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January 30, 2006 Vol. 77,
no. 3S
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| INDUSTRY
PATH:
Gani Jusuf (B.S.’86, M.S.’90, Ph.D.’93 EECS) is
vice president at Marvell Semiconductor, a billion- dollar, NASDAQ-100
wonder company headquartered in the Silicon Valley. (Photo provided
by Marvell)
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Real World
Engineering: What’s your career path?
Opening panel will explore academic versus industry careers
How do you choose? For insight, come to the opening panel of Real
World Engineering (RWE) on Thursday, February 2, at 4:30 p.m. in Sibley
Auditorium. Dean Richard Newton will explore this topic with two Berkeley
engineers who have chosen distinctly different career paths: Claire
Tomlin (Ph.D.’98 EECS) is an EECS associate professor at Berkeley
and Gani Jusuf (B.S.’86, M.S.’90, Ph.D.’93 EECS)
is vice president at Marvell Semiconductor. Learn how they selected
their career paths and what factors influenced their choices. Here’s
a preview.
Claire Tomlin
Q. You chose an academic career after graduate school. Why?
A. In graduate school, I got to work on a research topic of my choice
very intensively and, at the same time, I had opportunities to do research
in industry and at NASA, bringing aspects of this research into my
Ph.D. dissertation. I chose academia because of this “best of
both worlds” aspect. And I love working with students. Q. What should students take away?
A. Many students have talked to me about their future careers and expressed
hesitation about going into academia, mainly because of the workload.
I hope that they’ll take away some of the reasons why being
a professor is the best job in the world.
Gani Jusuf
Q. You chose industry. Why?
A. I wanted to be associated with product development where I can create
something and directly apply it to a product in a short amount of time.
I like to touch and feel what I work on. I also wanted to have a much
broader approach than what I focused on during my research in graduate
school.
Q. What should students take away?
A. Students need to make their own call on what they’d like to
do. But go with your heart and your passion. Do the best you can, obviously,
once you take a path. Don’t second-guess your decision.
Dean Richard Newton
Q. You’ve been in both worlds. What’s your advice?
A. Do your best to keep your options open. If you do go out to work
for a while, choose a project that will allow you to publicly demonstrate
the impact of your work, either by publishing along the way or by being
recognized for your contributions. Developing your personal reputation
for research and development will increase your options in academia.
Q. What should students take away?
A. No choice you make is ever “fatal;” your future just
depends on what you learn from and do with it. The most important elements
for personal success are persistence and hard work, knowing you
have done your best, a desire to keep learning and expanding your perspectives,
associating yourself with the very best people, and a strong sense
of optimism.
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