School
I’m done with school. The semester is over, finished on Wednesday. I also happened to have finished the last classes for my degree. For all intents and purposes, I have graduated. I’m not sure when it is official or what not. In fact, I’ve received almost no information on graduation, the ceremony, anything. As I recall at Kent, they were sure to tell us not only about the upcoming graduation but about the cap and gown we needed to purchase, etc. I was much more aware of what was going on. At Tri-C, I’ve only recently come to the conclusion that the ceremony is most likely only done once a year, in May. Not sure if I get my degree before then or what.
So now I have little to do. I have no job and no school, two of the more time consuming parts of my life thus far. I am considering taking another web-based class or two next semester. That could be nice if they aren’t too hard. If they are, it might be hard to enter into a full-time job (hopefully), work some freelance projects (hopefully), etc, and still do alright. If they are too easy, I might as well just get books and use online resources instead, and be able to learn exactly what I want at my own pace. I’m still thinking on this.
Jobs
As my monetary reserves drain, I am in the process of looking for a job, and will look much harder now than I had while still in school.
I did have promising possibilities come up at a recent Tri-C IT event.
Sewer District
I just had an interview with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. They are looking for someone for a one year coop position related to programming. At least at the beginning, it will involve updating Access databases, so it probably won’t be that web-involved. I might at some point be able to work on more web-oriented projects though.
This would probably be my first real interview, as my previous ones weren’t especially involved or rigorous. I’m kinda feeling like they will probably find better candidates for the position, especially a candidate who is still in school and could do a true coop. It could be for the better though, as I might fit better and learn more of what I’m interested in at a more web-oriented place. Still, I like working with databases and it could help expand my knowledge away from primarily web. And the job would be well paid, with the potential for a high paying job with good benefits after the coop.
ideastream
The other opportunity that may be available is with the public broadcasting organization ideastream. They run some TV channels, an NPR radio station, and other media, including Internet based media. They would probably have a lot of newer technologies and interesting things going on. I’d hopefully be able to learn a lot.
They don’t have a full-time or long term position available though. They had one short term project as a possibility, but that didn’t work out. They have another that may come up in a couple weeks. The nice thing about the short term position is that I wouldn’t be so tied down and could still be looking for something else. But of course I’d have to be looking for something else.
Freelance
The something else might be freelance projects. I’ve been looking into doing them, which could make for a very untied-down way of making money: In fact, freelance is one of the reasons I decided to pursue web-development so deeply. Of course it will have plenty of challenges. But I’ve been talking to Jason and Nadia from my Web II class about doing some projects together. We will be able to have a much wider knowledge base of web skills as well as help each other in figuring out the whole business part of it.
Jason and I will be working on a free job for a non-profit come January. We will be working on the Canine Lifeline site, a group that is trying to save animals from shelters that would otherwise be killed by housing them until they can be adopted.
It will not directly bring any money in, but should be very helpful in starting out. We should have a relatively easy start into freelancing together, without the monetary concerns of a pay project. We’ll start to figure out how we will work together on a project outside of school. We’ll also have a portfolio item and links to our sites there to get some traffic from folks who like our work.
Hopefully this will be the beginning of something good. I am currently very untied-down and could go in a variety of directions.