Here I am at the end of another school term – I’m so done! with school for this term… for a person like me and several other guppies here who keep a full time job while studying, it’s quite an achievement.
Today, however, I wanted to share with you all how as life evolves and our thoughts, ideas and expectations change overtime, there are different things in life that make us happy. For those who’re familiar with Maslow’s Theory on Hierarchy of Needs, I guess I’m saying the same thing but just relating that to personal experiences.
Just to save you from the anguish of reading my entire biography, just starting from the beginnings of my academic and professional career, things that made me happy four years ago when I started my undergrad were:
As’ on my university transcript ; and
Job offers from anywhere and everywhere
As I moved onto finishing my undergrad studies, in the past two years, I noticed that I could care less about grades as I was splitting more time between work and studies and the work I did now was more meaningful than before – something that I could see being related to my longer term career goals. So as long as the resume’ looked good, I didn’t care about transcripts all that much as long as I got a B or better average.
Coming to grad school, again the expectations changed… now what mattered to me was the rate of callbacks from the places I applied for a position… just fun to put a price tag on my own head… grades do matter somewhat again but that’s due to the restriction that in order to maintain my scholarship, I need an A- average or better.
Today however, something has happened that has prompted me to write all this in the first place. I’ve gotten accepted into the World Congress for a paper that I’ve written, and re-written over and over and over again… it can get frustrating when someone tells you that your work sucks, but it’s a good feeling when in the end, they’re blown away by the model that you’ve proposed… the theoretical framework would change as a result of your findings etc. Its certainly a sweet feeling.
I guess what I’m saying is that as time goes by, I for one expect to see the contribution I make at my workplace or at school being recognized, and I want to see positive outcomes in the short-run to keep me going. This is one reason that recently, I’ve decided to switch my career track from a back-end I.T. person to more front-room consulting to interact with clients and propose solutions to their problems… there’s a greater level of satisfaction in this.
I know I’ve droned on about something seemingly obvious, but just wanted to say that the Hierarchy of Needs aint such a bad model after all …
I can feel Maslow turning in his grave listening to me recognizing his work ;–) … better late than never.