Blaine Camp


Position:

AIX Systems Administrator

Employer:

Norfolk Southern Corp.

Job description:

Install hardware and software on IBM Unix machines. Provide support for these systems and software to 100+ users and customers.

Salary range:

$37500 - $53000

Job satisfaction:

Very Satisfied.
Excellent working environment:
- good people
- new equipment
- stable
- challenging
- large profitable company

Bad Points:
- located downtown Atlanta
- oncall
- railroad retirement takes an extra 4.9% from each paycheck

Employment history:

Norfolk Southern for 5 years.

Suggestions for students:

Ask about everything you can think of:
- benefits are #1
- pay (starting sal., promotions, raises, bonus) time and amount
- vacation
- people you will be working with
- hours you will be working (overtime, after hours, etc)
- education
- comp. time
- company paid trips

Advisor/Student Relationship:

Unless someone is going into teaching the person needs to start thinking about a job a full year before they graduate. Their advisor should help them find alumni in their field of interest and have people come back and give talks to the undergrad and grad bodies to let them know what else is available to them with a math degree. Push the students to at least take some computer courses. Help the students put together their first resume and make them go on at least 3 practice interviews to help them see what they need to work on. The best thing you can do is find out what your student wants to do and let them know all of the opportunities that are available to them. Try to get a feel for what the student will fit well with. Stress levels, responsiblity etc.

Miscellaneous comments:

In my job the only thing I use my math training for is the exercise in reasoning and organizational skills gained from learning to think in an orderly and logical manner. These skills can be used in almost any field and should be at the top of the list in things that a student should get out of taking any math course at uga. If you get a math degree you should feel confident enough to put your thinking powers up against anyone else in the world as you will have completed one of the toughest degrees you can strive for.

E-mail Blaine

Date of last update: Jan. 14, 1997

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