jason.defay.org | you're grounded, chicken!

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Growing up, I didn't like school much, so I didn't do very well. I disliked it so much that I ended up being kicked out of high school after 9th grade. When I was 16 or so, my brother was taking some art classes at our local community college and I started hanging out in the studio. I really enjoyed the environment and people so I decided to enroll in a writing class the following semester. I had such a great first semester at Cabrillo College that took the California High School Proficiency Exam and enrolled full time.

I spent three years at Cabrillo working on my general education requirements and transferred to San Francisco State University. I spent three years at SFSU and graduated with BA's in Sociology and the Humanities. I really enjoyed the challenges of university course work and was interested in social theory and applied sociology. Once I graduated, I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, so I decided to apply to all the best sociology graduate programs in the country.

Competition to get into top tier grad schools is fierce. I was not accepted into any of the top ten schools the first year I applied. Undaunted, I applied to a handful of schools in the second tier and was accepted into the program at UC San Diego. After many years of toil, I finished the PhD program in 2004.

While I had initially intended to go into teaching, the California job market is terrible. There are hundreds of people with PhD's and MA's competing for a very small number of jobs. And many of the available teaching jobs are temporary and have little or no benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc). Because I was also interested in applied sociology, I decided to apply to public service jobs with various city, county and other public agencies around San Diego.

I got a two year paid position as a half-time fellow/intern with the City of San Diego. While I was at the City I worked on some really interesting projects, and decided on following a career in public service where I could put my analytical and applied research skills to good use. The following two reports are examples of some of the work I did for the City during my time there: San Diego Public Opinion and Smart Growth: A Summary Report (MS Word) San Diego Fire & Life Safety Services Department, Employee Wellness and Injury Prevention Program Report. Unfortunately the year was 2003 and the local economy was reeling from the effects of a prolonged economic recession. The City began cutting down non-essential services like mine, so I began applying for jobs at public agencies where I could build a career.

In 2003 I took a job at UC San Diego in the Office of Graduate Studies and Research as their Senior Research Analyst. This job gave me a chance to put my analytical abilities to work full-time. I am able to work on a variety of projects designed to improve research and research administration at the university. In 2008 I was promoted to Director of Research Administration Initatives & enjoy the challenges of my job very much and find the work very rewarding. I'm learning new skills, building new systems for research administration, and working with many bright and interesting colleagues.