Life After the M.A.

Life After the M.A. by Josh Rogers

Since I still have about a year left to go in this program it doesn't seem like there ever will be a life after graduation.
But, this year has gone by pretty quickly. What will be nice is that after this semester I will feel that I'm more in control of my course of study since I'll have most of my required courses behind me- Statistics, Theory, Research Methods, and Qualitative Research-I'll miss you.
One of the advantages of working on a thesis is reading the literature that is related to the specific topic one is studying. I'm not certain that writing a thesis about advergames will directly contribute to finding a job in a year. I am certain that since I'll have a pretty thorough understanding of advertising, social Internet use, and a pretty good idea of why people want to spend their free time puttering around playing a sponsored game like this one. This game will take awhile but you get to play pinball and jump a car.
After I graduate I've given some thought about working for the Chickasaw Nation. I attended a retention event hosted by the Chickasaws on campus last night. In addition to getting a small bag full of exam week swag (post-it notes, popcorn, hot cocoa, a scantron sheet) they also had a recruiter on hand as well. She explained that the Chickasaws are now becoming more sophisticated in tracking Chickasaw students who are on scholarship and checking to see if there are any possible job positions for newly graduated Chickasaws. The Rogers family has decided to stick around OK for a while so this might be a possibility. I used to belong to Rotary and would also hang around and volunteer at film festivals every so often so getting some free time back in my life would be great.
I am still thinking about trying to help out my sister-in-law's skateboard shop. I think that there website does not represent their brick and mortar operation or open up their business to new customers outside of the San Diego area. This website is pretty sparse and is not very interactive. There was an attempt a few months ago to start a mailing list but that sort of fell through. No Facebook, no Myspace, no updated features or social aspects to the website. The news is old and there is no sense of stickiness to the site that would make kids interested in skateboarding want to visit or spend time with the site. I am taking the interactive media course that is offered this summer so maybe I'll find out if such an undertaking would even be possible for me to start.
I am not sure that I would want to continue on to a PhD. I work with a few Doctoral candidates and those guys seem pretty stressed out all the time. Maybe if I take another ten years off of school I'll decide to go back to school again.