the grass may be greener in school
My attraction of going back to school is growing. That is an odd statement for somebody who spent almost nine years of evening classes to get a bachelors degree in Information Technologies. Nine years is a long time. The curriculum itself changed so many times while I was there, that I was able to choose among a plethora of new courses off of my traditional course path. I certainly didn’t take the easy path to the end, and wanted to make sure I squeezed as much as I could with my time there.
At first I thought it was the thought of knowledge itself drawing me back. Perhaps I am missing something that would help me more than what I have now. I know the curriculum continued to change without me around and that there is a whole new plate of classes to take.
I don’t need any more technology courses. What I miss is the ideology of being in an environment where you are surrounded by people who understand how the process works. I miss people knowing certain things as fact. Knowing nobody would actually question why things should be done, only focusing on the how. You see it is a lot more work to be in a system that doesn’t want to be helped.
If you are going to school for IT now, you will be given this great ability to be able to ease the pain and suffering of others. You will be able to deliver the technology they need which can truly empower them to work better. Unfortunately this ability comes with a curse.
The curse is that you won’t be able to use this power, because the system isn’t quite ready to accept your help. The curse is that you will have to watch the company you swore to protect, take the most difficult path imaginable to come to understand what you already know only after failing time after time again.
You will be asked to be involved, but it will be too late to save them. They will choose software without using a software development process, but it will be too late. Within seconds you will recognize not only where it will fail, but see what steps they could have done along the way to prevent how they got this far off course. Now if you tell them it has already failed you will be branded a traitor, written up for not being a team player and never approached with any level of trust again.
The education I had at RIT was excellent. Any technical class I absorbed like a sponge and I found myself finding value in those classes that first time students were sleeping through. It turned out that those classes like, needs assessment, persuasion and even human factors would add more value than you could imagine. What they don’t teach you is that you may have to help those who don’t want your help. They don’t teach you how to persevere when you are pushed away.
I look back to school and remember how much nicer it was, which creates that longing for me to return. While it is attractive, it is not where I need to be, for I am needed here.
