A colleague of mine, John S., has joined me to start his PhD in Natural Resources Science at University of Nebraska. He is a highly skilled software architect and an image processing application development expert with decades of experience. He is less than ten years younger than I am so I am sure the average age of the PhD students in our department has gone up a good chunk. We will be doing a hydrology independent study class together and his research will extend some of the stuff I have already started. Honestly, his programming skills are broader and deeper than mine so he will be a huge addition to the program. I am really looking forward to working with him.

As for me, I will be two credits short of half way complete (will have 43, need 90) after fall semester. After that, I have four more classes to take, research to perform, comprehensive exams, and a dissertation and defense and I am done. There is some chance I can get this all done by the end of Fall 2023, God willing, but it will probably be Spring 2024 if I am being realistic. I am still really enjoying it, but have been disabused of any notion that I want to wallow in the petty politics of academia and especially in academic publications. That being said, I really enjoy writing and hope to continue to contribute scholarly work through Troy and his colleagues at UNL if/after I graduate.