It’s really not a phone anymore, or even a smart phone…I call it my little computer.  Here is a typical day’s usage, how did I ever live without it?

• 2:00 am – BeyondPod updated and downloads all my podcasts while I’m soundly sleeping.
• 8:00 am – Phone’s alarm wakes me up.
• 8:01 am – Check Gmail as I get out of bed to see if that Nigerian prince I loaned the money to has emailed me back with my investment return…nope, still waiting.
• 8:15 am – Out of toothepaste, add it to my Color Note shopping list.
• 9:00 am – Listen to Radiolab as I eat breakfast and walk to school.
• 9:10 am – Fall in Logan, definitely take a picture and send it strait from the phone to Facebook.
• 9:40 am – Go online and look up ‘Umbrage’ definition, why can’t the professor just say ‘offence’?
• 9:55 am – Class is boring, play Angry Birds.

Angry Birds

• 10:15 am – Text message.  Ya, sometimes I do the normal phone stuff.
• 10:40 am – Listen to Neon Trees on my phone as I go running, tracking my workout with Sports Tracker.
• 11:40 am – Operations management class, this time is best spent answering some emails on my phone.
• 12:00 pm – Buy 2 tickets to the Pat Donohue concert via the phone’s browser, only $5 for students!
• 12:45 pm – Stream the Colbert Report to my phone as I eat some lunch.
• 1:00 pm – Plug in the phone to charge as I work.
• 5:30 pm – Man, this 2 1/2 hour evening class would be unbearable if I didn’t have Fruit Ninja!
• 6:15 pm – Missing the Jazz game, not to worry: I follow it play by play on ESPN Score Center.

ESPN Score Center

• 8:30 pm – Dark on the way home, use the LED camera flash as a flashlight to make it down some sketchy stairs.
• 9:00 pm – On the way to the store I use Shazam to get the name of a good song playing on the radio.
• 9:15 pm – Cross items off the shopping list.
• 9:30 pm – Informed that Primer is an excellent film, look it up on Flixster and put it strait into my Netflix queue.
• 12:30 pm – Finish up The Hungar Games trilogy using my reader app…what a horrible ending!

All that and not one phone call.

*Disclaimer: I promise I do pay attention during MOST of class time.

I narrowed it down to four programs I’m going to apply to to.

University of Washington - MSIM Degree

A leader in technology research and education, UW is an obvious choice for anything related to the tech field.  They are also one of a small number of universities that have an ‘information school’, specializing in degrees that deal directly with the handling of information.  I applied to the Master of Science in Information Management program, which combines an education in business with an education in related technology.  Aside from the advantages of the degree, Seattle would be an awesome place to spend a couple years so this is definitely one of my top choices.

Oregon Health and Science University - MS Health Informatics

When I learned about the field of health informatics I got excited.  OHSU is an innovator in education pertaining to this field and is my number one choice for this degree.  Plus, it’s right in Portland which is another place I would love to spend some time.

Arizona State University - BS Biomedical Informatics

Another great program in technology related to healthcare.  ASU puts more emphasis on research than a lot of other schools, which I like.

University of Missouri - MS Health Informatics

Also a great medical school, University of Missouri is as close the the Mississippi as my applications extend.  Living in the Midwest would be quite the change, but the program offers some great benefits that would absolutely make it worth the new scenery.

On the maybe list are University of Minnesota and Milwaukee School of Business.  They accept applications right up until August, so if I don’t get what I want out of the first round of applications I will be sending some more out.

Okay, so thinking a different approach to graduate school is in order.  I was doing some research on various programs, especially how they relate to the integration of technology and business when I came across a wealth of information on careers in Health Informatics (Bill Hersh, AMIA, AHIMA).  What I found is this discipline deals with the intersection of technology, information, business and health care.  Working to apply technology to solve critical problems in the healthcare industry sounds challenging, rewarding, cutting edge and exciting.

I’m still researching possible graduate programs, or the possibility of first gaining experience in the field.  When I figure out the next step I will be sure and share it.

Okay,  I’m about ready to begin applying to grad school.  So the obvious question: What school?

I began by looking at a list of the top 100 graduate schools in computer science from usnews.  I went through and made a list of places I wouldn’t mind living based on schools from the list.  This is what I came up with:

• University of Utah (SLC, Utah)
• University of Colorado at Boulder (Boulder, CO)
• Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR)
• University of Oregon (Eugene, OR)
• Colorado State Universtiy (Fort Collins, CO)
• Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
• University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ)

Because of limited time and resources I can’t apply to all of these, so I began the first round of cuts.  U of U and UC are fairly equal, so I am only going to apply to one of them.  I chose U of U because it’s cheaper (since I’m in-state) and because admissions are slightly easier.  The U is my first choice since I could potentially earn an MS and an MBA in two years, and NEVER have to go back to school.  I eliminated Arizona schools, they don’t have any negative marks against them, but I just don’t like the idea of trading pine trees for cacti.  I only wanted to apply to one Oregon school, and after some research decided on University of Oregon.  So, after the cuts:

University of Utah

University of Oregon

Colorado State University

Ute, Duck, or Ram?  We shall see.

Colorado State does get bonus points for this excellent picture I found the their website:

"How do I get to Facebook?"

I’m sure this is meant to show all the sweet high-tech equipment that smart guys in beards can share with undergraduates, but thats not what I got from it.  More like, this girl was available on picture day so Beardy-Joe here tried to show her how to use the mouse as a good photo-op, but all she could do was come up with this dumb look on her face like, “Can I watch Hulu on this thing?”.

To share.

Sometimes you have this really cool story that you just have to tell somebody, but you have nobody to tell:  write it down and pretend someone will read it!

Sometimes you’re even fortunate to have people that do want to hear what you’re up to, all the more reason to blog.