Today, after fourteen years, I’m finally finishing my final class in order to earn my bachelors degree. It’s a bittersweet moment because I’ve really enjoyed working with my classmates and at the same time I’m ready to be done with it. So here’s my last official assignment, the final weekly summary that I posted a little while ago.

Wow. The last weekly summary I'll have to write. As such I'm going to change it more to a program summary.

As the song says, "what a long, strange trip it's been."

I started down this road in July of 2003, having taken seven years off after leaving college due to some health problems. It had become clear to me that I needed to complete my studies in order to keep my career growth moving. So I said to myself, "how hard can it be?" and "I'll just coast on through". Little did I know how wrong I was, but in such a good way. From my first class to my last I've learned something important, valuable, and immediately useful in my personal and professional life.

The course of study here has had such a significant impact on my life, both personal and professional, that I will forever be grateful. I have learned so much, including how to deal with difficult situations, how to write in APA style, responsibility to keep schedules and due dates, discipline to keep showing up instead of blowing off class, how to calculate mortgages in Java, the difference between a T1 and a DS3, how to design SQL Server databases, and a literally uncountable number of other skills.

I really want to thank all of you, my fellow students and my teachers, for the past three years. You've all made it so much more fun and educational than it could have been. It has been an honor to work with all of you over the last three years and I'm more than a little choked up right now because I know that I am going to be losing something not having this interaction. I'm going to miss you all. So if you're ever going to be in Dallas, give me a shout at stjeanp@pat-st-jean.com and lets see if we can meet in real life instead of behind keyboards.