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January 09, 2006

We Are.....Penn State!!!! (um, Again!)

So, it's Thursday night, January 5th, and I had registered for an Open House at the Penn State Great Valley Campus to check out their Masters Degree programs.

I approached the School of Engineering table that has the MS in Information Science degree to get some information and a gentleman asked if he could answer any questions for me. At this point I didn't even know where to begin other than the fact that I was interested in the MSIS degree. As it turns out, the man was Dr. David Russell and not only is he the head of the School of Engineering, but he developed the MSIS program at Great Valley.

After about 10 minutes of discussing the program, he lets me know that classes start the next week and if I'm really interested, I could be accepted in time to start right away. Wow. I'll admit I was floored, but there's no time like the present (although as a procrastinator, I don't often say that - in fact, I don't think I've ever said that before, Anita must be rubbing off on me...), so I agreed to give it a shot.

The deal is, you have to apply first as a non-degree candidate (which only take a day or so) to be able to register for classes then you apply for entrance into the degree program (which takes a few weeks to complete).

As of today, Monday, January 9th, I have been accepted as a non-degree student and have registered for my first two classes towards my Masters Degree!! I have also formally applied for admittance into the MSIS program, which I hope to receive by the end of the month. In addition to that, by the end of the year, my intention is to apply, again, for a concurrent degree and also work towards my MBA. In two years (Spring of 2008), I should receive my MSIS degree and my MBA two years after that.

Wow. This is happening really fast!! But it's very cool!! Now I'm really glad that I stayed up until 1:30am to see the whole Orange Bowl (is it just a coincidence that the last time I applied for Penn State - when I was in high school, it was right after they won their last national championship??).

So now the Nittany Lion can count me, once again, as one of the Blue and White faithful. Long Live JoePa!!

We Are.....Penn State!!!! (Again!!)

Jim

Posted by jimkimmel at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2006

New Years Eve 2005!!

Kris, Brendan, Anita and I hosted the 2005 New Years Eve party at Kris and Brendan's house on New Year's Eve. After a quick stop at Irish Dave and Christine's house for a pre-party warmup, we headed over to Jersey to celebrate the New Year. The party theme was holiday themed Martinis ("The Grinch", "The Santa", some blue one whose name I don't remember right now, and Chocolate martinis).

Pics of the party can be found here.

Kevin and Nicole (and Brad, seen above in his James Bond pose - don't worry, that's sparkling apple juice he's drinking, I think) came down from State College on their way to Atlantic City for the Polar Bear Plunge (brrr!), fireworks were launched (luckily, no damage done although a few did fly very close to houses, vehicles and people).

We rang in the New Year, played a couple of rounds of Werewolf (if you've never played and have a big group of people at a party - more than 8, I suggest you check it out. You can find a review of the game here.

New Years Day involved a bit of Texas Hold 'em, a bit of Pirates Cove (another great board game, in my opinion), a lot of food and a lot of Advil. :)

A great time was had by all, and it was an awesome way to ring in the New Year!!!

Jim

Posted by jimkimmel at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)