Digital Dave

I was just poking around on the athletics website and noticed that we brought in our 13th university president.  Our prior president, John Wefald, spent 23 years in his position, which is the second longest KSU presidency tenure.  The first spent 25 years there as president.

Anyway, it just got me thinking about missing that place.  For being at the top of my game as a Marine, I was released from active duty 3 months early to attend Kansas State University.   When I got to the campus, I immediately had a rush of excitement which I don’t typically get very often.  I was eager to learn and to accomplish a feat that I had my eye on for a long, long time.

The time ended up flying incredibly fast.  I’m still eager to learn, and I’m definitely not done with the university scene.

I think I would attribute the passion for education from having a really bad educational upbringing, surprisingly.  It was not something stressed in my household due to how much my mom had to work just to support myself and my brother/sister.  A lot of what I did back then was all on self-initiative, which wasn’t very high.  Kid’s need guidence in school or it’s only a matter of time before they fall back.  Sure enough, I fell back.  I struggled finding a purpose of everything because I didn’t have anybody to turn to.  Nobody in my family finished high school.

That’s just a glimpse of my struggle coming up in the educational bracket.

My next goal is to get into USC’s Masters program. It’s a very, very high bar, but I feel like I can do it.  Why USC?  It’s one of the best universities and I like their specialization options.

Eventually, I would like to return to Manhattan to teach.  This is far later in life when I have years of experience to bring to the table.  I spent time in the Marines teaching and trying to help/mentor younger Marines.  There is just something about teaching that I enjoy.  And if I could teach anywhere, Manhattan would definitely be the place. The place has an outstanding atmosphere and extremely friendly people.

I wonder how much of that is going to change in ~20 years?

I wonder how I will feel in ~20 years?

I guess that’s why I blog and backup my database. Time will tell.