learning

Five in Five

As my official time as student nears its end, I’ve been thinking about how I want continue my life.
Of course, I will be working after I graduate. However, It’s hard for me to imagine a time when I didn’t have school, save those fleeting moments during the summer.

Over the last few semesters, I’ve grown to appreciate knowledge and the process of acquiring it. And I don’t think I’m ready to stop yet. I hope I’m never ready to stop learning.

Thus, I’m launching a new project: Five in Five – Five things I want to do in the five years after I graduate. I’ll admit, the list is pretty aggressive, but I think it’s doable.

However, the keyword here is “want.” I want to complete these things because I think they are interesting and I feel they will be useful. That being said, I’m not sure if I will be able to complete it all within five years and, even then, I’m not even sure if I want to complete all things I’ve laid out.

I’ve ordered the list is roughly the order I plan to complete them in:

  1. Travel the World
  2. Pilot’s license
  3. Certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT)
  4. Masters Degree
  5. Professional Engineer

As always, keep it tuned here for all the fun. Soon, I’ll be doing a lot of talking, asking, and planning about the first part of my Five in Five: Traveling the World.

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You’re Gonna Want to Read All of This

Today is the beginning of fall semester; my last fall semester. I’m aware that this is monumental moment, however I can’t quite bring myself to really believe that this is it: the beginning of the end of 17+ years worth of education1.

And yet it is.

This past summer has been amazing in many ways. I had some amazing conversations with some amazing people, both in my personal life and at work. I still don’t have the future planned out, but that’s okay.

At the end of my high school graduation speech, I quoted a famous Churchill line, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” I think I was about four and a half years too soon on that remark.

This, my friends, really is it. I’m getting ready to write the last chapter in a book I like to call Andrew Ferguson: The First 23 Years.

Thus I think it’s fitting that while I work on closing this chapter and book in my life, I am able to announce the title of my next book – Andrew Ferguson: The Boeing Years.

As my third internship with them was coming to an end, Boeing elected to offer me a job for after graduation.

I accepted.

After some time off to catch a breather, I’ll be returning to my group sometime in the late summer of 2009.

So, stick around. This year is going to be crazy-awesome and as Frank Sinatra sang,
The best is yet to come, and, babe, won’t that be fine,
You think you’ve seen the sun, but you ain’t seen it shine

1 I would actually argue that learning is a lifelong adventure. I hope to never stop being educated. So really, this is the end of my formal education – at least for the time being.

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