Grad school

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you want to talk to someone, but you have no idea who and you have no idea what you want to talk about? I'm having one of those. But Dragon Lady's not feeling well and went to bed early.

So instead, I'll blog.

I've had in my mind for a few years that I would probably enjoy being a university professor at some point. As this necessarily implies grad school, I'd assumed that I'd eventually end up doing graduate work. I hadn't really made any immediate plans, though, figuring that if it ended up being something important to me, I could always come back and do it later. There was a career fair on campus a few weeks back for technical majors, so when went around talking to potential employers, I told them I was interested in a full-time position.

A few days later, I was in my Software Engineering class when it hit me that I really wanted to be a professor. I walked up to my professor after class and told him "So... I want your job." (Yes, I really said that. Though I then clarified that I was a job like his, and not necessarily his precise job. I would like to someday teach at BYU, though.) I set up a time with my professor to talk about the options, and after an hour-and-a-half worth of discussion, I was feeling pretty good about graduate school.

Of course, I believe in keeping my options open as well, so I'd been interviewing with a few companies as well, just in case. A couple weeks after I'd talked to my professor, I got a job offer from Amazon.com.

A really, really attractive offer.

I'd decided on grad school at that time, but they offered me about 30% more in salary than what I'd been planning on turning down. Plus a signing bonus, and some other great benefits. I hadn't planned on having to turn down such an offer. It really makes you evaluate your priorities when you realize that you could take a job right now for which the starting pay is more than what you plan on making after 5-6 years of graduate school.

It makes you think a lot.

One of the things my professor had said during our discussion was that the Lord often has an opinion on life-altering decisions such as these, and after all the planning and evaluation we can do, it ultimately comes down to the Spirit. While he personally recommended graduate school, he took care to point out that if the Spirit says otherwise, you should always follow the Spirit.

Good advice.

As you might expect, I've been praying about this a lot. If I do jump straight into grad school, we'd likely be staying here in Provo. While I'd like to do a internship this summer to help pay for grad school, circumstances are such that we'd really like to stay here in Provo this summer if we're not moving permanently. Thus, I couldn't do an internship with Amazon either. (They've already informed me that I could convert the full-time offer to an internship offer if I so desired.) This means that if I do grad school, I'll need to find work for next summer. So it's a complex issue, and in a lot of ways it makes sense to just take the job.

After praying about it for a while, though, I really feel like grad school is where I need to be. So despite the attractiveness of the Amazon offer, I've turned it down. We'll continue to live like paupers, but that's what feels right, so that's what we'll do.

Sometimes trusting in the Lord is a little scary, even when you know it's right.