Grad School

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

What I'm learning from quarantine is that my commute was not the reason I was dissatisfied in grad school, even if it wasn't exactly a perk. I already knew I didn't want to go into academia, but I'm decreasingly interested by the prospect of finish my master's degree. Of course, dropping out isn't really a good idea, either, because I couldn't get a job when the economy was "good", and now the economy in general and the aerospace industry in particular are getting hammered pretty bad.

I think the problem is bigger than that, though. Unless I am full hilt in design, my side projects hold more appeal to me than virtually any assignment a professor could give. From what I've heard about engineering and technology as a broader industry, that'll probably be true unless I get a job in a properly dynamic design organization—which seems unlikely, given how little luck I've had with the hiring process.

The alternative, of course, is dusting off my notes from Entrepreneurship and starting my own company. I think I may have found a market gap where I could actually create something of value without an absurd about of venture capital or creating a new market from scratch. (Nuclear rockets, I love you, but there's no demand for the foreseeable future. One day I'll come back for you!) Obvious this is a terrible time to be looking for VC, but right now I have to get through the rest of the semester, and then I'd need at least a few weeks to develop the idea before I could even start to ask investors if it seems like a worthwhile idea. So I wouldn't be looking until June at the earliest, and the economy might have regained its footing by late Q2 or early Q3.

That's my hope, at least. Anything to salvage my dreams of true innovation.