It's been a while. A long time in time and much longer as far as life - changing events are concerned.
Around four months ago, I was in the thick of things in the management entrance exam scene and even managed a decent score (93.8 percentile is something I find acceptable at least), preparing for interviews when suddenly all that was turned on its head! I finally got a call accepting me into the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in their "Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering" graduate degree programme. At long last, a school I could afford to attend and I was only to happy to accept.
My perceptions of Alaska at that time was a wintery wasteland blanketed perennially in snow quite like the planet 'Hoth' from Star Wars. Truth be told, when I first stepped out of the Fairbanks airport, there was nothing in view to dispel that notion. The next few days only served to reinforce it. The sudden change from 40 degrees centigrade above zero to 40 degrees below combined with extreme jet lag meant that I was unavoidably sick. However, work was at hand and a ton of paperwork awaited me. Thankfully, modern medicine can work wonders. That along with Japanese thermal clothing technology gave me the edge to survive.
Bit by bit, my negative image of Alaska started to thaw as I came in contact with the people of the university. Unfailingly polite and abundantly cheerful, it was easier than I thought to adjust to the new environment. Course work piled on, work loads waxed and waned and exams rolled by.
It's been an odd few months. I went from being desperate to get into the right graduate degree programme to having multiple universities calling on me. I went from extreme heat to extreme cold and more importantly, I got used to it. But what stands out over everything else is the huge amounts left for me to learn in Petroleum Engineering. Learning new things, relearning and updating the old. It's a long journey on this road to mastering a science.
Around four months ago, I was in the thick of things in the management entrance exam scene and even managed a decent score (93.8 percentile is something I find acceptable at least), preparing for interviews when suddenly all that was turned on its head! I finally got a call accepting me into the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in their "Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering" graduate degree programme. At long last, a school I could afford to attend and I was only to happy to accept.
My perceptions of Alaska at that time was a wintery wasteland blanketed perennially in snow quite like the planet 'Hoth' from Star Wars. Truth be told, when I first stepped out of the Fairbanks airport, there was nothing in view to dispel that notion. The next few days only served to reinforce it. The sudden change from 40 degrees centigrade above zero to 40 degrees below combined with extreme jet lag meant that I was unavoidably sick. However, work was at hand and a ton of paperwork awaited me. Thankfully, modern medicine can work wonders. That along with Japanese thermal clothing technology gave me the edge to survive.
Bit by bit, my negative image of Alaska started to thaw as I came in contact with the people of the university. Unfailingly polite and abundantly cheerful, it was easier than I thought to adjust to the new environment. Course work piled on, work loads waxed and waned and exams rolled by.
It's been an odd few months. I went from being desperate to get into the right graduate degree programme to having multiple universities calling on me. I went from extreme heat to extreme cold and more importantly, I got used to it. But what stands out over everything else is the huge amounts left for me to learn in Petroleum Engineering. Learning new things, relearning and updating the old. It's a long journey on this road to mastering a science.
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