I thought that having all of this time off would allow me to accomplish more things. I thought that having this time off would allow me to go through the basement and unpack all of my boxes, go to the gym basically all the time, go rollerblading, take care of errands�. And I�ve done little of the above. I mean, I have started going through the boxes, but that project came to a halt when I started interviewing, and I haven�t really gone back since. I have been going to the gym nearly every day, but I�m not spending the amount of time there that I pictured I would be. I most certainly haven�t been keeping up my cleanliness habits and most of the time, I forget about the errands that I need to get done.
It�s like this city, combined with joblessness, sucks you into this void of sheer laziness. I need to break this cycle, but I�m just more content to just sit around and watch er reruns. I wonder if this is the �burning out� that everyone else experiences. It just hit me when I was all through.
How strange.
Anyway, I went to a job fair yesterday afternoon�my only task for the day (aside from my pilates class later in the evening). It wasn�t bad, but I had no idea that there were so many tech people out of work. I mean, it wasn�t just students there; there were older folk too, and they were talking about how many months they�d been out of work.
That, of course, scares me.
I got a very positive sign from one company, and I�m currently anxiously awaiting some kind of contact from them. There was another company, which I stood over a half an hour in line for (just to give them my resume). There were a couple of students in front of me from Michigan Tech and one behind me from Oakland. The Oakland girl wasn�t graduating until December, so she was only looking for an internship. It turned out that we went to high schools in the same district�and come to think of it�I never learned her name. Anyway, her company didn�t have the budget to hire her either, so she anxiously realized that she needed to get her butt moving to find a new internship.
The two guys in front of me were, strangely enough, chemical engineers from Michigan Tech that graduated last year. I didn�t even know that Chem E�s had a hard time finding jobs. I thought that major was so difficult that they snapped them all up before they graduated. That, also, scared me.
I found out later that the reason they were having such a hard time was that 1) they were trying to find work in Michigan and 2) their GPA�s weren�t that high.
I was lucky, though, with my GPA.
At the beginning of the semester, I had both a cumulative and technical GPA of 3.4 (the tech GPA is basically all math and science classes only). I had a plan to 4.0 this entire semester, just so that I could say that I did it. I came damn close too.
I ended up getting a 3.0 in my online packaging class because the professor decided to screw me over.
I�m not actually sure if I explained what happened with that�.and I don�t feel like struggling with dialup to check�so I�ll just reexplain it.
My grade, in packaging, was on the dividing point. We had one final assignment, this stupid �design� problem regarding baby food jars. When I hear �design�, I think like an engineer and assume that I have to design something. Apparently, packaging doesn�t hold the same bar, and all I had to do was write a paper (using the packaging stuff that I was supposed to learn all semester) about what would happen if a company switched from glass to plastic baby food jars. I wrote a wonderful paper about the pros and cons of it. It, since the professor was a dick, was due on Easter Sunday. Since I was going to be home for Easter Sunday (as I�m sure most of the �class� was), we had the option of turning it in by sliding it under his door in the Packaging Building by midnight, or by faxing it in. I decided to fax it in.
In fact, I faxed it in early, on Saturday, because I knew of the massive amounts of people would be turning theirs in at ten to midnight on Sunday evening. I got the confirmation page back saying it was faxed with a copy of my cover sheet.
For some odd reason, which is still unknown to me, the prof claimed that he never got it. I turned in a new copy with the proof that I sent it in and he still ended up giving me only half credit (for it being late). My options were to file an administration action form against him, but he was going in for surgery and wouldn�t be able to fix anyone�s grades until late May.
Yeah, what an asshole.
Anyway, I ended up with a 3.0 instead of a 3.5.
Then�my VHDL professor accidentally gave me a 3.5 through some kind of grading mistake and didn�t fix it until the day of graduation. Therefore, with the new changes in place, my GPA was exactly a 3.5.
I could have graduated �with honors� at graduation.
No big deal, I still have the GPA.
Anyway, while I was turning in my resume at these companies, I heard this HR person yelling at this poor kid that they only accept resumes of people who have a 3.5 or higher.
A 3.5 in engineering! Wow, I�ve heard of companies accepting 3.0�s or better, but never as high as 3.5�s! That�s pretty hard to do in engineering.
But�.at least I did it! Tee hee!
Hopefully, I�ll hear something from this one particular company because I really really want to work there.
