Current Position:

Senior Associate Technical Support Engineer at SAS

Degree (s):

• Mathematics, May 2015

Was the degree you earned required for the work you do? How did you find yourself in your current position?

No. The desired degrees for my job are Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Business Information Technology, or Management Information Systems. Most of the people I work with have a background in Computer Science or Business IT, but there is one person I work with that also has a Math degree and we had actually taken a class together at NCSU and both ended up at the same place, which is pretty cool.

I kind of randomly got an internship at SAS during the summer before senior year. It was an internship in Product Management, so it really had nothing to do with Math at all, but they were just looking for students with some basic technical and social/communication skills. I did not really expect to hear back when I had applied, but next thing I knew I had gotten the job. After that summer ended, I was fortunate enough to stay on as a part-time intern while I finished up school. I really think this was a crucial piece that lead me to where I am now. After working at SAS for about a year, I knew I wanted to look for full time jobs here. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a full time role for me in the same division where I had been working, so I started looking for other opportunities at SAS. Because of my internship, I had a lot of work that I was able to show off during my interviews, and I had met a lot of people that could give me recommendations, so I think that made a big difference. I ended up interviewing for my current job towards the end of first semester, and got the offer right before Thanksgiving. So I finished up my spring semester, graduated in May, started working in June 2015.

What skills or abilities do you find are most important in the work you do?

I think one of the most important skills for the work I do is the ability to effectively communicate with others. I am working with customers on a daily basis and good communication is a key factor in getting issues resolved. If the customer doesn’t communicate something clearly to me, or if I don’t communicate something clearly to the customer, that is what holds us back. Effective communication leads to quicker resolution and a better experience for everyone involved. Second to that is the ability to learn. For the job I do, really anyone is capable of doing the work as long as they have the ability and desire to learn new things. I am constantly learning new things every day in order to keep up, so it is important to have that skill.

What preparation would you recommend for someone interested in entering your field? Are there any courses at State you would recommend?

If you are interested in SAS specifically, or any software/technical company, I would take the time to develop some business and technical skills beyond what your major provides. These companies aren’t only looking for Computer Scientists or Computer Engineers, they want people who understand numbers and problem solving and critical thinking, so there are a lot of opportunities for us Math people…but, you will stand out if you have some of those business and technical skills that you won’t learn in your math courses alone. If you have the opportunity, take a business course on Marketing or Information Technology. Take some programming courses, learn how to write some code (SAS, java, C, python, etc.). Take some statistics courses, learn about data analysis. These types of extra skills will help you stand out and give you an edge.

What other career paths would you suggest a student explore before making a final decision?

It really depends on what you are interested in. There are so many industries that want to hire Math majors. Don’t think that you are limited to certain areas just because you majored in Math and didn’t get a computer science degree, or a business degree, or whatever is it. There are jobs for Math people in all industries, you just have to find them. Apply for all kinds of jobs too. You won’t get them all, but apply anyway. Give yourself plenty of opportunities and don’t feel like you have to say ‘Yes’ to the first offer you get. But even if you do, there is nothing wrong with doing a job for a few years and then changing your mind. Don’t feel like your first job will be your only job forever. It’s okay to try out a few different jobs before you really decide what you like.

If you had to do everything over again, would you do anything differently? Why or why not?

I feel very blessed to have gotten the internship experience that I did and to have been able to find a good job at a great company, but I sometimes wish I would have looked for more opportunities before choosing one. I got my job at SAS so quickly, that I didn’t really look at other opportunities to see what else is out there. if I could do things again, I think I may have applied for more jobs and done more interviews before deciding. Even if you feel confident about one job, it doesn’t hurt to at least get some interview experience and meet people at other companies or in other industries. You never know if you might run into that person again in the future.