The Weekend and The Future

This past weekend was very low key. I went on Friday night to Detox and listened to some bands. They had both the upper and lower levels going so it was about 6 bands for the night. Black Square one of my preferred bands was playing. Well they play most Fridays. :-) Saturday was a nice catch-up day with Jamie. We went to Island Burgers at Ala Moana mall. Neither of us had eaten there before so it was new to us both. The spinach and artichoke dip with chips was really yummy and burgers are big, but come with no fries. A single order of fries is 4 bucks, but it is worth it. The order would be enough for four people. After eating our lunches we went to the movies. Guardian was well done, not quite what I expected but a very good movie none the less. Not much happened on Sunday at all. I cleaned the apartment (it was my week) and worked on the Software Project for a bit. The project is basically an event management and registration system.

Well, if everything goes as planned I'll be graduating in January. I've put in a petition and ordered a cap and gown. On the 10th of January I'm walking across a stage and getting deploma. The next step is basically back to the "real" working world. I have about 2 and a 1/2 months to find a job. I'm not to worried about it right now though. But that said I need to get my backup plan in place so if there is no job then I can get on with a Masters without waiting. To do this its a little complicates.

Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) does not offer a masters in Computer Science (CS) only in Information Systems (IS). The difference is CS is a coder and IS is a administrator, more or less. I would much prefer a CS major than an IS major so I would have to go to the University of Hawaii (UH). This isn't a big deal in and of itself. I wouldn't have to move and in the end it would probably be cheaper as I'm a Hawaii resident. The problem is that UH requires a Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) for the masters program. What's a GRE you ask, well its a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for masters. There are two tests a general and a subject, they each cost 130 bucks!

Now I've done my digging and I can get a waver from financial aid here at HPU to the test cost 0 bucks each. This is a one time waver because I'm not dependent and I'm poor, at the moment. So I went and got the waver. :-) The process took about 10 min. to print stuff of the internet and walk to financial aid, then about 30 min. to get them to give me the waver. Its not a normal thing they get here at HPU because to get a masters here does not require either test.

So I got the waver and I got the application, next step it to fill it out and mail it in. That's on tap for Thursday. So my plans for the future are a tiny tiny bit safer now. I hope to get a job, but if not I can get a masters. I was a CS masters but that requires a GRE. If for some reason I fail the GRE or just can't get into UH, I can still take the IS masters here a HPU. :-) So my goal, backup and 2nd backup are coming into place.

Now pop-quiz time, define the following:
UH, GRE, HPU, IS, SAT, CS