I'm going to school!

I got admitted to the master's program at Brown! I'm starting in January (spring term). I got the acceptance letter in late April, but I didn't write about it here because I hadn't mentioned it yet to the people at work. But last week the VP Eng let it slip during the weekly development meeting, so now I can share the news with the world at large.

I'm really excited. I've been trying to get into a master's program somewhere for a couple years now, but it's quite difficult to do without an undergraduate degree. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of a professor at Brown who fought for me from the inside.

One of the reasons why I took my current job is because I would be working with professors from three different universities (Brown, Brandeis, and MIT), and I hoped that somehow this would increase my chances of getting accepted. It worked: after I'd been working with him relatively closely for a few months, Stan Zdonik agreed to give me a recommendation, and talk directly to the people involved in the admissions process. A few months later, after much (MUCH) worrying, I received an acceptance letter.

I was so amazed I considered having the letter framed :)

I'm really looking forward to having the chance to concentrate full-time on computer science, as opposed to the industry-oriented software engineering that I've been doing for so many years.

I'm determined to make this a great experience.