine. Anyway, why keep the old when you can have the shiny new? I guess that's the same reason I want to sell our car and get something newer.

As another week of school closes, I find my patience diminishing. A wise person (not me) once said that education is the progressive realization of ignorance. We as a race have had times in history when we thought that science had just about cracked every nut. Of course, that concept is now wholly laughable. Even though we have come so far from 18th and 19th centuries, we still realize how little we still know. On a smaller, more personal scale, I feel my own shortcomings very keenly for the same reason. My years pursuing a study of science and engineering have unlocked to me many mysteries of nature and science and left me with a profound respect for the Intelligence that created them, and the laws that even that Intelligence was required to obey. My life is better for it even if it never earns me a cent. Despite the level of understanding that I have been able to acheive, I feel inadequate. My first semester at The University Of Utah I earned an unusually high GPA which got me invited to join the Tau Beta Pi engineering honors society. I had wanted this badly so I joined without hesitation. Unfortunately, since then I haven't been able to maintain grades that would merit membership in the society. Many of my peers who have better grades than I have not been invited to join, and I don't feel deserving of my membership. I never mention it to people who don't already know or who are members of my class. The point is, I am trying very hard but I feel like I continuously fall short of the mark.

This nagging inadequacy brings me back, as always, to the topic of graduate school. To be or not to be? It reminds me of a classic line from the movie Tommy Boy: Tommy: "Lots of people go to school for 8 years, Richard." Richard:"Yeah, they're called doctors." I like school. The question now, is whether I feel like I'm getting out of it what I want. I like the information, I like learning, but my near future is going to be determined by how well I do in these classes. Also, I have been living with school for 6 years. 6 years of engineering classes and full time schedules with yet one to go. I don't think its unreasonable to find, as I said, that my patience is wavering. The robot weighs my spirit and makes me fear for my mechatronics grade and I believe that I will recieve a poor grade in dynamics unless I can really effect an about face. I should have taken that class in my senior year when I wouldn't have had so much else going on and less would have ridden on those GPA's. My first employer is the only one after college that will look at my grades. After that I can rely on the fact that I am smart, and what I don't have in brains I make up for in determination.