Cut College tuition costs

When I graduated from Drexel University I had a tremendous opportunity offered to me, a job at Drexel University!  What a way to cut college tuition costs.  Educational cost are so high today.  Drexel's tuition was around $3000 a year when I attended college in the 70's

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I didn't know what I was going to do.

Well I've graduated BSEE Drexel University, now what.  Hey, I got out the newspaper and started looking at the Help Wanted ads.  Wow, a company way out in the suburbs of Philadelphia has a summer job opening for an electronics technician.

I apply for the job

I apply for the electronics technician job and of course one of the first questions is, aren't you looking for an Electrical Engineering job?  I said well no, this fall I've been offered a position doing mini-computer systems support at Drexel University.

Why would you want to do that?

It's just another technician's job, right?  Well yes, and no.  One of the benefits of the job is  tuition is paid for any courses I want to take!  Imagine that, a job on campus, and I can take all the classes I want, at no cost.  The job has flexible hours.  This is great I can stay on campus, work for a Masters degree, and make a living too.  No commuting, and I get to stay in the city with the people I know.

I get the technician job in the suburbs

Drexel has a co-op program, so I actually graduated college with industrial experience.  What a huge advantage.  Also during college for two of my required papers I actually designed and constructed a polyphonic digital music synthesizer with a DEC PDP 8 minicomputer interface.  I wish I had followed up on this project.  I had Moog beat by a mile.  I planned to add a sampling waveform lookup table, and this was in 1974, but I digress.

The Drexel job offer falls through

Well by the time fall came around Drexel had reconsidered and no longer wanted to hire a mini-computers support technician, shoot!  Well I was very fortunate, the company I worked for in the summer offered me a job as an Electrical Engineer!  And it turned out to be a fabulous job from a technology stand point.  Digital, analog, optics, photomultipliers (tubes!), Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT), image processing, pattern recognition, microprocessors galore, mechanisms, stepper motors, microscopes, medical technology.  Wow ten years of interesting technology.  A very good first job.

So the tip is obvious

Investigate employment at your college before you're admitted, after you're accepted, before you attend, while you attend, and after you've graduated.  The benefits can be phenomenal, if your still pursuing  your education.

Hope this helped
Bob

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