Uni: Paying for school

Oh, yeah, here's the elephant in the room. My fellow student bloggers never really touched on the massive cost of going back to school, especially at a really expensive place like St. Louis University.
No offense intended to the school with that remark. Believe me, the quality of education I received from the instructors was extremely high (not intending to diss my community college teachers at all, but, you could tell the difference, sorry).

I will have some follow-up commentary on dealing with student loan debt in a unique summary post I will share after my existing posts have gone live.

Originally posted March 1st, 2011:

Since this blog was launched, we’ve been telling you about our experiences, in school and in life, and given some information as to how we’ve coped, or what we’ve given up, and what we’ve gained.
But, one thing we haven’t delved too deeply into is… how we’ve been paying for it.

Compensation
I’ll start first with the value of compensation for a job. I work for a non-profit, and I’ve been faced with the fact many times over the years that I could be earning a higher salary in private industry. Of course, my desire for higher wages has been balanced by job security, a decent amount of vacation and other benefits… such as educational support.
My employer* allows all employees (as long as they’ve not received corrective actions in a given calendar year) a certain amount of annual educational support to the institution of their choice, as long as their major is approved as applicable to the organization (so, my degrees in Drafting Technology and Computer Science were quickly approved, whereas a degree in Aeronautical Engineering probably wouldn’t be).
Though my employer* is generous, the organization cannot afford to pay for all of my classes. So I’ve had to supplement with other methods.

FAFSA
The free application for federal student aid is your first and foremost help, so start there. You provide information from your tax return and other personal information and – voila – you’ve applied to programs such as the Pell Grant and 8 other federal student aid programs, as well as state and institutional aid.
This will also be your gateway to student loans to cover the rest of your expenses.

Scholarships
Private scholarships are another method to obtain funding for your university education.
There are many resources offered by Saint Louis University.  I will warn you that these scholarship applications can be quite time-consuming. Most of them will also require letters of recommendation from multiple people. I’d suggest lining up a handful of folks who really, really, really like you and would be willing to pound out a ton of these, because each program will be requesting different information.

With that said, there are specialty scholarships that you might qualify for that others do not. I’ve seen scholarships for left-handed people, for single mothers, for women in computer science, those with disabilities… just about anything you can imagine is used as a criterion for some specialty scholarships. It may seem like a lot of work when you look at the applications, but, ask yourself if writing a 500-word essay and filling out a form is worth the chance at a $500 scholarship?

Books
In order to pay for my books, I have worked on Amazon.com’s crowdsourcing program, Mechanical Turk. I can either receive my payments in cash, or use them for purchases on Amazon.com. As students, we’re eligible for a free year of the Amazon Prime program, which gets us free shipping on many orders.
[I believe that after a year of free Amazon Prime, you can also get 1/2 price annual fees for so long as you're a student. They didn't have the amazon streaming video service back then, but, my house uses it now, streamed through a Roku box, it's great for free older movies and tv shows, and for renting new movies.
There are also more crowdsourcing programs available, even for mobile devices, such as iPoll and GigWalk, check them out if you need to earn a few bucks.]

Paying the Piper
I’m sure there are other programs and options out there to help us keep our costs down, and to help us drum up extra support, so we’re not paying so many out-of-pocket costs for our educational expenses. A bit of up-front effort can really pay off, so be sure to do your research and fully utilize the resources your employer and the school provide.

When I graduate, I will have student loans. I’m not thrilled about that [I hate carrying debt of any kind.]. But, these loans are only a fraction of my educational expenses at SLU, due to the support I received from my employer and the grants that I have received.

Photo Credit: http://www.123rf.com/photo_2983021_blackboard.html
* all opinions expressed on this blog, and anywhere else I write online, represent my own opinions and not those of my employer nor it's affiliates.

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Uni: On the downward slope of the mountain

Continuing to share posts from my educational journey at St. Louis University.

(photo of Mt. Rainier in Washington, from the back yard of my Gram's house. I took this in 2005 on my last trip out there.)

