Introducing Allen — Allen C Moore

Hello there!

My name is Allen. The date as of posting this is Wednesday, 06/28/2023.

I recently decided to start making and publishing some type of content or digital media. This decision came in the midst of a general urge to express some creativity, and since I was already in the process of revamping this website, I thought it would be a great opportunity to start making regular blog posts.

As such, I’d like to share some things about myself to help you get more familiar with me, as well as what I do and why I’m doing this at all.

Where I Started

I grew up for most of my memorable childhood in Forsyth County, Georgia, in the city of Cumming. It used to be, or maybe just feel like, a relatively small area. Now, every time I go back, it feels as though something else has been changed, torn down, or built in its place.

In 2016, after high school graduation, I left my hometown to pursue my undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia. I first declared myself as a psychology major, but at the time, I didn’t want to commit to graduate school and I wasn’t sure if I could do anything with a bachelor’s in psychology. In my second semester at UGA, I switched my major to another passion of mine, statistics.

My time in undergrad allowed me to really find and explore a new sense of self. With the extra freedom that comes with leaving home, I was able to be more intentional about who I spent time around and what I spent my time doing. During this time, I was able to explore different activities, interests, and identities, which gave me a much better grasp of who I was and what I truly enjoyed.

I also didn’t graduate on time with the schedule I had initially set for myself, in which I wanted to graduate in May 2020 with most of the rest of my class. When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I decided to take the extra semester to explore some interesting elective courses, namely philosophy and religion, as well as one final statistics class to keep me in the right framework for my graduate studies. In December 2020, I graduated with my B.S. in Statistics, and by January 2021, I was already in graduate school.

Where I Am

*My sweet kitty, Ollie, in her favorite window spot*

Currently, I’m still residing in Athens, and still attending UGA. I live with a long-term partner, our cat, and a few roommates. Every so often, I’m on the UGA campus or a few other places around Athens, but we keep to ourselves for the most part.

My current focus is obtaining my master’s degree in educational psychology. The degree specialization is called quantitative methodology, which in this context is more broadly known as “psychometrics”. I plan to explain what I do and study in much greater detail in a future post or series of posts. In very general terms, I study educational assessments. I research a specific new way of developing assessments and analyzing student responses with the ultimate goal of practically supporting students and educators.

These days, my job as a graduate assistant is to help my advisor with his research and to work on my master’s thesis. My advisor typically has me programming and running simulations to explore some technical aspects of the types of statistical model that we both research, but I perform other tasks as well. My thesis is very similar, comprising two simulations that I programmed in a language called R, in which I seek to understand some of the behavior of these models in settings with certain practical constraints.

Outside of school, I have a variety of interests and passions, and spend most of my time seeking new information or perspectives on a wide scope of topics and issues. I love learning about religion, philosophy, logic and debate, mathematics, education, psychology, as well as a number of other topics, and I spend a great deal of time consuming relevant videos or articles on these subjects.

Where I’m Going

*The office corner of my bedroom, aka my favorite place to work!*

This was easily the most challenging part of this post for me to write. Lately, for several months or longer, I have been feeling fairly stuck and in somewhat of a rut with where I am in life right now. To be completely honest, I’m not sure where I’m going.

The plan as of writing this is to graduate with my master’s degree this coming academic year (2023 — 2024). After that, I plan to look around in various states for a job where I’ll be able to more easily support myself. With the degree I’m obtaining, I might end up working somewhere like a testing company (think CollegeBoard and ACT), a research university, or a licensure exam service, doing work such as developing tests or analyzing their results to inform decision-making and educational practice.

At some point, I would love to get a Ph.D. in the same field. I would be more than happy to come back to UGA’s Quantitative Methodology program, and I know they would be happy to keep me on, but I don’t think the time is right for that just yet. After experiencing a good bit of academic burnout, I need some well-deserved time doing something other than school.

Creative Endeavors

Which brings me here — writing a post to you all, which I plan to publish on my personal website that I’ve put a lot of time and effort into. I’ve been nervous to publish the site, because I know it isn’t perfect. The whole process has been a great exercise in controlled imperfection. I’ve been able to give myself enough grace to let it be imperfect and know that it is still both good in terms of quality and effective in terms of describing who I am and what I do.

I’d like to post here fairly regularly, maybe once every 1-2 weeks. I’m not sure of a rigid schedule at this point in time, and I want to give myself enough flexibility to find a routine that works for me and helps keep me on track with some creative work. I’m not sure exactly the direction of this blog just yet, but I’d like to try writing about various topics until I find something that I enjoy and feel comfortable with. For now, I plan to write about things like my day-to-day life, my interests and hobbies, and my research.

If that’s something that sounds interesting to you, bookmark this page and check back every now and then. I’m considering setting up an email reminder so that anyone who is interested will know when I have a post go out. If that’s something you would like, let me know.

Signing Off

Thank you for looking around my website and reading this post. I put a lot of work into this whole project, and I’m really excited to be able to share it with everyone.

Until next time!

Your pal,