I can distinctly remember sitting in several classes, going over the syllabus on the first day, and flipping to that last section in which the dreaded words were imprinted “Research paper 25% of final grade”. And as time, those percentages increased, and every time my stomach sank as I realized I would have to spend hours writing the dreaded college paper. Once my strategic plan for my capstone course in my undergraduate degree the words “never again” seemed to be the most tempting to say. With the realization that graduate school was in my future, I knew the paper would come again to haunt me, but perhaps it would not be as bad as it had been in the past. Then I took a year off, and started a job, and if you had told me a year ago when I graduated that I would be doing research for a living, I’m sure I would have laughed at you.
Now…I’m very grateful for all of the research I was FORCED to do as an undergraduate. I work in a business where high turnaround projects are essential to survive, so it is not uncommon to punch out a paper in three days time (once we’ve gotten all of the information). It’s funny, now that I am getting a paycheck for the things I do, it is not so bad to be writing papers. It goes to show that you never really know where this life will take you. I just knew I was going to be a programmer, sitting in an office somewhere punching away at a keyboard making the computer world rotate. Granted, I still do some programming (relational database programming anyone?) and I get to work with websites for half my job, but getting paid because you can use your brain is pretty cool. Now if I could just figure out all the other things in life!
