Exciting Developments

Since Ubercon, so much has happened, but I've been trying not to jinx it by making a post about how exciting it all is, just for it to all fall apart. But now, I'm confident enough to talk about it.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed with a technology consulting company called HPTi. On Thursday, I drove down to Reston, Virginia, about half-an-hour outside of DC, to visit their headquarters on Friday. The drive was torture; a huge accident on I-95 meant that a 5 mile stretch took me 2 and a half hours to complete. But I made it, and it ended up being worth the trouble. The visit consisted mostly of a dog-and-pony show, with various company representatives lauding the benefits of working at HPTi. During my interview at Lehigh, I got into a few minutes discussion with one of the interviewers about computer games, so I was already sold on HPTi's culture. As for what they do, the short version is, they provide innovative technology solutions (meaning that a lot of what they try hasn't been done before) for their clients, which are mostly government agencies. A lot of the work is for the Department of Defense, but I made it clear during my interview at Lehigh that I wasn't interested in working on weapons systems. What I liked best was that the company encourages its employees to learn new technologies and work on different projects to stay interested in their work.

At the end, each of us (myself and the other college recruits) were pulled aside for one-on-one talks. I was expecting another interview, but what I got was something much better. No questions or anything; I entered the room and got a folder with a job offer. It was that simple. I allowed myself to smile but not so large as to reveal how relieved I was to finally get a job offer, after three interviews with other companies that led nowhere. Once I got back to my car, I did a little victory dance and called home to give my parents the good news.

But there's more. I'm also in discussions with two other companies: Proteus Technologies, a contractor for NSA, and NSA itself! Both of these were prompted by my own initiative, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from both. What I think will be my last interview with Proteus is on Tuesday via the phone; my on-site interview with NSA is on December 10th. Thanks to this job offer from HPTi, the pressure is off for me, and I can simply do my best and hope that I get some more job offers so that I have options. If not, I think I'd be perfectly happy with HPTi. And either way, I will be in the DC area next year, which is exciting. It was definitely one of my top places to go after school, and it's great to know where I'll be, come this time next year. Admittedly, I don't know where exactly in the DC area I'll be, but just having it narrowed down to that is good enough for now.

So next year, I'm going to have a job, and more likely than not, it'll be something I actually want to do. What more could I want? Well, as if my luck hasn't been fantastic enough recently, my personal life has been looking up too. Every weekend since Ubercon, I've been to a party, and at these parties, I've been meeting some great women who actually want to get to know me. Nothing has happened yet outside of these parties, but whereas I had no prospects as recently as two weeks ago, I now may have a relationship in the near future (maybe not until next semester at this point) if things keep going well. I'm not going to get any more specific than that for the moment, but expect to hear more in a month or so.

But not all is butterflies and sunshine in the realm of Jay. I am still struggling to keep up with my projects and honors thesis. I do have Thanksgiving Break in a few days, but I expect one or two of those days will be used to visit friends. Maybe I can be productive in the intervening days? We'll see.

So that's my overdue update. I've been individually informing people of these developments, because I didn't have a chance to make a blog post until now, so if you were one of those people, you may not have read anything new here. Obviously, I omitted some details, but if you want to know more, get in touch, and I'd be happy to fill you in on the rest. I hope that some of the luck I've had will make its way to you soon, if it hasn't already.