I was planning to write this post for long. But, it was getting delayed due to my laziness at my home.
In US, it is up to you when you want to graduate. When I joined my graduate program in Computer Science in University of Minnesota, the only thing in my mind was to finish the course as soon as possible and start with a job in India or US.
I was pretty much done with my course work by Fall 2011 with only 2 credits left out of total 31 credits. I was planning of applying for my graduation as soon as landed with an job offer . At the end of Fall’11 semester, I got a full time job offer from Dell – Compellent. At that point of time I had to decide when to graduate. That moment reminded me of my undergraduate days of MNNIT,Allahabad, India where all of my friends including me were wishing to have at least one more semester to enjoy the college life. I had the very same feeling while deciding whether to graduate in mid of Spring ’11 or wait till end of Spring’11 semester. I am not sure why but I again delayed my decision of graduation.
I waited till the last date of my appointment at MCTFR for fall semester. As my appointment as Research Assistance was renewed for Spring’11 semester also, I had to tell my end date for this appointment period. I was not sure whether MCTFR guys will agree for my half semester appointment. If they would have said no then I had no choice but to graduate at the end of Spring semester. But, the answer was Yes. They agreed for my appointment till mid of March.
When I was talking about my appointment till mid-March, I was happy that I would graduate soon (2 months early) on the other hand I was sad and upset. I worked in MCTFR from Fall 09. Sorry, I mean to say I enjoyed in MCTFR from Fall 09. All the facilities and privileges would only last till mid-march. There would be no free cookies/food, no sharing of stories with my colleagues. Most important, I would lose my big and spacious office with desktop. In MCTFR, I never felt like I was working there.
Also, after graduation I will be back to my same professional life which is a little bit boring. In my grad life, there was always a lot of excitement in the form of projects, assignments, events, free food or some sort of exam. Every day was different with different type of challenges and assignments. I was already missing my grad life in starting of Spring’11 as I had only one course but the rest of the time was filled with preparation for job interviews
All the things have to happen at some point of time and I had to decide when all this will happen. I was sad as I opted for sooner timeline for these.
Finally, I decided to fill my graduation after my EAD approval. My EAD approved in end of Feb and I applied for my graduation at the end April month. Graduation in mid-march gave me 2 months vacations at my home in India before starting my professional career again.
