Since I (This Talmage writing now) graduated from ASU this past December, our life has been in somewhat of a limbo. There were always a lot of potential opportunities, but nothing that was reaching fruition. This past week all of those options dwindled down to a decision between two very desirable options.
The first option is a job offer from Fugro Consultants. I previously worked for them as field/lab technician and now they are offering me a position as a Graduate Engineer. The pay would be good, the work is very close to my undergraduate studies (Civil Engineering/GIS), and we would get to move to Austin, Texas (which I hear is a pretty cool city). "In this economy" it would be crazy not to take a job offer with a reputable company doing what I want to, right?
However, option two is not bad either. I applied to four graduate schools back in December (Virginia Tech, George Mason, Purdue, and North Carolina State. In order of preference). Not only did my top choice accept me, but they have offered me a Graduate Research Assistantship that will pay for my tuition (which would have been out-of-state rates), will pay me at about the same rate as Fugro would (only I would only work 20 hours/week instead of 40) and I could research anything a topic of my choice (as opposed to doing a specific project that they have for me.)
Since I highly value the opinion of my family members I discussed with a few of them my dilemma. I got responses for both. "Take the job. The economy's only gonna get worse." "You'll have the rest of your life to work." "Take the job you have a family to support." "You can never get too much education." I could see the value in each and Rachel and I were not sure which one to do. Like many things, we try to think about it logically and systematically and weigh all the pros and cons. Additionally, we decided to fast and prayer about it over the weekend.
Ladies and Gents, we have made our decision. We have decided to take Hannah Montana's advice and "get the best of both worlds." We will be moving to Texas in early April and 5 months later going to Virginia. I ran it by my boss and he said it was fine. We are very excited to close one chapter of our life and open another.
