(Even If I Never Used It the Way I Thought I Would)
Most people don’t talk about their degrees decades later.
But I earned mine from Georgia Tech, in Industrial & Systems Engineering - and recently went through the trouble of verifying and digitally stamping it.
Not because I needed it for a job.
Not because I wanted to hang it on a wall.
But because it reminded me of something important:
🛠 I’ve always been wired to engineer systems - not just machines, but human ones.
In my final year, our group project was with Motorola - optimizing an assembly line. I remember standing there, watching workers, thinking:
“If it’s my job to time people and tell them how to be more efficient... Yuck.”
That moment stuck with me.
Because I realized I’m not here to squeeze seconds out of people.
I’m here to question why the system works that way at all - and build something better.
That mindset pulled me into software.
Then into systems.
Then into leadership.
I’ve always been more interested in what we’re doing, why we’re doing it,
and how the human experience fits inside the structure.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know better - and young enough in spirit to still love it. That’s the combo.
And yeah - I still think remote controls are confusing (remember Human Factors class, anyone?) We can send rockets to space, but navigating “Input 3” still requires a PhD.
👀 Humans, right?
The date’s on the degree. If that makes you do math, good luck keeping up with the rest.