First Attempt
In 2023, I went back to school to get the degree I had dreamed about since sixth grade and go after the career my heart was set on. The fall semester, though with some hiccups, was amazing, and I was the happiest I had been for a very long time. Things were finally looking up, and I was surrounded and interacting with everything I had dreamed about. Daily, I would walk out of the student union building and could see a Saturn V rocket in plain view.
I very much live by the motto:
If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.
What I mean by that is surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and don’t be afraid to be the dumbest one in the room. Because that gives you the most potential to learn.
Even though I came to this understanding back in ~2017, I never really felt I was in the right room or surrounded by the right people. It was not until I went back to school and I was surrounded by people who had very similar interests, similar goals in life, and even though I was older than almost every single student I came across, I was surrounded by people who were smarter than I was. Others had knowledge and experience in areas that I lacked, and I loved it. The Space Hardware Club at UAH was a huge driving force in that regard.
That being said, when the spring semester came around, work started having worse issues than it had since I started working there, and I won’t go into specifics. I was forced to drop out of school to “work full time” even though I was putting 40+ hours a week in order to try to cover the cost of living. Then, two months later, I was let go. This, amongst medical issues that developed between 2022 and 2024, ended up meaning I could not do the career that I was striving for and made getting my dream degree practically impossible.
Fast forward to the time of writing, spring of 2025, I am going back to school now for cybersecurity. Now, was this plan A, B, or C? But cybersecurity was something I had grown to love and something I had plenty of knowledge and experience with, so I figured it would be my best option going forward.
Dream Career
Growing up in the 90s-2000s, every kid had dreams of being a doctor, firefighter, nurse, teacher, astronaut, fighter pilot, and I was no different. Back in sixth grade, I decided I was going to get my aerospace engineering degree, no idea what I would do with it at the time, but that was just what I wanted. Fast forward to the end of high school, and I was not able to go to university as I could not afford it. Move ahead a handful of years, and I was tired of the work I was doing and wanted to go to school to do something more meaningful, but I had the perception that I couldn’t. That’s when a friend recommended me a university where I could get a free ride through and get an engineering degree. The only catch was that I had to show that I had the funds to pay for school, even though they would not be needed. This is what I started working towards for years, moving multiple states and working various jobs until I found a job that was paying me well. With this job, I would be able to save up the funds needed within a year, but instead of doing that, I chose to take my time and relax, as I loved the job and the pay was good, so why rush it with how everything was currently?
Fast forward to said job having issues, which is when I started looking back into school. I bounced around, applying to various universities over a span of a few years, trying to find something that I can see myself doing for the rest of my life, but also FAFSA could help pay for, and in turn be able to pay off student loans without having to pay on them over the course of my whole life. That’s when I applied to the University of Alabama in Huntsville for aerospace engineering. I found out that FAFSA could cover all of my costs, so I went for it.
The goal was to get my BS in aerospace engineering and be a part of the Space Hardware Club, and then stack up various accolades, certs, and expertise, to then get my MS in flight test engineering. There are a handful of ways of accomplishing this, but I was going a different route. I wanted to focus on the astronautical part of things. In the future, I see a position of flight test engineer/test pilot, but instead of for a plane or aerospace, it’s for a spacecraft. So even though this currently does not exist, I was working towards it in an effort so that once the position becomes a thing, I would be qualified to fill the role.
Unforeseen Consequences
Due to the stress of work and financial issues over a prolonged period, I ended up having medical emergencies and issues. Those issues started to cause some problems with school, but I was fighting through them and figuring it out to make sure I could get through everything. The only catch that rolled me out of my dream career. That put a damper on things, but I adapted, and I had a backup plan to focus on hypersonics. But then that is when issues with work got the worst, and I had to make a very difficult decision.
Now, over a year later, I have bounced around what I wanted to do and how to progress. That’s when I decided to go ahead and go back to school to get my degree, thus adding some credibility to my personal projects and endeavors. I plan to finish my BS in Cyber Security & Information Assurance and then move directly into an MS in Software Engineering. Completing these and gaining various certifications as well as building upon my experience and projects, I can then work my way up through the cybersecurity field to a position that I love and can see myself making a career out of.
And then hopefully soon I can spin up my own endeavor and try to make a difference in this world.