PERSONAL BACKGROUND

I originally started on the path to my Masters degree through George Washington University while living in San Diego. My company specializes in providing solutions to large scale technical problems, typically for the US government. Much of the work requires some level of systems engineering, which means SAIC employs a lot of engineers that need a proper education to do their job well. SAIC and George Washington created a program that caters to working professionals so that with evening classes, an advanced degree can be achieved without sacrificing career.

In the summer of 2007, my wife and I decided to move to Portland to be closer to her family. In researching the city, I discovered that PSU has a Systems Engineering program. PSU attracted my interest because I would have an opportunity to have personal contact with the faculty that I could not achieve at George Washington. One of my objectives in going back to school is to meet new people in the field of engineering and learn of other opportunities to use my new knowledge, possibly leading to a new career. This could never be achieved by staying with GW, so I decided to transfer.