Motoring Toward an Unexpected Career
By Sam, education marketing
During my college years, I dedicated a lot of my time to a long-term project known as EcoCAR. (EcoCAR 3 and its current iteration, the EcoCAR EV Challenge, are four-year collegiate design competitions focused on automotive engineering.) I took on smaller tasks as an undergraduate, eventually completing both my senior design project and master’s thesis with the EcoCAR team. My primary focus was on migrating our car models and the code we developed into the real deal housed in our garage.
After graduating and starting work at MathWorks in the Engineering Development Group, these days I get to sit on the other side of the fence as a sponsor for competitions like EcoCAR as part of the Student Programs team. This role allows me to not only help establish rules and competition targets but also mentor teams in automotive engineering and modeling.
What I Thought I’d Do
This was not what I had imagined myself doing as a career. My interest in cars began in high school, sparked by my dad’s old, very beat-up MGB. While I had a passion for muscle cars and classics, my father’s focus on renewables and energy efficiency influenced me as well. Although his expertise was in facility energy management, I discovered a surprising intersection of interests and joined the EcoCAR team at Virginia Tech. At that time, the competition involved building plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which immediately caught my interest, but the main vehicle I worked on turned out to be a PHEV version of a muscle car.
I sank my teeth into modeling and controls, which is where I first got to use MATLAB and Simulink to tackle significant challenges beyond classroom projects.
I really thought I would end up working on the mechanical side of the car and go on to design parts for an automotive manufacturer. However, I sank my teeth into modeling and controls, which is where I first got to use MATLAB and Simulink to tackle significant challenges beyond classroom projects. This experience of doing that work during a competition completely reshaped my career aspirations, although I still imagined working for an OEM on hybrids or electric vehicles.
Shifting Focus
As I approached the end of grad school and began job hunting, my girlfriend (now wife!) was applying to veterinary schools, which limited our relocation options. She wasn’t considering schools in Michigan, the heart of the automotive industry. When she finalized her choices, I started searching for jobs in those areas.
She reminded me of a Massachusetts company I was interested in: I had previously attended a MathWorks workshop at its Apple Hill campus in Natick through EcoCAR. I did apply, and throughout the interview process I was incredibly grateful for the understanding shown by the EDG managers regarding our situation, as it would be months before we knew whether my girlfriend had been accepted into a New England school.
Assisting current students and seeing the incredible solutions and projects they develop has become the most rewarding part of my job.
While I had enjoyed being a team lead on EcoCAR, it was the chance to work with engineers using our tools and sharing my automotive knowledge with fellow EDGers that helped me recognize how much I valued teaching and mentoring. Assisting current students and seeing the incredible solutions and projects they develop has become the most rewarding part of my job. Although I’m not building cars like I once envisioned I would in high school, I have found a fulfilling niche within the automotive world that I am passionate about.