Originally posted August 30th, 2010: 

I always wished I’d been able to complete my Bachelor’s Degree. I’d even gone as far as requesting degree and class details from different schools over the years. [edit: even ones that couldn't tell the difference between Engineering and English when sending me information on the requested degree program. ~eyeroll~]

But, once I sat down and counted up the credits I needed and thought about how long they would take me, I was too discouraged to seriously consider starting. It didn’t seem even remotely feasible.
Then I heard about a new educational initiative at work. At the kickoff, they held some informational sessions explaining how the program worked. They were going to partner with SLU’s School for Professional Studies, and we would take five compressed classes per year in order to get all of our prerequisites out of the way. That sounded far better than taking one class per semester at a traditional school, which would only get me three classes per year.

I was more than a bit scared at the beginning, because I’d never done all that well in school before. But, being able to take one class at a time with my coworkers seemed much less intimidating than striking out on my own. I told myself that I could do just about anything for nine weeks, so I could get through the class.

I spoke with my husband and told him this program would last a couple of years and would only get me part way, but we agreed that I’d never be able to finish if I didn’t start.
So, I signed up for the program through BJC*. Then, I got through the SLU paperwork. Then, everyone’s favorite…we took Math and English tests to gauge our skills.

And I got through the first class…then the second one…and by the time I was close to the end of my first year, I’d realized I could do it. I could take classes at the University and even manage to do well.
Of course, then I realized that if I only took five classes a year, I’d be in school a lot longer than I really wanted.

Time to speak to my husband again! I told him I wanted to increase my course load. That meant a little less ‘me’ time to help out with the house and the kids, but it meant I could finish school in three or four years, rather than seven or eight, and he said he was willing to take on more of the load at home.

So, I filled out a FAFSA. I got a Pell Grant and arranged student loans (to cover the additional classes, which were not covered by my employer).

Then, I went in to schedule my courses. I wanted to take two at a time. But, I only scheduled two at once when I could take one on the campus and one entirely online. Some semesters I only had one class, but the remainder I was taking two at once.

That’s a lot harder, I’ll admit it.

The terms when I have two classes are more tiring, more stressful and sometimes overwhelming, but I still feel like I’ve managed to process and retain the information. It’s not easy, but, it’s attainable. I take my quizzes or tests online at night after the kids go to bed. I write discussion group posts and papers during my lunch hour at work. And one night a week I’m in class with my peers.

Now, here I am, two and a half years into this experience. I’ve just started my 19th and 20th classes at SPS, and I hope to graduate with my Bachelor’s in Organizational Leadership and Technology at the end of 2011.

Looking back, I remembered how daunting the task in front of me seemed.
Along the way, I remembered how tired and occasionally frustrated I got.
Approaching the end, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I can read job postings I’m not quite qualified for and think how much closer I am to meeting their qualifications.
I can look at my kids and think of them watching me graduate and completing this great goal.
I can look at my husband and think how my greater income will improve our quality of life.
But, mostly, I can look at that mountain I was so daunted by a couple of years ago and realize that I’m on the downward slope, all as a result of having taken that first step.

* all opinions expressed on this blog, and anywhere else I write online, represent my own opinions and not those of my employer nor it's affiliates.

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Uni: Core classes are a boring waste of time

Continuing to share the posts I made as a student blogger at Saint Louis University.

(In this post, I mention some more of the classes I took, if you'd like to see a complete page describing all of the courses in my degree programs, they can be found here on my blog.)

Originally Posted May 20th, 2010:

I always thought that I hated school. But, in later high school I was able to schedule some specialized classes and really enjoyed them. When I started college, I felt the same way. The general education courses were ‘boring’ and ‘hard’ and ‘pointless’, since they weren’t what I was going to school to learn, but the specialized classes were fascinating because they appealed to me.

I drudged through and completed my Associate’s Degree with that viewpoint firmly intact.
As I mentioned in a previous post, BJC* started a ‘Bridges to Bachelor’s’ program that would allow mid-career professionals to take all of their core classes to get them well on the road to completing their degrees. Even though I thought those core classes were a burden, I signed up because I realized what a great opportunity BJC* was offering.

