The Flow of Consciousness

I’ve had my diploma from Westminster College for a day more than a month, now. I received my diploma on May 19, and have been mostly taking it easy since then.

I look back through the past month and see how I’ve changed. At the end of the semester, I was fantastically stressed, almost neurotic. I was finishing out The Holcad and trying to keep my head above water in my classes, all while ill with bronchitis. While I knew my grades in calc and capstone were solid, I was not so sure about my history/English cluster. I had scored high on the papers I’d written, but I was not proud of my test grades.

This launched me into a fit of uneasiness that remains unparalleled in my life. I found myself pushing away from people and concentrating on nothing but the work for the class.

Often I’ve thought, “What would be different had I not cared as much?” I ended up with a B+ in the class (two classes, actually, for those who aren’t familiar with Westminster’s interesting curriculum). Would I have gotten a B? Would I have gotten lower?

I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a week—a pretty impressive feat given my inability to read fast when reading for purposes other than pleasure. I read a few other shorter stories that I’d not read because I was too busy trying to finish capstone and read them in a day before the final exam.

I know I’ve been able to relax, not only as a result of graduating, but simply as a result of finishing that damned cluster. Undergraduate graduation is only a waypoint on the mission of life goals. I knew that I’d be starting grad school in at most three months, whether or not I had a job.

I guess I’m rambling. I wish that I could have built last summer some of the friendships I built this semester. I’d love to have another year around these people; I’d love to have another chance to show them that I care about them and that I’m not as cold and concentrated as I felt I had to be this semester. I wish that I had one more year to hang out and be cool at Westminster.

Not to be, unfortunately. I started grad school at Robert Morris University this past Monday. My class is comprised of students mostly older than me, but not by more than maybe five years. I’m certainly the youngest in the class—something which I think is a little unnerving considering my all but three or four of my classmates have been either teaching or substituting for at least a year. Those three or four are making an early career change or are like me and wanting to teach computers after having received a IS degree.

The class I’m taking is basically a graduate-level ed. psych. class. I like it. I enjoy psychology, so I find it interesting. Perhaps I just like being a guinea pig

I still don’t have fall plans ironed out just yet. I’m going to be living with JD somewhere in or around Pittsburgh. We looked earlier today at an apartment in Moon Township—not far from RMU. I liked it, and so did he, but we want to keep looking to see if we can find anything better.

I’m waiting for a call from a company on an interview, too. If I get the job, I’m pretty well set for the fall and can register for fall classes and getting the annoying “hurry up and wait” weight off my shoulders.

As for those friends, I’m going to have to see what I can do from a distance. I have a feeling, though, that I’ll be up to Westminster often, but not so much that I’m a creepy alumnus :-p

Colin Dean, son of Tom and Jane Dean, recently graduated from Westminster College in New Wilmington with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and a minor in creative writing focusing on journalism. He was editor-in-chief of The Holcad, the college’s student newspaper, and served on a number of committees and was a member of a number of scholastic and social organizations.

Colin will be attending Robert Morris University in Moon Township, Pennsylvania for a Masters of Education in Business Education. This degree and certificate will enable him to teach high school computer science classes. He hopes to earn eventually a communications certificate so that he may teach journalism, as well.

In the mean time, Colin is working as a writer for a computer hardware and software web site while searching for jobs in Pittsburgh and living at the Phi Kappa Tau house in New Wilmington.

I will be so relieved when this week concludes. I have never had so much stress in my life, and all of it because of two classes that aren’t even required for my major! Stupid intellectual perspectives (core classes in non-WC terminology)!

I’ve been swamped with capstone, The Holcad, classes, and fraternity things like Greek Week. I’ve got post almost ready—it’ll be up in a few days.

I’ll be able to write more once school’s out.

A detachment of brothers from Phi Kappa Tau appeared at my front door Jan. 28 and handed me a bid.

I accepted it the following day.

Pick-Up Day (yesterday, Feb. 3) was one of the most fun days I’ve had in college.

Even though I’ve only got a semester with the guys, I’m gonna make the most of it and have lots of fun.

I noticed on dailydomainer.com today the site’s veritable cornucopia of social bookmarking links at the bottom of single-post pages. The sheer amount of them—all in one row—baffled me.

Are there really that many social bookmarking sites?

Do they really do well enough to merit keeping them open?

I realize the explosive success of Digg and Newsvine and Del.icio.us and Reddit (of which I only use the first two). I guess social bookmarking is yet another Internet phenomenon that everyone is trying to wrangle and profit from.

It would be cool to write a social bookmarking web application. PHP is used for almost all of them, with Ruby for the others and maybe something less popular for some others. I wonder if any of them are done in Scheme or Smalltalk? Hmm.

In other news, classes start tomorrow and I don’t have any books yet. It’s my last semester of undergrad, and I’ve spent more on books this semester than I have for the past five. That tells you something about history and English classes, eh?