One of the things my parents always told me they admired about me is that I always seemed to have a plan, and that I lived my life, I didn't let me life live me. For example: in high school, I tossed around the idea of college. I had an idea where I wanted to go but hadn't quite made up my mind. For the heck of it, one day, I took the ASVAB exam. Apparently, I did really well on it. The Army called me and would not leave me alone about my asvab scores and did I want to join the army. Long story short, I finally said 'okay, fine, I'll come talk to you guys.'
After talking to them, i decided that maybe the military was a cool idea. My dad advised me to check out all the branches before I made a decision. Because of his advise, i did check out all the branches (except marines, no thank you...) The air force told me I was too fat, and to be honest, I didn't want to crawl around in the mud for the army.
So as they say.... 'in the navy......'
So, my senior year in high school, I enlisted in the Navy and shipped out in November after having graduated in June. I had a plan. Do the military for 4 years, get the GIBill, go home, go to school, get a job, and hopefully at some point, find my soul mate and eventually start a family.
At this point, I've done all of the above, except, the starting a family one. I have a job. But I'm not happy with it. So until I can be happy with my job - happy enough to where I wont just get up and walk out one day, and risk my income, I cannot, and will not consider starting a family. Oh yeah, and we live in an apartment right now. I want a house for babies, thankyouverymuch.
Yeah. Nowhere in that "plan" was there ever anything about grad school. I didn't ever see myself doing it. My senior year of college, a few people asked me about grad school, and my response was "ehh, maybe one day, after I've popped out a few babies and they've gone off to school. But right away after undergrad? no way..."
Well, just shy of one year after graduating from SPSU....6 months after getting married....almost a year at my "job"....I'm in this "I never expected to feel this way after graduation" state of mind. I'm torn. My home life, is FABULOUS. I love being married. My husband is the greatest, and even though they say the first year is the hardest, we've managed to do pretty damn good so far. My extra curricular life is still fabulous. Quite honestly, it keeps me happy. I LOOOOOOVE being an advisor to the chapter at GA State (even though they hate me because I have such a tight leash on their checkbook). I love when the girls come to me and ask for advice. I love helping. I LOVE giving back to the organization that made me realize alot about myself. Mushy mushy crap, yeah, I know....sorry, but it's true. My friends are great. They've done amazing things for me, and I couldn't have asked for better friends...
So basically, I'm torn about my life right now because I LOVE everything - everything about my life except my job, and I miss school TERRIBLY. I pursued an Information Technology field of training for 4 years. 4 in the military, and 4 through undergrad. I've been "working" in IT for a year now. I HATE IT. Actually, let me rephrase. I'm BORED with the IT that I'm qualified for. The IT that I think I would have fun at, I don't have the qualifications, for, and nobody will hire me in those jobs to get the experience.
So fine, whatever. Though there are parts of IT I still love, I've realized I have a passion for something else. Money. Finance, and Accounting. Numbers. Budgeting, billing, AP/AR, ledger work. Administrative stuff involving numbers. That's what i want to do with my life. I loved being FVP in AXiD. I love being an advisor, and you know what? If I do say so myself, I'm damn good at it. Unfortunately, I have no formal finance education, or paid experience in this field.
So after being unhappy at my job for over 6 months. After applying for finance jobs, with not much luck for over 3 months, I finally decided to regroup. I asked myself "What can i do, to improve my work life situation? How can I get experience in finance? Either educational or paid experience? Well, you haven't had much luck getting a paid job getting the experience, so it looks like education is the next step."
So I made a new "plan" for my life....
Initially, I was going to get an accounting career certificate online through a local technical school. But after much thought, and the fact that half of the classes were repeats from my undergrad days, I nixed that idea. Higher education, I thought, might be a good idea. So i started researching. I knew I didnt really want to sit in a class room again. I knew I wanted to keep the ability to work full time, now that I'm married and trying to get settled into married life so that eventually we can start a family. So I started looking for classes part time and online.
Kennesaw, GSU and West GA didnt have quite what I was looking for. I started researching online universities, and filled out some interest forms for someone to get back in touch with me to answer some questions.
So.....with all that said and done, I am proud to say that on May 5th, 2008 (ironically, exactly 1 year after I graduated from SPSU) I will begin taking online classes for an MBA in Finance through Grand Canyon University out of Phoenix AZ. I just missed school too danged much...and I really want a job in finance. At least this way, I can put some education experience/goals on my resume for finance, rather than "how cute, you were FVP of your sorority, and you want a job..." as my only experience.
Blergh. Why cant employers just risk and take a chance on someone? I guess it's meant to be this way. I guess I was meant to go grad school all along, and just didnt know it.
WOOO! I'm excited. I get to stimulate my brain again!
*edit* If you're looking into online schooling options, undergrad, or grad, or even certificate programs, and want to talk to someone, my enrollment counsellor Jeremy Ketterer was amazing. If you want to talk to him to get some answers to questions about how the program works, you can request info at his website at http://gcu.edu/ec/jketterer, or call him at 1.888.293.2566
