Laura Readdy

Summary

Math was my favorite subject in high school. Looking forward to college, I asked my advisor what I should declare as my major. At the time I thought that majoring in mathematics meant that I would have to teach, but I didn't think that I was cut out to be a teacher. He advised me to major in engineering. After a year, I discovered that engineering was not for me, so I changed my major to mathematics. Still wondering how I could apply mathematics to the real world, I decided to get a combined mathematics/computer science degree.

After graduation I was hired by EDS and have been working for them for more than 12 years. I spent my first four years mainly working with databases. I was a database programmer, designer, administrator, and trainer. I worked on several projects where I worked directly with customers to define and solve their problems. Similarly to solving mathematics problems in school, I had to gather all the facts and come up with the best solution.

After working at EDS for four years, I took a position in their training department. Besides teaching database classes, I also taught a class in testing programs. I found that the theory behind testing programs is all based on mathematics. Of course this was right up my alley. And I had become a teacher!

After leaving the training program, I accepted a position at an account that develops CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing) systems.