QUESTION:
I'm trying to decide what I want to do when I get older. I was
wondering how old you were when you found out that you wanted to be
dealing with this sort of stuff?

ANSWER from Steve Noland on February 2, 1996:
My name is Steve Noland, and I'm a computer systems engineer at the Jet
Propulsion Lab.  I am responsible for the computer system that takes the
camera data from the Galileo Orbiter and makes pictures out of it.  It is
really a fun job!!  I have to understand what our customers (the
scientists) want our computers to do, and then translate their desires into
language that the computer engineers and programmers can understand.  I
also have to design the computer system and programs that will do all of
this.  It is kind of like being an interpreter.  I also have to know and
understand a lot about how all of the instruments and computers on the
Galileo Spacecraft work.

The answer to your question is a bit of a story.  Here goes...

I didn't really know about what I do now when I was your age because the
technology to do it didn't exist then.  Computers were very primitive then
-- you have more computer power in your electronic calculator than would
fit in a very large room then.  Anyway, I started out liking science and
math, and I also became interested in Amateur Radio about the time I was in
high school.  I took all of the college prep courses I could, and by the
time I went to college, I thought I wanted to become a Nuclear Physicist.

In college, I changed my mind and pursued a Cnemistry major.  Also while I
was in college, the school acquired a small digital computer, which I
learned to program and operate.  By the time I graduated from college, I
was pretty good at programming, and was also beginning to understand
electronics pretty well.

After graduation, I joined the Air Force as an engineer.  In the process of
doing my job in the Air Force, I had to learn how computer systems work,
and how digital image systems work.  Before long, I started trying to
design computer systems, and learned to be pretty good at it.  I also
learned to be able to talk with scientists and engineers in ways that each
would understand.  I guess I was in my mid-thirty's before I became
proficient at what I do.

The ability to engineer systems seems to be one that you develop over time
by having lots of experiences in designing, programming, operating, and
fixing systems that someone else has built.  Even now, I have to
continually study and keep myself up to date with new computers and science
instruments, and all of the other things that go into making our systems
work.  It's really fun, though, and the reward comes when I stand in our
computer room and see the first pictures come back from another planet,
like I will be ble to do this coming July when we get our first pictures
back from Jupiter.

In summary, keep open to new ideas and look for things that you are
interested in.  If you find something, learn all that you can about it and
try to do something that applies your knowledge.  Take all of the science,
math, foreign language, and history courses that you can, and find
something to be excited about.

______________________________________________________________________

Another ANSWER from Stephen Licata on Janaury 29, 1996:
Your question about choosing a career is a very good one! The age at
which people choose a career really depends on a lot of factors. These
days,unlike when our parents were growing up in the 1940's and 1950's,
people today are changing not just jobs but also careers 2-3 times in
their lives!

People often change careers because they discover a new passion in
their life. Life is too short to be stuck in a job or career that you
don't like. The best thing to go for is a field of interest that you
like, stay out of debt so that you can move around the job market
easily, and always keep in touch with friends and acquaintances in
different career fields.

Today, this is the advice that professional job counselors give to
middle-aged people whose jobs have been eliminated. I would give the
same advice even to a young person getting ready for high school!

Also, what people want to be when they grow up depends a lot on how
old they are. For example, someone may want to be a doctor when they
are in high school. But when they go to college, they find that
biology and chemistry are not as interesting as, say,
physics or economics.

Sometimes, people start into an engineering job right after college.
Then, while they are taking some "fun classes" at a local junior college,
they decide that they want to go into accounting!

Believe me, this happens more than most people realize.

The biggest factor, however, is general education. I can't stress enough
how important a good college degree is for your future. If you read the
biography section of Jupiter On-Line, you will see, for example,
Dr. Karen Buxbaum (who coordinates a lot of our science teams) actually
started out in biology! Another women on Galileo, one of our very best
programmers, started out by studying linguistics.

Sometimes, it's most important to have as a goal the PLACE you want to
work, and the caliber of people. After six months at a good professional
company, it is quite common for a talented person to be doing something
quite different than that for which they were hired six months earlier.

I really enjoyed astronomy as a kid and had my first good quality telescope
when I was 15 years old. I chose to go into engineering, rather than
astronomy, because I knew that there were many new jobs to choose from
when I graduated from college in 1983. An astronomer often has to spend
a lot of time at his university sending in applications for government
money to pay for his projects.

I would like to stay with JPL for as long as the work is available and
interesting. I have, however, also taught English at night school to
adults from other countries, and I really enjoyed that, too.

Above all, focus on getting a good education in science, writing skills 
and organizational skills and you will have many, many choices in life. 
The bottom line is that you need a good college education, not so much 
to fit perfectly into some specific job, but to gain exposure to lots of 
new ideas and demonstrate to a potential employer that you can finish 
at least one big project in your life - Getting a college degree!.