Thomas Jefferson believed that learning was a lifelong pursuit and that there are no terminal degrees. I happen to agree with that sentiment. The question that I have is, what should be next for me? I know that I will take some time to chill. As one of my friends has remarked, I have incurred an enormous debt. I'm not just talking about the cost of tuition to the school, I'm talking about the debt to my family in terms of time and attention. I will need some time to pay down that debt.
But at some point I will have it balanced or even have a surplus, and my question then is, what should be next? I've got a bunch of things that could make sense, but I need to weigh them and identify the best opportunity. This is no different from the regular project selection that is performed everyday. Given scarce resources which project or projects provide the best value?
Here's a sampling of what I'm looking at:
- Program Management Professional - The PgMP Certification could make sense. I could manage my time effectively and probably have a good work/school/life balance. But is there a real benefit to having this certification? I don't know anybody who has even tried. I don't know what it gets me that I don't already have with my PMP. It costs $1500 to take the exam.
- ComSci Fellowship - The Commerce, Science and Technology Fellowship is run out of the Department of Commerce. It is a 10-month policy seminar program in which I would attend a bunch of sessions in which we dive into an issue and consider the nuances and implications. They have a bunch of Ph.D.'s in their alumni, and it makes me nervous that the focus is much less on technology. However there always seems to be some people from NIST in each class and those types of contacts are valuable to me. The big problem is that it kicks off in September and I need to pay down some of my family debt, which is hard to do if I jump right in. The costs though would be born by my agency. This looks like a good option for a year from now.
- SES Candidate Development - The Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program is one I would do regardless of time or place. But I have a couple problems. First it is offered on a very irregular schedule. This makes it very difficult to plan for. I can't even tell when the next one will be offered. The second issue I have is that it is sometimes open to grades 14 and 15, but sometimes only to 15's. I'm a 14 right now, so if I want to reduce the risk of being able to consider this as an option I need to get into a 15. In terms of value, I know that this one is high because I'm never going to leave federal service. This is the type of experience that will introduce me to a new set of peers, more relevant to where I am. Don't misunderstand, I am really enjoying my Master's program, but in a lot of ways my peers there are catagorically different from me because most of them work on contracts. It is hard to identify all of the things that are different, but suffice to say that someone explained it to me as: 'When I was a contractor I had my hands on the oar and I was rowing as hard as I could, but when I became a fed, I had to make sure that people were all rowing in the right direction and that we had paddles that were able to work well together and that the boat doesn't spring a leak.' As such I place a high value on my connections to these types of people, and there are only two others in my current class.
- The last thing I'm considering is something in Public Policy. I feel good about my level of competence with most IT related matters, however I also recognize that the thinner the air gets, the more I will be simply in a role of public policy.
I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but that's ok; I have time. But I know that I will do something just as soon as I start to get complacent with where I am and what I have, I will once again push to discover new things.
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