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Posted by: chelsea86 Original: 1/13/2008 2:39 PM Views: 8 Comments: 0 eProps: 0 Read Comments Post a Comment Back to Your Xanga Site |
Sunday, January 13, 2008
| Well, I got back from CA yesterday. I had a job interview there with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who design and operate many of NASA's missions. I left on Thursday, which means I missed the first day of all of my Thursday classes. I drove to Phoenix, then flew to LAX. My flight got in at about 2:30pm, but by the time I got my luggage and rental car I didn't get to the highway until around 3:30. There was some traffic, but not a whole lot. Then I hit the 605 freeway, and it was constant stop-and-go traffic from there to my hotel. JPL is in Pasadena, so the internet said that if there was no traffic I'd be able to get there in about 40 minutes. It ended up taking me close to two hours... Once I checked into the hotel I went out and found dinner, then drove from the hotel to JPL so that I'd be sure I knew where I was going in the morning. I made it there fine, and it only took about 15 minutes. It took over 30 minutes to get back, though, traffic was pretty bad. I didn't know how traffic would be in the morning, especially if I took a wrong turn somewhere. I left an hour and a half early, stopped and got breakfast at McDonalds and headed over. There wasn't much traffic at all, so I ended up being almost an hour early. There was a park nearby, so I parked there and waited for a while. Once I got to the visitor's center, there were three other people also waiting for interviews. We talked for a while, they were all getting their Masters degrees in May. Then I met with HR and through the course of the day had 6 interviews. Everything seemed to go really well. I was asked to give a 45-minute presentation entitled "How I Can Contribute to the Success of JPL", so I did that. It's pretty typical for PhD's to give presentations during interviews, so the section that I interviewed with decided everyone should give a presentation. I ate lunch in the cafeteria with my sponsoring supervisor. The cafeteria was really nice and the food was great. Afterward we had a little time so she took me to the Von Karman Museum. There were models of all the spacecraft JPL had been a part of, including a full-scale model of one of the MERs (like Spirit and Opportunity). There was also a full-scale model of the Galileo satellite, which took up most of one room. After lunch I had more interviews. When I met with the HR lady again at the end of the day she said she already had a message from one of the ladies I interviewed with who wants to give me an offer. That lady works on ground systems for satellites. I've been told at school that since it's typically electrical engineers that work on communications systems, and that since I'm an aerospace engineer, I may not have the knowledge that companies are looking for yet. I mentioned that to the interviewer, and she said she's looking to add more diversity to the people in her group, so she's actually looking for someone with an aerospace background rather than strictly an electrical background. She mentioned that she wants to have one of the two new-hires she's planning to hire work quarter-time on the Dawn mission that just launched in September. Dawn is going to the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt, a very small planet and an asteroid. It would be really cool to get to work on that mission... The HR lady also told me that I should go to old town Pasadena that night and look around on Colorado Blvd. I'm not sure I was in the area she told me to go to, but it was still really neat. There was this huge outdoor mall built on top of an enormous parking garage. When I parked, I was sure I would never again be able to find that car again. There were about 6 different entrances to the garage on two different streets and inside there were elevators everywhere. There are even two sets of terrace apartments that overlook the mall. It'd be pretty nice to live there, the mall is right there, Target is within walking distance, there's even a movie theater that you wouldn't have to drive to... I flew back to Phoenix yesterday. If I had realized that the airport really is that close to the ocean, I probably would have gotten up and hour earlier and walked on the beach for a while before heading to the airport. My plane flew out over the ocean as we were leaving LAX. It was Saturday, so there really wasn't any smog and we had clear view of the area. The mountains are right there, the ocean is right there... It's definitely somewhere I could see myself living. Now that I'm home I have to get back into classes and homework and all that... | |
Posted 1/13/2008 2:39 PM - 8 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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