“So, What Can you do with Your Major?”

The Holidays are quickly approaching. Many of us will be traveling and visiting family and friends. Some of us may go to holiday parties filled with our parents’ friends and people we typically only see once a year. At all of these events you are more than likely going to be asked “So what do you want to do with your major?” you’ll probably be asked more than once. 

If you aren't quite sure what you want to do with your degree yet, this is probably a very frustrating question. When you answer that you aren't quite sure yet, you’ll get responses that almost definitely indicate that your relatives think you are doing nothing but sleeping in or going to parties. Other possible responses include your neighbor beginning to tell you how she ended up working at her dead end job that she hates, or your mom’s best friend telling you how wonderful her son is doing at college. No matter the response you get you probably won’t end up finding your dream career over Thanksgiving dinner or at that awkward holiday party. 

I am a biology major and I have known for a while that I want to work with animals in some way. I absolutely loved the vacation I took with my family to Yellowstone National Park. I told my relatives that I really liked the idea of working with the wildlife, like at Yellowstone. They then proceeded to think I wanted to be a forest ranger. For years they thought I wanted to be a forest ranger until they asked me about how UMBC was preparing me to be a forest ranger. I looked at them so confused! 

My career path has changed many times since I have been at UMBC. I wanted to be a bioengineer, then a veterinarian, then a geneticist, then I wanted to do something more computational, then I wanted to do biomedical research, and now I am applying to graduate school to study evolutionary biology.

Your career path is not always clear cut. You may even change majors from biology to chemistry and then from chemistry to economics, and then from economics to global studies. If you aren't sure what you want to do, come to the Career Center and set up an appointment and we can help you identify possible career paths related to your interests.

If you don’t want to end up hiding in the corner with your older sister who graduated over a year ago and still doesn't have a job, then come to the Career Center. You can also check out some of the career exploration tools on our website like the Woofound Compass which is a quick and easy personality assessment. And the Focus 2 is an excellent self-assessment tool that uses your interests, personality, skills, and values to develop a long list of possible careers. The Focus 2, along with career advisement provided by Career Specialists, can help you clarify your career path. We have several other career assessment tools on our website that you may find useful as well.

WAVE FELLOWS

Caltech is committed to promoting diversity within its educational programs and activities and strives to ensure that differing cultural, ethnic, social, geographic, and economic perspectives are represented.    Caltech's WAVE Fellows program aims to foster diversity by increasing the participation of underrepresented students in science and engineering Ph.D. programs and making Caltech's programs more visible and accessible to students not traditionally exposed to Caltech. The program supports Caltech's commitment to training a diverse set of science, technology, engineering, and math leaders.  The program is extended, but not limited, to underrepresented minorities, women, first-generation college students, geographically underrepresented students, and educationally and financially disadvantaged students.

UMBC ACM techTalk

Increasing Base-Station Anonymity in
Wireless Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks

Profesor Mohamed Younis
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

1:15pm Wednesday, 12 November 2014, ITE 325b

In many applications of ad-hoc networks, the bulk of the traffic is targeted to few nodes. For example, in wireless sensor networks the base-station (BS) collects data from a large number of sensor nodes. Another example is a surveillance network in which the gathered intelligence data about criminal activities flow towards field commanders and/or an in-situ BS. Such a network operation model makes the BS a critical asset for these applications. An adversary can nullify the value of a network by simply disrupting or physically damaging the BS, without targeting individual data sources. The failure of the BS can also cause a loss of important data that may not have been processed and can cause a major negative impact if the BS represents a commanding authority for the network. Therefore, concealing the location and role of the BS is of utmost importance for maintaining a robust network operation.

Packet encryption does not achieve BS anonymity since an adversary can intercept the individual wireless transmissions and employ traffic analysis techniques to follow the data paths without knowing the content of intercepted traffic. Since all active routes end at the BS, the adversary may be able to determine the BS’s location and launch targeted attacks. Similarly, camouflaging or hiding the BS does not provide protection when its location is unveiled via traffic analysis. Employing spread spectrum signaling methods is not a sufficient BS anonymity countermeasure as adversaries are becoming more advanced and equipped with sophisticated intercept technologies. In addition, signal spreading reduces rather than eliminates the prospect of transmission detection. This talk will highlight the traffic analysis threat, present anonymity assessment metrics, provide an overview of effective cross-layer techniques developed in the ESNet Lab for increasing the BS anonymity, and outline open research problems.

