So this should hopefully wrap everything up as it stands now. In my previous post I wrapped up by talking about my re-found interest in atmospheric science, and that it turned out it was more viable as a career than I had originally thought.
I started off my (new) search by writing emails to a few schools of interest. This included Penn State (again), but also included the University of Illinois, the University of Washington, and the University of Arizona. The emails were pretty basic - stating my interest, and asking a few questions about the program, how my academic background would affect my admission (and success), and what sort of research topics were open at the present time.
I should preface this by stating that whenever I emailed a professor in Engineering, here or at another school, if I got a response, it usually took 2 - 3 days. Even then, the response was short and typically not very helpful. This is also why Penn State's program was of interest since it broke this mold. For this reason, I was not overly optimistic about any responses I was about to get since I figured it was the way of the busy professor.
Much to my surprise, my first response came within 30 minutes. It was actually extremely helpful, advising me to contact a few other professors whose work would be of interest, talking about the nature of the program, and the process of being accepted. This one email had already trumped the overall helpfulness of every other engineering program I had contacted.
The next morning, I had a total of about 7 or 8 responses from the other professors I had emailed. Each of them was just as helpful as the previous, talking about their work, the work of others in the department, how I could be involved, and what the application process was like. The department head at one school even asked me for my number so he could call me in person and discuss the program in depth with me. That call was just as helpful as everything else that I had gotten, and cemented my feelings that I was on the right track.
Overall, I got an overwhelmingly positive response from these professors and the program in general. Not only did they all seem more interested in the students themselves, but the program was in general far more laid back, and even had the opportunity to steer my thesis topic as opposed to being constrained to whatever a company would sponsor.
The more laid back nature of the program at once excited and concerned me. I was (and to a point, still am) somewhat concerned about being bored academically. My mom made an excellent point, though, in that sometimes it's better to be overqualified for a position because it means you're never stressed out.
So now we arrive to today, after 3 entries encompassing the last semester of ups and downs. I had submitted applications to the graduate school in Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington, and the University of Illinois, and to the Meteorology program at Penn State.
As it stands, the University of Illinois is most interesting to me due to the overwhelmingly positive response I got from their faculty (their dept. head was the one who called me), the possibilities of getting involved in convective storm modeling, the involvement of one professor with the VORTEX2 project ('Twister' was a dramatization of VORTEX, and Storm Chasers follows VORTEX2), and the general open-endedness of their graduate program in terms of topics of study. There also seems to be funding readily available. Following that, Penn State is probably second and Washington is third.
The applications are submitted, references sent, scores entered, and all that other fun stuff making my application complete. From here, it's just a matter of waiting, and suffice it to say I will keep those reading here updated as it comes.
From here on, though, I'm hoping to focus a bit more on topics of interest to people other than me. Scientific developments, technology (I have a review of Linux/Debian in the works), and political movements. Should be interesting!
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