College. Again.

12 years ago I failed out of UNH because I discovered that I was really good at, and felt the need to do more than anything else, drinking large amounts of alcohol. I bounced around from job to job until I ran out of gas 7 years ago. Big thanks to Mum & Dad for helping me get out of that rut. I've always viewed my non-degree status as one of my largest personal failures.

It's also interesting to note that I have yet to achieve sober the same salary I made when I was a drunk.

I have a very eclectic skill set and when I combine that with no degree, it makes it really hard to position myself well for potential employers. Sure, I might be really good for them, but in this economy they're unlikely to take a chance on a guy who's been out of the engineering game as long as I. So, since the jobs are scarce and mine seems fairly stable at the moment, I figured it was a good time to go back to school. I've been looking for over a year now for something, and I found it.

I enrolled at NHTI in Concord, and today was accepted into the Animation and Graphic Game Programming Associate's degree program. I don't need a full-blown B.S. degree right now, just a bit of re-positioning to mold my various skills into a semi-coherent and marketable package. The classes are at night, the faculty seems qualified, and recent graduates have secured jobs at various game houses in the Boston area - where I'd like to move to in the next few years.

So I'm in college. Again. But this time around, I'm the old (and sober) guy in the back.