Long, long ago when I last left this blog I was still a month away from graduating. Well, a month has more than come and gone and I've gotten myself that little piece of paper with fancy writing that says "I know some things". So, I am now a Saint Louis University alumni with a Bachelors of Art degree in Computer Science. Does it feel good? Yes, I suppose it does. I'm proud of myself. Even prouder that I've made my mother as proud as she tells me she is. But at the same time, in the way that you're asked on your 22nd birthday, "Does it feel any different," I'd say no. Maybe its the fact that I've know it was coming for the better part of 4 years. Maybe its the fact that I haven't yet had an opportunity to sit on my ass and think about it. Whatever the case is, it doesn't feel like the milestone you'd expect. I remember in 5th grade I counted how many years of school I had remaining. After adding it all up the kid next to me then said that I hadn't included 4 years of college. Seeing what a huge number it was I nearly cried. Now that it's over I'm asking myself "is that it?". Surprisingly, it is. For the time being.
My family was in town for the couple days of my pre-commencement and commencement. There was some pressure to entertain, but it ended up being one of the best weekends I can recall. The City Museum, Fitz's for Dinner, taking the ever growing puppy to Forest Park, some uniquely St. Louis activities that I don't know I'll be able to enjoy for much longer. After they made their way home my girlfriend and I got in the car and drove to Kansas City to spend a few days with her family and see her brother's high school graduation. After our stint in KC it was back in the car and off to Memphis to spend a couple more days with my family, see some friends on my home turf, and participate in the annual Memorial Day Bocce Ball tournament held by our close family friends. These stops in Kansas City and Memphis could easily be called a vacation by some, but with the excess amount of people to see, events to attend, and things to get done there was little room to actually sit down and relax and revel in any free time... cause there was none.
Now I'm back in St. Louis, continuing my part time job in a nearly vacated city (as far as my friends and classmates go) and continuing to pursue employment. It's been an interesting journey since I last updated this blog. Sandel Avionics has dropped the ball in a big way. Where they were once chomping at the bit to get me hired (back in February), and couldn't wait to interview me (back in March), and simply needed one last phone interview to complete the process (back in April), they're now at a dead stop (present), and I haven't heard from them since late May. Now believe me, this was disheartening news at first. They'd led me to believe that I had nothing to worry about and I'd soon be in sunny San Diego. Yet, their disappointing me was in some ways a great thing as I jumped back on the ball to get some interviews.
For the last 4 weeks I've had an interview every week with a different company.
- Week 1: I responded to secret solicitation I went through the interview process with Meebo. I was thrilled at the possibility of working for what I believe to be one of the most useful tools on the internet, destined for greatness, and located in Mountain View, CA (big plus). However, with only 16 employees Meebo is pretty selective and I was turned down due to my incorrect answers on their programming puzzle questionnaire.
- Week 2: Had 3 phone interviews in the period of 24 hours with SMS.ac, a mobile content provider. They were anxious to move me along as quickly as possible and offered to fly me out to San Diego but I had to turn it down because it was during the week that I was going to be in Kansas City and Memphis. With their first phone call I was excited but as I did more research on them I found them to be a employer that I wouldn't be excited about working for and a product I couldn't really get excited about (even though apparently 60 million other users are). I haven't heard from their HR guy in a while and am willing to let things with them die.
- Week 3: Garmin! I applied for Garmin online and received a phone call from them the day afterward to set up a phone interview. I had the interview later in the week and it went really well. I should be hearing from them within the next week, hopefully sooner, for another interview with an engineer. They seem like an awesome company to work for and they're getting bigger and bigger. Since applying I've seen their ads everywhere on TV.
I really can't imagine a much better company to work for and that I'd be more excited to work for than Garmin (with the possible exception of Google, but we know how that went). In a few years I believe they'll be a household name as they're already rapidly approaching that point. The only downside is they're located in Olathe, Kansas which is not the California I've been dreaming of, yet they do have an office outside San Fran... I'll see what I can make happen if it comes to that :) - Week 4: This week I've been set up by a staffing firm to interview with Emerson, a Saint Louis based power company. It's a 3 month contract position which might buy me some time should I need it, but I'm not nearly as excited about it as I am about Garmin. Especially considering when I Wikipediaed them I stumbled onto their lawsuit against the TV show Heroes. I love Heroes. This is a con.
-dp
