Your backgrounds?

[vhawk01]

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I have B.S. and M.S. degrees from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin, all in aerospace engineering. The general research area for my Ph.D. was control theory.

These days I work for an aerospace company designing attitude control systems for spacecraft.

Yes, as my 2p2 name suggests, I also play bass guitar in local blues bands.

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You play around the Arlington area much? I live in Arlington, and the girlfriend loves to go out to listen to local bands.

[bluesbassman]

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I have B.S. and M.S. degrees from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin, all in aerospace engineering. The general research area for my Ph.D. was control theory.

These days I work for an aerospace company designing attitude control systems for spacecraft.

Yes, as my 2p2 name suggests, I also play bass guitar in local blues bands.

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You play around the Arlington area much? I live in Arlington, and the girlfriend loves to go out to listen to local bands.

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We've played Whitlow's and IOTA, but not recently. We also regularly played JV's in Falls Church, but (alas) that gig appears to have dried up. Nevertheless, we do regularly gig in the general DC area.

I don't want to hijack this forum to promote my garage band, so I'll send you a PM with our webpage link and schedule. Anyone else in the DC region who is interested in that info can PM me.

[vhawk01]

Cool.

[Phil153]

Started college at 16. B.Sc. w/ physics & math majors. Was really young when graduating and didn't want a boring professional career just yet, so I travelled for a couple of years, working in bars and resorts. Had a blast. Returned to my home country. Worked for a while longer in hospitality, final job was assistant manager of functions in a large resort. At 24 I'd had enough of bumming around, but still couldn't see myself being a physicist, so I decided to go to law school.

That lasted two months. I loved the work, but by the second month it started to dawn on me that most lawyers and judges are cynical and unhappy people. Most of them work incredibly long hours for the majority of their adult lives, and never find fulfillment or reasonable wealth. So after two weeks of agonizing over the decision, I quit. Actually I deferred, but I never went back.

Now 26, own a share in a seafood restaurant with friends (I'm a vegetarian too [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]). I look after accounts, employees and the computer stuff. Probably average 20 hours/week of work, much of which I can do from home.

Among other things, I play poker in my spare time.

I'll probably return to physics one day. It's like a calling for me - I've never felt challenged by anything else. I think my life will eventually feel like a cop out if I don't at least try to work on challenging and useful research at some point.

[Phil153]

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Juggler and acrobat for ten years. Then did a pure maths degree with a little bit of physics and philosophy. Ran a bridge club for several years.

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[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Silent A]

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So I'm just wondering what backgrounds you guys have?

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I don't know if I qualify as a regular poster here, but ...

BSc in Civil Engineering, MSc in Hydrological Engineering, and currently finishing my PhD in Hydrological Engineering. I also taught undergrad courses for a year while my supervisor was away on his sabbatical.

My research involves investigating the impact of climate change on river flows and developing/improving models to do so.

[Prodigy54321]

I have no story...I am just some 20 year old kid from New Jersey who thinks way too much for his own good...

I'm just happy when I can keep up with you guys...it makes me feel smart [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Justin A]

I have a BA in Economics from UCSD which I got last summer. I've been playing poker for a living for about 2.5 years now, but I'm looking to get out of it because it's not that lucrative for me and I feel like the longer I wait the harder it will be to start a career. I'm currently studying for the first actuary exam and plan on getting a job sometime early next year.

[Subfallen]

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...I decided to go to law school.

That lasted two months. I loved the work, but by the second month it started to dawn on me that most lawyers and judges are cynical and unhappy people. Most of them work incredibly long hours for the majority of their adult lives, and never find fulfillment or reasonable wealth. So after two weeks of agonizing over the decision, I quit. Actually I deferred, but I never went back.

Now 26, own a share in a seafood restaurant with friends (I'm a vegetarian too ).

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So I was...sort of...half-right. RJT was much righter.

[tame_deuces]

Alot of impressive backgrounds here, and a few really interesting ones.

Personally I studied maths and some physics, and then went into computer science. Then I got bored and got a IT job instead but that was really boring, so into the military it was and after that a brief stint in private security which really wasn't for me, so it was odd jobs for some years.

Then it was time for some proper education, so now I have a masters in organizational psychology, with some studying of statistics, organizational behavior and organizational theory on the side and I work as a organizational consultant both in business and public sectors.

Hobbies include composing music, playing music (alt. rock /keys), photography, writing (nothing deep and profound I'm afraid), reading, history and esp. military history, cars and milsim.

Fields I'm interested in is physics, political science, behavioral psychology and whatever looks interesting.

Favorite works aren't really academic texts, but instead Ciano/'Ciano Diaries', Rommel/'Infantry Attacks' and Marques/'Chronicle of a death foretold'.