school

Most of the people that I see in my head regularly reading this blog know that I've been anticipating going back to school full time in the fall. For those who didn't know that, and to make everything clear to those who did know, here's what's up. My fifth year as an undergraduate I added economics as a second major and stayed in pretty good contact with one of the heads of the dept. at CSU in regard to what I should take to get ready to try to apply to Ph.D. programs. Basically, most schools like you to minor or even major in math. I came really close to minoring and, if I had been at a different school w/ slightly different standards, then I what I took would have constituted a minor. Still, after applying to I think nine schools, I learned that my level of mathematical preparation might best be described as “probably sufficient” as one school told me. So, I applied to nine schools and got into four of them. Of these four, two offered me GTA positions, which would pay for tuition and living expenses while I go to school. I went with one over the other (I went with CSU) and now have their contract lying in my cardboard box that holds all my mail. I have till July to sign it and send it back. Part of me thinks that it would be stupid to not send it back but part of me thinks that there is more to consider. For one thing, because of the economic slowdown, this was an extremely competitive year for graduate applicants. I think I've told this to a couple of you. The lady from Michigan State told me, in an email saying that I didn't get in, that this year brought the most competitive pool of candidates that she's ever seen with 300 people competing for 20 spots. So, looking at it from that perspective, I think that if I had applied at a different time, then it seems reasonable to think that I would at least get into the same schools and possibly even into better ones. I was thinking about staying at Mesa for a couple of years and picking up a degree in math (or even asking CSU for a deferment and just sticking around for a year to take some key courses and go on from there and possibly transferring to a better school after I get a masters from CSU). This might be a good idea, though I'm not sure that CSU would be down with it. One other option is staying at Mesa and taking something like six courses and then being prepared to apply for admission to a masters program in math. There are quite a few, like UCCS for example, that offer applied math degrees with an emphasis in business/finance/economics. In fact, I could possibly take off as much as a semester of graduate level econ while working toward this applied degree. In addition to thinking that it could be a lot of fun to study math for the next few years I can't say enough about how much it would improve my chances of getting into a really good school – a REALLY good school – especially if things aren't quite as competitive in a few years. Graduating from a significantly better school has obvious benefits. Namely I could do cooler things with my degree. Also I wouldn't find myself at the end of my life regretting that I hadn't given it my all. These are the upshots. The downshots (why not? If “upshots” is a word...) are that I'd have to pay for my education and living expenses while at Mesa and more than likely whatever graduate school that I end up at for math . . .this probably means debt. I hate debt, even though I'm supposed to believe that it is sometimes justified. Secondly, a Ph.D. in econ takes, on average, about seven or eight years to complete (that's from admission to the program to completion – it doesn't include the time to earn a bachelor's or anything else). So, take seven years for that and add three years of math and suddenly I'm looking at ten years. Thirty-seven seems like a long way out. Being almost forty before I start a career seems a bit scary to be honest. Secondly, while it might look good on paper, it may turn out that I'll get burned out before it's all done. I mean, this is twelve years of school before college, six years as an undergraduate, one more doing math at Mesa, two doing a master's in math, and seven for a Ph.D. and suddenly I've spent twenty-eight of my thirty-seven years of life in school (sixteen years of college). WTF!?! It seems like at some point a person should stop learning and start doing. Finally, this sort of lifestyle requires a certain amount of discipline and self denial that might be good in some contexts but is possibly unhealthy in others. I love econ because it fits my brain well (and I like using my brain) and because I think that it addresses really important issues. I think that it can be used as a catalyst for working toward the greater good – for helping people. But what if in the process of doing this I lose sight of the trees in the context of the forest (or however that adage goes)? What if in the context of trying to help people in a larger and more abstract sense I sacrifice real and potentially real relationships in a more personal and concrete sense? There's a story that I heard about the guy who founded the Salvation Army (I think), where he was doing all these awesome things (in a Christian context) and while helping people far away from home he got news that his daughter had killed herself and he later wrote something to the extent of “you can lose your family in the process of saving the world.” There's good to be said about a person being really disciplined and focused on whatever goal he's set for himself on the one hand (assuming that that goal meets sufficiently good conditions) but there's also good to be said about a person actively working for goodness in a more practical sense in his immediate surroundings. I think that love is important. It's so important that Christianity associates it, one-for-one, with God: “Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love” (1 John 4.8). I suppose one could realistically read that verse as saying that love is a character quality of God's (I think that's very legitimate), but right or wrong I've always read “is” statements as “equivalence” statements. Anyway. You can gain the whole world and lose your soul. I think I'm trying to find the proper balance between goodness/love/etc. in an abstract sense and the same in a more practical sense. I'm still trying to find the balance between idealism and pragmatism. And I have the tendency to err on the side of idealism. To the extent that sometimes nothing ever gets done. And doing nothing really scares me. I guess the Christian perspective that each person is destined for greatness has been drilled into my marrow. And somehow I'm still at Domino's hahaha! Delivering heart attacks for tips, baby.

So that's that. I think I'm going to ask what CSU thinks about giving me a deferment to do math and then, in the meantime, apply to masters programs in math and see where that goes. I'm not expecting CSU to give it to me. I'm expecting them to get frustrated. But, if they do give me it, then I can ask Kentucky for one too (I think they might give it to me – I already talked with them about it a bit) and I think that I'd be really happy to go there, with or without advanced training in math. They're such a cool school – so well suited for me. They're one of four universities in the country that is funded by our federal government to research poverty in America. How cool is that!?!

I was going to say other things, but this is too long already. Maybe in a couple days. I hope you – yea, YOU – have a terrific day. If you're reading this, then there's a good chance that I love you.