I started college as a computer engineering major at a small private college. Sophomore year I switched colleges (to U. Lowell) and majors (to math). Both decisions were wise. During my senior year, I was interviewed on campus by GE, and hired by the manager of a systems engineering group at Defense Systems in Pittsfield. The manager was specifically looking for someone with a broad mathematical background to do programming and analysis work on projects for requesting engineers. I loved turning abstractions of physical systems and situations (i.e., mathematical models) into efficient and well-designed computer programs. I was immediately set to work learning positional astronomy and writing programs to select the stars to be observed during field testing of our guidance system and sending the necessary positional data to the test site. After that exciting initial assignment, I worked on many different projects, mostly involving the design, revision, and maintenance of large Monte Carlo simulations of various guidance and artillery subsystems as well as the associated data analysis.

A secondary portion of my job was to keep the engineers up-to-date on new computer systems and software through informal training programs and consultation. I briefly considered pursuing a Master's Degree in Systems Engineering and even took a few courses, but decided that I preferred the mathematical aspects of my job and still did not want to become an engineer.