Back to School Special
For the past year, my blog has become more and more active. With the help of fellow bloggers linking to me, I now seem to be #1 on Google when you search for “kevin cheng” (with or without quotes). However, I have to admit that during this time, I haven’t been completely straight with you. I’m sorry and I beg for your understanding and forgiveness. You see, I am actually an alien from the planet Zork – all planets outside of the solar system begin with Z or X.
Wait, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. That’s the BIG secret. The small (itsy bitsy) one, was that I had been applying to grad school. I haven’t mentioned it publicly up until now because nothing was concrete and, given there was a significant chance (or as my friend says, non-zero probability) that it wasn’t going to happen at all, I didn’t want everyone in Austin to get their hopes up and start celebrating my departure.
Last year, Jeremy left to go to LSE for a masters. His move, along with my steadily increasing restlessness at Trilogy gave me some ideas. I decided I needed a Masters in my field (that being HCI – Human Computer Interaction for those that don’t know) in order to further my career; it’s ultimately a research job and most senior job postings I’d seen asked for at least a Masters if not a PhD. I also felt inadequate because I had no academic training in my field. Many spam e-mails have tried to cure my inadequacies but I don’t feel that they really know where my pain is. If only a spam came along that said “GET FORMAL TRAINING IN HUMAN FACTORS IN 10 DAYS WITH NO EXERCISE!” Boy I’d be over that like Hugh Hefner on generic prescription Viagra.
Anywho, after deciding on a Master’s, I had to decide on where. London became the destination of choice because:
Thus I began rolling the ball, setting up a portfolio, getting references (thank you Dr.Morkes and Dr.Dill), revising my CV and writing my personal statement.
November came and I was running between about 4 projects at Trilogy but not learning a lot. Then I was moved to a sales cycle – in London! I took the opportunity to visit the two schools I had found interesting programs in: University of Bath and Interaction Centre at University College London (UCL). Both the directors I met were great in their own way and offered insight into their respective programs. The advantages of each:
UCL
University of Bath
In the end, I was accepted by UCL and shortly thereafter, University of Bath accepted me despite my failing to mail a copy of my degree certificate (which they had pointed out was necessary for a complete application before processing). I decided on UCL for the reasons above and will start in September. It’s going to be an exciting time for Kat and I. Kat will will be trying to find an interior design job here in London after she gets a working holidaymaker visa (if anyone has leads for jobs, let us know!).
I will miss Austin and even Trilogy but will dwell more on those points later. For the moment, let’s all be vultures and focus on the important question: what is Kevin Cheng selling?
6 Comments