Spring 2026 is officially over. Four courses completed. And after submitting the final exam for the last course, I experienced a feeling unfamiliar to graduate students: Silence. No deadlines.No discussion boards.No professor casually posting: “Just one final reminder.” That sentence alone has caused more stress than actual exams. The strange part is that this is already my second master’s degree.
Tag: lifelong learning
The Academic Finish Line After Fall 2026, something strange will happen. I will officially be done with school. Not “taking a break.”Not “considering another program.”Not “thinking about a certificate.” Done. At that point I will have earned two undergraduate degrees and two master’s degrees. That is already more time in classrooms, lecture slides, discussion boards, and research papers than I
Learning should not be cruel. But it should never be padded. I withdrew. Not with anger. Not with a manifesto. Just with the quiet certainty that staying would be dishonest. I enrolled in the local tech courses because I needed structure. Real structure. The kind that forces discipline when motivation runs dry. I am paying out of pocket. I am
Progress is not loud. It is documented. This week, I submitted my graduation petition for the Project Management Certificate Program at Folsom Lake College, a program I started in Spring 2024. No ceremony. No applause track. Just a confirmation screen and an email that quietly says, you finished what you said you would finish. That is enough. Why Project Management
Progress is quiet. It looks like finished work, closed phases, and the discipline to move on without applause. It’s Been a While It’s been a while since I wrote something here. Yes, I’ve been busy. Busy in the unglamorous way. The way that does not photograph well and does not come with motivational captions. The kind of busy that does
In a world where everyone’s pretending to be an expert… I found myself whispering Denning’s words like a prayer. Not because I had just started in tech. Not because I was a student. But because I was—and still am—the solo IT Administrator at a public utility. The guy behind the firewall, under the server rack, resetting your password, hardening your
Fair warning: this post takes a bit of reading and includes a little language and a lot of honesty. There are people who journal. People who meditate. People who wake up at 5 a.m. and go for mindful walks. My wife is one of those people. She does yoga and drinks her tea hot. Me? I make the coffee, open