It’s 12/12/12 – ThinkGeek encourages us to go get a dozen doughnuts to celebrate, because the typical start-of-century repeated date convention won’t happen again until 2101 (when it’ll be 01/01/01 again, provided you abbreviate the year).

So, given that the world doesn’t end on December 21st, 2012 (visit this link by NASA to see why it’s unlikely, nay – improbable – that this will be the case) and I can receive funding in time, I’m going back to school at the local community college via online courses in Web Technologies, working towards an Associate’s degree to stack on my Bachelor’s. Later I might pursue another bachelor’s, but I really can’t seem to find a B.S. or B.A. in anything I give a crap about spending 4 years on. Community College

It’s nice for two reasons:

First, I’m getting tuition reimbursement through my employer, so I just have to come up with somewhere around USD $1000 to pay the tuition, and they’ll pay me right back for it each semester. I found out when I worked for the state of North Carolina I had built up a sizable retirement but I hadn’t been there 5 full years to be vested. However, that just means I won’t get the earned interest. I put in to withdraw this unexpected retirement money, and am hoping it comes in a timely fashion and clears my bank before January 4th so my classes aren’t cancelled.

Secondly, I applied to enroll, completed my FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) online, got my transcripts in to them, all the other stuff I’m supposed to do – before they told me to do it. So I got an advisor really fast who I emailed and talked to over the phone to look at my courses. I was able to provide him with an unofficial transcript by email and then course descriptions of my Computer Science and Computer Information Systems courses I took during Undergrad. It turns out that 9 of my courses transfer in, and even though I’m starting in the Spring 2013 semester in January, I’ll be on track with my classmates because I more or less covered the Fall semester’s courses from transfer credits.

I think my experience in tech support that I’ve been running away from all this time has also chased me away from programming, web design, graphic design, and computers in general for a job. Which left me hunting for something that would fulfill me and make me happy as a career. Project Management is great, and I have some coursework in it for postgrad, but most of what I’ve been doing for the last 16 months is Sharepoint and coding and Web Design. I enjoy it, despite its technical support components, but my plans for the new year will shift some of that responsibility out to the general user base and leave me to administer the site as a truly part-time responsibility while I take on other projects.

I like coding, problem solving, and system administration – I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it even if I’m not a master yet. So that’s why I’m going after this degree, so I can improve my knowledge in an area that interests me and maybe make a few programs or websites that actually bring about positive social change.