possible change in plans
(reposted from MySpace)

Well, for those of you who haven't kept up, a recap is in order.

I'm at SJSU, but not to get a degree, because I already have an engineering degree from Cal. I'm here as a postbaccalaureate just to figure out what I want to study in grad school, and hopefully get some prerequisites out of the way and impress some professors in the process (ya know, for letters of rec and all). Figure I'd do that for a year and a half and then try to get into a top grad school for Fall of 2007 to get a Master's degree.

Well, I think a change of plan might be in order. But don't worry, this is a good thing.

First of all, my top choices are Econ or Poli Sci or Public Policy, with a strong edge to Econ and the dark horse being Photojournalism. So I signed up for a couple of Econ courses, a Poli Sci course in Public Policy, a Photojournalism course (along with the Spartan Daily for no credit), plus Anthro senior seminar which my wife, Erika, recommended as being good preparation for the grad school application process (and I have to say that Chuck Darrah is simply awesome). Oh, and a Sociology course that was a mistake for me to take because it's lower division and, although fairly entertaining, mostly a waste of my time (thank god for wireless).

At this point, I think I can all but rule out Photojournalism. I do enjoy it and could probably make a living at it, so I'll probably keep it in my life some way or another. But as a full-time career, I don't think it's the area where I can make the biggest impact on the world (the main reason I'm leaving engineering -- it wasn't cuz of the money, after all). And I think Econ still has a sizable lead over Poli Sci (although I still want to try out a Political Economy course). And there've been a couple of developments in the last couple of days that makes it even more likely.

First of all, I'm taking Microeconomics (ECON101) with Prof. Lydia Ortega, who is also the chair of the department (and yes, we considered that a big plus). I'm not shy (anymore), and I'm a pretty bright guy, so I was hoping to make a good impression with her. So far, I thought I had done pretty well, being active in class participation, nailing all the quizzes, and sending her an occasional e-mail pointing out interesting material related to class. I hadn't yet visited her in office hours because they conflicted with other classes (one of many drawbacks of taking 18 units), but I finally made an appointment to see her yesterday.

When I got there, another student needed to talk to her about something, and since my agenda was rather open-ended, I let him go first. I noticed the CATO newsletter on her desk (CATO is a libertarian think tank) with Tim Lee's (binarybits) absolute must-read article on the DMCA. I hadn't yet it at the time, so I started leafing through it. I'd suspected Ortega was libertarian, but this was more confirmation. Coincidentally, I'm blog pals with Tim's girlfriend, Amanda Rohn (amandalorelei), as I had blogrolled her back when I was looking for more female libertarians to get a better gender balance, and plus she was in a somewhat similar situation as me, leaving behind software to go to med school.

Anyway, after the other student left, Ortega asked me how I'd gotten there, which of course is a long story (and she was, of course, surprised to find out that I was 35). I also told her about my above plan. She asked me what I'd liked about my job, and I said designing and writing, both of which made up a very small percentage of my time (the vast bulk of software engineering is all in debugging). She also asked where I saw myself, and I mentioned policy analyst. She also had figured out that I'm a libertarian (small-L), and asked me how I arrived there (story for another time). And I mentioned that one of the big reasons behind the big career change was that I realized I spent the vast bulk of my free time writing about politics and economics for my blog.

She then proceeded to list a bunch of internships where she could place me. This was really cool because 1) I hadn't even asked about this yet and 2) I've been behind the ball on applying to internships. Some of them sounded really interesting, like The Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan. I'd get to see how a think tank works, be able to better picture myself in a specific position at one, and even learn how to run one (!). She also mentioned that I was probably better off getting a Master's instead of a Ph.D., since that's all I would need to become a policy analyst, not to mention that six years at my age would have a prohibitive opportunity cost. And then she urged me to immediately apply for SJSU's graduate program in Econ for this Fall, because one and a half years was too much time for me to waste.

This option had never occurred to me. Partially because I had my heart set on U of C or GMU or (heaven forbid) the London School of Economics. But U of C and GMU don't have Master's programs in Econ, just Public Policy. I had also figured I'd need extra time to get letters of rec and take the GRE; I hadn't realized that neither of these were required for SJSU. Furthermore, their Econ department specializes in the Austrian School of Economics. Most programs generalize instead of specialize, but this requires a larger staff, so Ortega had chosen to specialize to set SJSU apart. Oh, in case you didn't know, the Austrian School was and is instrumental in the libertarian movement. Think Hayek and von Mises.

So... I'm strongly considering it. It wouldn't rule out me applying to another grad school after I take the GRE, and I could still take the same kinds of courses I'm taking now at the same level of tuition. Not to mention that when somebody asks me what year I am, I don't have to go into a long torturous explanation of how I'm postbaccalaureate and my whole plan and all. I can just say "grad student."

Another thing, I don't recall her stating this outright, but it was at least implied that I'd have no problem getting in (I did have a decent GPA at Berkeley), which was really cool. But just to be sure, I also asked how I was doing in the class, and she said I was definitely very strong, although she hadn't yet finished grading all the exams. She pulled them out to check if she'd done mine, mentioning that while nobody ever gets a hundred, a couple of people had gotten 98's. I was pretty sure I'd done really well, so I assumed that I was one of them, but it turned out she hadn't graded mine yet (aside from adding a fishing boat next to my diagram of little fishies next to the supply and demand curves).

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today was class, and we got back our exams. And it turns out that one person did get a hundred after all.

(this is where the latent geek in me gets to say w00t!)