Our first class was ‘Learning Strategies and Processes’ (PST 100). We re-learned how to do all of those things we’d been used to years ago as students. We analyzed our own learning styles, practiced writing and speaking, and basically got back into an academic mindset while learning to cope as ‘non-traditional’ students.

As I moved into ‘Approaching the Arts‘ and ‘Origins of the Modern World‘, I wasn’t all that thrilled about getting started, as I’d taken art history and world history in high school and college. I thought they’d be boring.

Okay, I confess, I was wrong. There!
Sure, there was a lot to cover, and we had a ton of work to do, but, we debated, we discussed, we compared. The classes, helped by the professors and the other students, were INTERESTING.

By the time I’d moved into ‘Introduction to Philosophy‘ and ‘Theological Foundations‘, I’d noticed a certain continuity. I felt that each class really prepared me for the one after it, and with each successive course, I was able to learn more and more because I had a better base to draw from.
That brought me through a full year of schooling, and I decided to increase my courseload.
My summer classes last year were really the tipping point where I made the full conversion from someone who disliked school to someone who absolutely LOVED IT.

I took American Politics, which I was certainly never interested in before. There was SO much material to cover with regard to the many layers of society and government. I was a little embarrassed that most of the other students seemed to know so much about the subject already, so I did every suggested reading from the teacher as well as those mentioned by the other students.

The following term I took Survey of Economics and Ethics. I had felt the same way about others knowing more than me, so I kept Wikipedia open almost all day long.
Every topic, every historical reference, every law, every CEO opened up a whole new world of understanding. Suddenly, I was understanding topical references in watercooler conversations that had flown over my head before.

Now that I’m into my Organizational Studies and Information Systems classes, I’m constantly being reminded of things I learned in those core classes. I’ve been able to speak up in Organizational Foundations about things I learned in Ethics and Economics and that feels really good. I know that I’m contributing to my classes the way I’ve seen other students contribute… and it’s starting to be reflected in my office as well.

I had to thank my instructor because I was recently chatting with some of my peers (although they were a step or two up the ladder from me in organizational structure), and someone brought up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs… which we’d JUST studied in class. I was able to fully participate in a higher-level conversation with some really brilliant people as a direct result of my horizons being broadened by the curriculum that I thought I didn’t even ‘need’.

It really hit me after that point that I wasn’t just here at SLU to learn a trade. I wasn’t just here to improve my career prospects or make myself more marketable.
I’m here becoming a more well-rounded person who is better able to connect with even more people in the world around me.
Conclusion being, core studies must not be a waste of time after all.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/2442045767/
* all opinions expressed on this blog, and anywhere else I write online, represent my own opinions and not those of my employer nor it's affiliates.

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Uni: Getting Started

When I attended St. Louis University, I was part of their Adult Student Blogging team. I see that no one has posted since my last semester and comments have been turned off, so I assume (eventually) that blog will disappear.
This week, I am going to be sharing the posts that I made there, if you'd like to know how my adult journey back to school went.

Originally posted March 20th, 2010.

I completed my Associate’s Degree in 2002, but, just so happened to be pregnant with my first child at the time. I wasn’t able to immediately continue with my education as I’d planned due to many constraints… we’ll call them ‘life’ for short. I always wanted to return to school and complete my Bachelor’s Degree, but there just never seemed to be enough of me to go around.

In the spring of 2008 my employer, Barnes-Jewish Hospital*, announced a new program to help mid-career professionals further their education. We were partnering with SLU’s School for Professional studies, which brought SLU instructors to our campus one evening a week for some intense, but short, general education classes. We could take one class at a time, five classes per year, and slowly earn the credits we’d need.

I couldn’t pass up such a great opportunity to go back to school. I have been working in my current job since 2000, and while I love what I do, I’d really like to be promoted and advance in my career at some point.

Of course, nothing ever goes quite as planned. Two weeks before my first class was supposed to start, my husband and I found out we were expecting our second child. Well, I thought about it, and informed him that I was NOT going to be derailed this time. He really stepped up when my typical first trimester exhaustion was compounded by one really long day per week and homework, he even learned to cook! Our older son helped me a lot, too, and even read books to the baby while I rested.
My instructors definitely ran challenging courses, but they were always willing to allow me to make up or reschedule work to accommodate doctor appointments and time off.