Dr. Mohamed Younis is an associate professor in the department of computer science and electrical engineering at the university of Maryland, Baltimore County. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Before joining UMBC, he was with the Advanced Systems Technology Group, an Aerospace Electronic Systems R&D organization of Honeywell International Inc. While at Honeywell he led multiple projects for building integrated fault tolerant avionics and dependable computing infrastructure. He also participated in the development of the Redundancy Management System, which is a key component of the Vehicle and Mission Computer for NASA-s X-33 space launch vehicle. He has published over 150 technical papers in refereed conferences and journals. Dr. Younis has five granted and two pending patents. In addition, he serves/served on the editorial board of multiple journals and the organizing and technical program committees of numerous conferences. Dr. Younis is a senior member of the IEEE.

Role at the UMBC Career Center: Director

Q: Where have you earned your college degrees?

A: Graduate Degree

Harvard University- Cambridge, MA

Undergraduate Degree

Georgetown University- Washington, DC

Q: What program(s) did you study? How did you choose your major?

A: M.Ed. in Human Development and Psychology

B.A. in Psychology

Personally, I struggled with deciding on a major flipping between biology (pre-med) and psychology. However, I always knew I wanted a career where I could personally make a difference. I decided on psychology as I was drawn to learning about human development and began to see myself in academia as a career.

Q: Tell me about the job and internship process when you were in college. Were you able to find job/internship positions that were related to your major or your career interests?

A: I worked throughout college- research, intern, volunteer, work study, part-time job- you name it and I did it. Each of these experiences developed my strong work ethic and passion for helping others. My favorite positions included interning at a Women's Shelter and conducting research in artificial intelligence and alien abduction (long story here).

Q: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

A: Your community does not define you.

You are in control of your destiny.

Q: Why should students visit the Career Center?

A:  While in college, it's important dream about the possibilities. However, the Career Center will help connect you to those possibilities via internships, networking functions, on campus interviews, trips to companies, etc.

Let us help you discover and achieve your dreams.

Q: What is your favorite aspect about UMBC?

A:  I greatly value my UMBC experience, which spans over 15 years. UMBC is not only a place that supports innovation but also is a community that cares about people.

Q: What is one item on your bucket list?

A:  Within the next five years, I would like to take my husband and boys to Poland. Both of my parents immigrated to the US in their 20s and remain very active in the Polish community. In fact, they still only speak to me in Polish. I want my kids to experience Polish culture and customs first hand. This would mean a lot to me.

Q: What is one aspect of the DC/Baltimore area that you often explore?

A:  My husband and I lived in Baltimore City (Federal Hill and Canton) for ten years. We love going into the city to meet up with friends- relive our younger years.

Want to connect with Christine or any of our great Career Center team? Call our office at 410-455-2216 or check out our contact us page here: http://careers.umbc.edu/aboutus/

The Summer Clinical and Translational Research Program (SCTRP) is a ten-week mentored, summer research program designed to enrich the pipeline of college students' understanding of and interest in pursuing clinical and/or translational research, as well as to increase underrepresented minority and disadvantaged college student exposure to clinical/translational research.

In addition to mentored clinical/translational research experience, SCTRP students will participate in weekly seminars with Harvard faculty and graduate students focusing on topics such as research methodology, health disparities, ethics, career paths, and the graduate school and medical school application process. Participants will also have the opportunity to participate in offerings of other Harvard Medical School programs such as career development seminars and networking dinners.

With such a diverse major, there are so many areas in this field to explore!

Becoming a student researcher will give you the option to:

> Engage in hands-on projects with faculty and peers

> Travel (to Costa Rica, Turkey, or Sweden; it's up to you!)

> Publish your findings

> &/OR Get paid to keep going!

Check out the link below for more info and to see some of the cool research other peers in your field have done!!