I’ll take some time this week to talk about my time as a student at KU. My time at KU really starts back in 2005 when I started applying for the Navy program I attended KU under. The program is called Seaman to Admiral and it is the over arching enlisted commissioning program that the Navy runs where a couple hundred sailors a year are selected to attend college and ultimately earn commissions as officers in the various Navy warfare communities, such as surface warfare, submarines, and aviation. As part of this extremely competitive program, selectees are required to complete a degree (preferably a technical degree) in 3 years or less. By late 2005 I had served a full tour on my first submarine and had established myself as a top performer in my enlisted community. I also knew in late 2005 that I was ready to try something different and I was very interested in getting into the mission planning and ship driving side of the Navy, which is primarily what officers do. I was very fortunate to have strong endorsements in the application I submitted for the Seaman to Admiral Program, and in late 2006 I found out I had been accepted starting in 2007. I applied to several schools and ultimately decided KU would be the best fit for my family and I. We began the process of moving to Lawrence from Groton, CT in the spring of 2007.
While finalizing my enrollment at KU’s School of Engineering, I received solicitation for the SELF fellowship and the program intrigued me. By the time I got the postcard I only had a couple of days to get an application together, but the work I put into getting everything together for that application is arguably some of the best time I’ve ever invested in my life. I found out later I was invited to campus for interviews, I flew out for those, and ultimately was selected for the inaugural class of SELF fellows.
Those are the high points for how I got from my job as an electrician in the Navy to full time Civil Engineering student and SELF fellow at KU. What I feel is worth discussing further is the dialogue that happened as I decided how I would spend my time at KU.
When I applied to KU I had been on sea duty for over 5 years, and was hoping that my time at KU would offer a break from the busy schedule I had previously. I looked at engineering school, but I knew in the back of my head that if something went wrong with a class, I wouldn’t be able to recover and stay on track with any of the engineering programs, and this had me looking at backup options in the business school and some of the liberal arts options at KU. SELF threw a wrench in my backup plans though, because I realized that if I got into that program, I would have no choice but to succeed at engineering courses and accept no slip in the schedule for getting through in 3 years. I had a considerable dialogue with Catherine about this as well, and ultimately we decided that I would pursue an engineering discipline, and that I would complete it in 3 years, understanding that failing or allowing a schedule slip simply wouldn’t be an option. We knew the hours would be long (most semesters were 18 or more credit hours), but that my time would be best spent getting the engineering degree, since I had to study something anyways.
That shift in attitude I had during the application process is something I remember vividly to this day. It simply wouldn’t be good enough to put in minimum effort at school, even though we all felt like I deserved an easier time at school based on what I had done previously in the Navy. As it turned out, I was able to put the appropriate effort into school, even engineering school, and find the time to get everything else done as well. Not just the obligations at school, but also the family events, the Navy events I was expected to be a part of, and also simply being available for my wife and kids while working through the multiple classes I was enrolled in at any given time. As Abby Rimmel said at one of our first question and answer sessions as SELF fellows, “I found that the more I took on, the more I realized I was actually able to accomplish, because it taught me how to manage my time more efficiently.” And that right there is probably the biggest takeaway I had from my time at KU. At the end of the day looking back, it’s not Mohr’s circle and the application of it in soil mechanics I remember (sorry Dr. Parsons, but believe me I knew it when I needed to know it – like when I was in the class). I don’t look at a truss bridge and think I could efficiently work through the individual shear and moment diagrams (it would take me a while and a little review to get where I was with those again). But I do know that if I’m feeling short on time at my job, it is likely a problem with the way I’m managing my time, not an issue with the workload itself. There is a need for balance, and I’ll talk about that some too, but with the right time management some pretty daunting tasks can be accomplished.