time to get serious here

[kyle_lawrence]

No, this isn't actually a serious deep discussion thread, but It is time for ME to get serious and take some initiative toward my future career. 

My local community college is offering a program in Health Information Technologies, to go along with the new Health Information bill.  For anyone not familiar with this, In the US, all hospitals and doctors offices are required to computerize all their patients records, and make them accessible at any hospital in the country through a new network.  This basically opens up tons of new jobs in IT and implementation of these systems, with a severe shortage of people trained on them.  The best part, the 6 month online training course is being offered tuition free through a government grant. 

I'm basically stuck in a dead end customer service job right now (and theres really no money in customer service...)  so I was super excited about this program and the potential salary and job security that could come out of it.  i applied a while back, took the reading comprehension placement test (98!  boo yeah!)  and then mis understood the schedule for the classes and registration.  The concentration I was most interested in doesnt start classes until Jan, which i interpreted as "I have more time to get my testing done and register".  Turns out I was wrong.

I finally called today and spoke to the head of admissions for the program, and was told that even though some of the courses don't start until Jan, registration still needs to be done now, and Orientation for the whole thing is this coming Saturday.  Crap.   So now I have until 8am tomorrow to complete the math placement test, and then also take an online test from home for computer information, basically the final exam from the Introduction to computer systems course the school offers, and score an 80% or better.   Luckily I have today off from work, so its all totally doable.  This is what I get for procrastinating, but at least I didn't completely F up and miss out on the classes. 

So now I'm off to the college to take the math test, and I'm a little worried because Math was never my strong suit.   I have taken several computer science classes before, so the other test should go smoothly.   Wish me Luck!   

//trying not to panic.....

[JungianZoe]

Absolutely wishing you the best of luck!   But something tells me you won't need it.  You'll do spectacularly!

[Sam-]

Good luck!

[Lee]

Good luck man  I hope it works out for you.

[JenJen2011]

Sounds great! Good luck with everything. Let us know how it goes.

[kyle_lawrence]

The math test went ok.  I somehow scored higher on the algebra section than arithmatic, which is aparently unusual.  Even though the arithmatic was lower than they usually like, my high algebra score should balance that out, according to the advisor I talked to after (who turned out to be my high school algabra teacher, from the year I failed algebra 2/trig.  Awkward.)  Off to take the Information and Computer Science test.  We'll see how good my professor actually was when I took a couple computer science classes at a community college in Chicago.

[anibioman]

good luck man, i hope you make it.

[VeryGnawty]

This thread title reminded me of one of the Megaman X games where Megaman X will sometimes yell "Time to get serious" in a really girly voice when he is shooting the bad guys.

[kyle_lawrence]

Ugh, dissapointing news today.  I didn't score well enough on the computer science test, so I'm not able to get into the program. 

The test turned out to be a lot more technical than I was expecting, with lots of questions related to databases and networking and SQL, basically topics that none of the computer info systems classes I took at a different college even touched on.  I'm definitely dissapointed, and feeling a bit lost now.  I had the next year planned out in my head with classes and looking for a new job, and now nnone of that is going to work out.   I'm angry that I put so much time and money into classes at a different school that turned out to be kind of useless.

I have set up in-home wireless networks, brought 'dead' computers back to life with Linux operating systems,  and have studied javascript, and html and flash and action script, and picked up all those skills easily, so It kind of bothers me that I know I could have picked up the material easily enough if I had been giving the opportunity to learn it.

I guess its time to come up with a new plan now.