Before my second son was born, my husband and I realized we wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of quality infant care, so he officially became a stay-at-home Dad. This move did necessitate a few sacrifices in the family budget, but the convenience allowed me to increase my course load after a year. I’m currently trying to take two classes at a time, in the terms in which I can take one online class along with one on-ground class.

I’m currently taking my fourteenth class through SPS, and it looks like I should be able to complete my Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership and Technology at the end of 2011. Wish me luck.

Photo Credit: http://www.123rf.com

* all opinions expressed on this blog, and anywhere else I write online, represent my own opinions and not those of my employer nor it's affiliates.

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Almost that time again... salary survey time

I will be posting the Salary Survey again soon (it is published in the September issue of AUGIWorld Magazine, so I like to take August to calculate the results, and run it for 6-8 weeks).

At any rate, as I mentioned in this post ( http://mistressofthedorkness.blogspot.com/2012/07/augi-2012-salary-survey-is-revamped.html ). Previously, I had between 10-15 questions, primarily focusing on salary, but, now:

This year's survey consists of 25 questions, roughly broken down into four areas:

• Your demographic
• Your role
• Your company demographic
• Your industry's state

As always, prior to launching the survey, I go back through all of the emails I've received regarding the survey for inspiration. BUT! if you take a look at the 2012 survey results and come up with any suggestions, now is the time to send them in to me (remember the FAQs, too).

And, don't forget, some of the other authors like to throw in additional information and advice on salaries and management cares. Have something specific you'd like to see in your favorite AUGIWorld column? Contact one of the Content Managers to make a suggestion. They have an 'editorial calendar' that gives them a specific theme to follow each month, but, for September, they and their authors can come up with their own ideas.

Oh, and a refresher on the questions (remember, it's always anonymous, in no way connected to your username):
Demographic

•     What is your gender?
•     What is your age?
•     Where are you located?
•     Where is your workplace located?
•     What is the highest level of education you have completed?
•     How many years have you worked in the industry?
•     What is your annual salary? best estimate of your base pay, plus any normal bonuses, commissions and overtime.
•     How has your salary changed in the past year?
•     Have you experienced a change in employment in the past 12 months?

 Job

•     Job Title
•     Industry
•     Markets Served / Specialties (if applicable, multiple selections allowed)
•     What is your overall level of Job Satisfaction?
•     How Secure do you feel your job is?

Company

•     How many years have you worked for your current employer?
•     How many people does your company employ?
•     What is the average number of hours you work per week?
•     What employee benefits are available to you?
•     How did you find your current role?

Industry

•     Has your company done any of the following in the past 12 months?
•     If you are thinking about quitting your job, what factors played a role in your decision?
•     Do you run CAD / BIM in the Cloud?
•     (if applicable) What percentage of your company's projects are BIM?
•     If you are using BIM, why?
•     How connected are you? new question for 2013

 I look forward to examining our industry with you, please remember how valuable your information is and take part in the survey once it is live!

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I am moved

Anyone who might happen to follow me on Twitter or who has befriended me on Facebook or circled me on Google+ knows that I've been preoccupied with an office move recently. Really, it's a project that has kept me occupied over the past three years, as our department was one of the last to be decanted from 400,000 square feet of buildings on the chopping block. Finding temporary homes for all of the displaced functions was, luckily, the job of the project management and real estate teams at the corporate level. But, I did have to provide documentation from the current and proposed spaces for each of these moves, depending on the adaptations needed for each.

I was just reading a post from Life of An Architect's Bob Borson this morning. He's starting a new job, but, his post about what was in his office, and what it meant to him, reminded me that I wanted to share with you a reflection on how my work has changed here over the past decade+, but, mostly over the past five years (since my last office move).

I'm currently in an office, but, I'm certain that our next move will take us to a cube farm, so, these observations the engineers and I made as we moved are a good thing.

