Getting an education

Avid reader(s) of this site know(s) that I've been doing some course work, in pursuit of a degree in Computer Science. Over the summer, I sat in on a college algebra course in an effort to remove the cobwebs from the math oriented portions of my mind.

During the fall I took college trig. Currently, I'm in college calc. The class is going well so far. Our first test is on Friday. Lately I've been questioning the benefits of this pursuit.

I'm spending an hour every night studying and doing homework, but would that hour a day be better spent studying for Oracle certification exams or learning Java or some other immediately applicable technology?

I still have many courses to take before I would be in the heart of computer science course work. I'm sure all of it would be beneficial in some respect, but at this point in my life/career could my time be better spent?

I consider myself to be a "life-long learner". I'll always be reading technical publications and trying to learn new things, it's in my nature. I guess I can credit my mom and dad for that. Mom taught me that boredom is the product of a dull mind.

Since adolescence, I've suffered from the opposite of boredom. There's never enough time to get to all of the things I want to do. "A thousand towers rise before me and I cannot climb them all." Never actually heard that song, but I live that quote every day.

For now, I'm going to do my very best in college calc, but at the end of the term, I'll be re-examining my situation and carefully evaluating my options.

Change Is Good

but paper doesn't jingle in your pocket.

From my perspective, the new job is going well. The day I started, I was handed a laptop and told to spec out a new computer for myself. What? No hand-me-downs? Sweet.

The second week on, a couple of nice servers arrived from some place in Texas. One was a quad Xeon (Princess Warrior?) with 4GB of RAM and mucho grande utra scsi raid.

I've spent the last couple of weeks migrating an Oracle instance from a Sun box. As a long time Linux user, it does my heart good to replace an aging Sun system with Linux, though even the Sun boxes are a welcome change for someone who came from a Windows Oracle shop.

Oracle on Linux is more difficult to set up than Oracle on Windows NT and 2000, but it's not as painful as having dental work done, nor as difficult as college calculus.

My new workstation is a real treat, it's almost enough to make me want to spend more time at the office and the dual 17" flat panel monitors actually take up less space than the single 17" CRT that they replaced.

The cube farm where the "software engineers" sit is in a back corner of the office, away from windows and doors, and the overhead flourescent lights are actually left off, a plus.

So the digs are nice and the gear is great, but the best part is, of course, the people. The person I work under is a real genius. He is wickedly smart and has an amazing ability to patiently and effectively communicate new concepts and ideas.

And my peers are all easy going and intelligent, everyone seems to be pulling their weight, something that was too often lacking at my previous place of employment.

Any hesitations I had about taking this job have completely fallen by the way side.