A presentation I gave to the STEM Club at Marymount University talking about my engineering background and how it helped my career as I shifted into business, law, and economics.

1. What a STEM Major Can Do For You
The Experience of an Engineer

2. STEM Statistics
• STEM majors very much in
demand
• Higher salaries
• Lower unemployment rates than
other majors
• May ease entry into grad school?
• Great background for starting
business
• 23% of Fortune 500 CEOs
studied engineering
• Easier to "retool"

3. Not All Majors Are
Created Equal

4. My Background
• Mechanical Engineering
• Virginia Tech
• My Engineering Experience
• DuPont
• IBM
• Westinghouse / Siemens
• Mitsubishi

5. Jobs
• Design
• Manufacturing
• Instrumentation & Controls
• Marketing
• Sales
• Project Management

6. Travel
• Never set foot on an
airplane until I was 21
• Since traveled to 28
countries on all 7
continents, including
Antarctica
• Visited all 50 states
• Had resources &
opportunities to do so
because of engineering

7. Career Shift
• MBA at University of Florida
• JD (law degree) at George Mason
University
• PhD in Economics at George Mason
University
• Despite having never taken an
economics class as an undergrad
• Mercatus Center, Becket Fund, FTC
• Each academic experience enriched by
STEM background
• Santa Fe Institute
• Volunteer work

8. Why Economics?
• Study of the incentives and institutions that
promote scientific discovery
• Analyzes the effects new technology has
on human flourishing and well-being
• Ponders the impact of innovation and
entrepreneurship
• Law and Economics analyzes the impact
of intellectual property
• Arguably the most STEM-ish of all the
social sciences
• Lots of engineering analogies

9. Skills Most Useful in My
Career
• Communication
• Written & Oral
• Math
• Calculus / Linear Algebra / Diff.
Eq. / Numerical Methods
• Physics & Chemistry
• Probability & Statistics
• Economics
• Computers
• Operation & Programming

10. Second Derivative of World's
Change = Positive (+)
• Rate of change of the world appears to be positive
• No one knows what tomorrow holds
• Prediction = unpredictability
• Mitigate risk by training to be adaptable
• Very few skills more in demand than quantitative
• Will help broaden understanding of the world and
increase opportunities throughout life
• Strong signal of value to potential employers