First things first, the drafting table. I was tempted not to even bring this along during our move. It's not been used as a drafting table since maybe the early 90's, about half a dozen people before me. (If you notice the legs are a bit short, it's because the Director used to have it in his office about 20-30 years ago, and cut it down to be the same height as his desk, so that he could scoot between them.)
My facility has not accepted paper closeout documents (record docs, as-builts whatever you call them) since 2001 or 2002, but, yet, people still insist on sending multiple copies to the Engineering team (when my boss only asks for one set, because he gives them to the mechanics). I keep them, until I can verify that I've got the DWG or RVT files from that project (many times I do not, but, that's a separate rant ;) ).

The engineers used to use this table for plan reviews all the time, but, they've gotten more and more comfortable with reviewing plans on their computers, or on the workstations I set up around the campus, which have larger monitors.
This plotter is on the chopping block, too, because we just don't do all that much printing anymore.

As I moved, I dumped sets and sets of reference drawings that I used to be asked for constantly (when asked for a common set in B or D sized, I'd run off multiple and keep them handy for the next person coming through, it was a brilliant move that saved me loads of time, I assure you). However, it's been years since I've been asked for a paper set of drawings. Most of the (non-engineering) folks that want to do markups on a set, just ask for PDF from us. ~recycling the remainder~ I think I can also comfortably dump the set of riser diagrams that were always kept in the engineering department's file room (getting in the way, but, luckily on a wheeled rack), because, the engineers and lead mechanics that usually need to reference them are now doing so electronically.

Inside that drafting table is a little something special...

Until just a couple of years ago, there were also some slide rules and other engineering templates resting within this time capsule. Those belonged to my Great-Grandfather, who was a Civil Engineer in Southern California. He came to live with us as he and Great-Grandma got older. After he passed away, my Grandfather kept his things in a box in the garage. And, after my Grandfather passed away, my Dad took over the garage. After my Dad moved out, I took over the garage and have kept them since I was a teenager. Obviously, I never did manual drafting professionally, myself, but, I kept them as a connection to my G-G. And, as a 'wanderer', I left them here in my office, which has stayed fairly constant for 13 years, while I changed personal addresses quite often. Now that I'm settled down in a nice house in the burbs, I've brought them home and showed them to my sons, who can inherit them from me one day (if they ever want to open a museum, of course ;) ).

Now, my desk doesn't show much outward change, but, when I moved into my last office and took this furniture (we scavenge okay, we don't get a big move budget like the money-making departments), I filled up these 5 file drawers and 8 smaller drawers and had loads of paper organizers on the work surface, too. 

I had binders for each of the projects I had managed. I had markups from the projects the engineers ran, markups from mechanics for changes they'd made or noticed in the field, tons of cd's and disks people would submit or find for me, and (this is my favorite) a paper copy of every work request made to me between 2000 and 2009.

Now that we've got more reliable IT backup, I no longer worry about files disappearing (which they'd done before, unfortunately), I can let go of the paper backup copies. I never open these binders.

It was fun running across some things, like the directory printout from when I started and there was NO filing system on the server yet, because no one was in charge of it (I had IT lock it down so only myself and the ME could write to it).

So, all of those drawers? They're now filled with equipment. Cables and cords, a couple of laptops, a projector (which I need to replace with something newer, by the way ~note to self~), my toolkits (for computer and plotter repairs) and sundry.

I'll admit that many of the binders remaining in my overhead storage could disappear. All of my AU handouts there on paper are now available in the AUGI forums, so I really don't need them on paper, nor some of those project binders I inherited when I took on various roles (from our Cabling Coordinator and Programmer when they left), but, I still have a hard time letting go.
And I don't need too much space to store CD's/DVD's anymore, since most of my file distributions are done via FTP or similar.

I even have a folder full of the furious notes I took at a meeting back in 2003 when I first heard of CAFM and Archibus and the whole world of data management gloriously opened to me.
For the past few years, I've taken notes electronically on my laptop, and in the last couple of years, I take the notes or work requests electronically on my iPhone and email them to myself, or access them from Evernote or Google Docs as appropriate.
There is a challenge in explaining to some of the luddites that I'm not 'texting' or playing games, I'm taking notes, and that's slowly overcoming the prejudice I initially encountered.
But, everyone else in the office has been switched to iphones recently, so there are a lot more multi-media notes from site visits, which is great. Also, during our own office renovation, no one thought to bring copies of the plans with us, so I pulled up the dwg file I'd emailed to myself on AutoCAD WS (now Autodesk 360 for mobile).

