My Life
... as a Clinical Psychologist???
Well, not really. Well, sort of.
Ok. For the last... I don't want to think of how many years, I've written that I occupy most of my time as a doctoral candidate. Well, I'd like to announce that as of August 30, 2001, this is no longer the case.
See, I spent nearly the entire dot-com boom years chasing down a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Finally got it, too. The downside is that I entirely missed out on all those boom years in the stock market. The upside is that I didn't lose my 401K after it crashed. It all kind of evens out, doesn't it?
Yes children, I am now a bonafide Doctor, having successfully earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Connecticut. If that doesn't shrink your shorts, it's just an indication that you don't know me very well (as well you probably shouldn't).
Actually, I started my post-secondary education at the Colorado School of Mines back in 1973. When I arrived, I was a chemistry major. By the time I dropped out (which wasn't very long), I was a metallurgy major. I spent the next 17.5 years working as a software engineer, until one day, I found myself sitting in a meeting where my boss was screaming at me and beating his fist on the table. I'd had enough; I wasn't about to wait around to see if he was going to take his shoe off and beat that on the table, too.
That got me to the University of New Hampshire to finish my BA, this time in Psychology, and then on to the University of Connecticut. Since then, I've discovered what life in a meat-grinder can really be like.
When I first wrote this, I found myself split between a full-time course-load, seeing clients after classes, working as a statistician at the local medical school, and consulting part time in the computer industry. Shortly after that, I got really busy, as evidenced by the fact that this web site hasn't really seen any decent updates in a zillion years.
Well, I still have to pay my bills, but now I'm doing a lot better job of that. How? By going back to the original sin: I'm hacking for hire again. Well, it seemed like the quickest way to get out from under all this debt. First, I worked for some large company (with big ears), and more recently, a much smaller company (without big ears).
Why am I not pursuing the profession of a clincian, happily shrinking heads and passing out bad advice? Because the most important lesson I've learned through this process is that People Suck and I don't really like them very much.
As I revise this, it's only been a bit over a year since finishing my degree, yet I'm already finding myself missing it. Sort of. I mean, this is the sort of thing that years from now, I'll look back on and laugh nervously about.
As a doctoral candidate, I got to do all sorts of fun things. For instance, I had the opportunity to teach a class in Abnormal Psychology, which one of my classmates pointed out was sort of like having a slide rule teach a math course. I also got to shrink young, impressionable student heads at some small New England college.
You know, part of my motivation for undertaking this Ph.D. thing in the first place was that I felt that my life had gotten too comfortable, and that I needed some kind of challenge in my life. After nine years of college (eleven if one counts my time served (I mean spent)) at the Colorado School of Mines), with seven of them spent working directly on the Ph.D., I can tell you that there's a lot to be said for comfort. At least I have been given some small token for my work.
In case you were wondering exactly how I've been wasting my time in graduate school, check out my master's thesis. On second thought, maybe you shouldn't. Perhaps more interesting is a short commentary on the mechanics of defending a thesis.
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