So my application for graduate school got rejected. I had applied over the winter to the Master of Science program in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering here at UT. I'd been considering it since last spring, but my motivation went into overdrive during the first three hours of my job at Fly.
ORIE is a discipline that straddles the boundaries between several fields. It deals with analysis and structured decision making. Designing processes, whether they be industrial manufacturing, or something more abstract. ORIE grew partly out of the logistical challenges the Allies faced in WWII. It appealed to me for many reasons. It was a significant departure from software, which I don't see has being a great long-term career. It is a field that focuses on the essence of engineering process as applied to many different arenas. The breadth of applicability was enticing. The strategies for decision making was also a big draw, which is probably not a surprise. It would have been a chance to take a significantly different path into a more specialized, rarefied career. Plus I would have had a master's degree instead of a dinky little bachelor's degree. I want a real degree.
I'm guessing there were three major factors involved in their decision. The first was almost certainly my mediocre undergraduate record. I included the ADD business in my application, but I think they may have lost that part, as they lost the transcript I had given them at the same time. Secondly, there were probably many applicants this year due to the economy. And thirdly, they might not have taken my application as seriously as other applications, as I was coming from a different field and had a spotty employment record.
On the whole, it doesn't really matter much to me. Even had I been accepted, I probably would not have attended (though I would have deferred for a year just to be safe). I would have liked to be accepted to stroke my ego, but that's really all. I have a good, steady job now, which makes it less necessary for me to explore less conventional options. Then there's the house I'm buying, which would make it pretty tough to take two years off to go to school, and I don't relish the idea of working and studying at the same time. And finally, my current job has the potential to take a career arc away from strictly being a programmer, which is partly what I was looking for from ORIE. Besides, this isn't the end, just one end. There's nothing that says I can't try again in the future, and odds are pretty good that I will. The reasons that I wanted to do it haven't changed; it's mainly the practicality that has. So if the opportunity arises five or ten years down the road, I can give it another shot.
I only applied to one school because it didn't seem practical to go anywhere other than UT-Austin. There were other schools with programs that are just as good or better, but I have too much here to leave behind. I did look at other cities when I was looking for jobs, but that was different. If I was going to be a poor student, I'd want to do it in Austin, where I knew people and my way around. Maybe things will be different the next time around.
At least I had an excuse to take the GRE (whose ass I kicked six ways from Sunday, thank you very much, although I'm still pissed about running out of time on the Analytical with 1 question left, which prevented me from getting a perfect score). My ego to date was completely based on my SAT scores from high school. That was 7 years ago, and their shelf-life for bragging has long since expired. Now I have some other standardized test scores to use as the basis for my sense of self, which should keep me going for a while.