And so...
I started working with CAD very young and have felt like I was dragging my company kicking and screaming into the light. The move from paper to CAD, now the move from CAD to BIM (expect about 15 years for each technology shift, that's how we roll in a company this large, no matter the department). Five years ago, during our last move, things had improved slightly, but, since then, things have progressed more rapidly.
I look forward to that trend continuing.

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Performance Optimizer from Dell

I'm a bit spotty about what press releases I pass on here on my blog, mostly because I don't find many of them very interesting (sorry, no offense to the vendors who have taken the time to share such valuable information with me, but, I've got a terribly short attention span).

But! I couldn't resist scheduling a meeting with Dell about their new performance optimizer. I remember the days when I first started using AutoCAD professionally, and picked up advice on the AUGI Guilds and Forums and elsewhere about how to tweak paging files and memory allotments, because standard Windows configurations just weren't made with more powerful programs in mind and neither our IT department nor my department's programmer had any idea about how Autodesk software worked.
Of course, software for engineering and analysis and animation has only gotten more complex since then, so I can imagine that there are many people out there who could benefit from some more packaged settings adjustments for their workstations.

Enter the Dell Precision Performance Optimizer.
The PPO has three different basic functions:

• Performance Optimization
• Maintenance 
• Analytics

Performance Optimization allows for the automatic loading of 'profiles' based on the application you run. These profiles will adjust the CPU, memory, storage, graphics and operating system settings when you load a program.
I specify the loading because, if you work as I do, with multiple applications loaded all day, you could be calling into play conflicting profiles. The ideal situation, if you're working with one of the more resource intensive programs out there (like Maya, PTC or Solidworks), would be to only have one of these applications loaded at a time. I don't tend to run more than one memory-intensive program at a time, but, as I have many other applications running simultaneously, I figured I should ask. This has been taken into account with the PPO. If you've got multiple profiles loading with your apps, then the user is prompted to decide which of the conflicted settings to utilize.

Maintenance function enables "automated or manual updates for new drivers, BIOS, application software, firmware and other vital components", which can save a user from forgetting about searching for them.

Tracking and Reporting. This was a fun addition to the Performance Optimizer that I wasn't expecting. With this component, you can see "how much free memory is available, processor utilization, thermal sensor data, battery state and more. Detailed reports can be scheduled to run and analyze system utilization at any time."
The application that came immediately to mind for me is justification for system upgrades. I have had to request a few deviations from IT standards over the years (first for my graphics card, then my mouse, then my CPU and OS) and the requests that went through the most easily were the ones where I had independent verification of my need.
This can be used to check out work loads for various tasks and applications. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of benchmarking and analytics and know that once you've got some data in your hands, you'll find many ways to use it.

The press release from Dell said that their benchmarks indicated that the performance optimization with these profiles can increase system performance by up to 57%. If you end up adding this tool to your arsenal, run some tracking and reporting on your current setup, then compare once you start using some of the profiles for your favorite heavy duty programs.

Oh, and, just because I asked, the PPO isn't a central management console, it's really meant for use by an individual, but it will, of course, work into your current IT administration systems and can be scripted or remotely accessed on the client side, etc as other tools.

The performance optimizer is free and can be downloaded here:
[oops, sorry, they said the link isn't working, I'll post an update when I get it]
and it will come "pre-installed on Dell Precision T1650, T3600, T5600, T7600, M4700 and M6700 workstations with Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit) and Windows 8 (64 bit) operating systems."

There should be an in-depth video available here. And a blog post.

Many thanks to Karl Paetzel (Marketing Director, Dell Precision) and Alex Shows (Sr. Systems Engineer for Precision Performance Engineering) for taking the time to explain the PPO to me and answer my questions.

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