An Interview With Whitney
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Whitney is currently a chemical engineering major at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. She was honored as Longwood's "Outstanding Student in General Chemistry" for 2013-2014. Whitney shares in this article how, during her summers as an Explorer, trips to MITRE had an indelible impact on her course of study.
"So I thought back to what I was good at in high school, and that was chemistry," she remembers. "And I thought back to my experiences at MITRE, because I remembered liking everything I did there. The MITRE employees were doing things that were a mixture of science, math, and technology—so engineering seemed like a good way to incorporate everything that I liked." |
Picking a Major: MITRE'S Influence
by Marlis McCollum
During the course of her young life, 20-year-old Whitney Price says she has "fallen in love" with a variety of career possibilities, including teacher, lawyer, and coroner. But ultimately, she says, it was a visit to MITRE 10 years ago that helped her select chemistry as a college major and is continuing to influence her career path today.
Price came to MITRE as a fifth grader through the Great Explorations program, which exposes preadolescent children to a variety of careers and cultural events. The program is the brainchild of Jerylen Daniels, who as an elementary school teacher and administrator had encountered many bright children who were unaware of the many career options available to them or the many cultural experiences the Washington, D.C. area had to offer. "I thought, 'Let's catch them when they are still excited about the possibilities of life, and during the summer expose them to a variety of careers and cultural events that would not normally be part of their lives,'" she recalls.
Whitney Price was among the first 10 children to participate in the program in 2005, and MITRE was one of the first organizations to open its doors to the group. That first year, the children were given the opportunity to build minirobots, fly MITRE's cockpit simulator, learn what it was like to work in an air traffic control tower, and talk with MITRE researchers whose backgrounds mirrored their own.
In 2008, MITRE participated again, and Price returned to MITRE for a second time. "I distinctly remember the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System demo," she says. "That really fascinated me. I just really wanted to understand how that technology worked."
That memory resurfaced when Price was a college sophomore at Longwood University and realized that biology—and a career as a coroner—were not for her. She knew she needed to choose a different major, but what?
"So I thought back to what I was good at in high school, and that was chemistry," she remembers. "And I thought back to my experiences at MITRE, because I remembered liking everything I did there. The MITRE employees were doing things that were a mixture of science, math, and technology—so engineering seemed like a good way to incorporate everything that I liked."
With those thoughts in mind, Price met with her college advisor, who suggested she explore a career in chemical engineering.
"My school doesn't offer a degree in chemical engineering, so I'm majoring in chemistry and am taking some physics classes," Price says. "After I get my bachelor's degree I'll go to graduate school. I'm already looking into schools that offer a master's in chemical engineering, or chemical research, or pharmaceutical research. I'm not quite sure yet which one I'll choose. I'm still falling in love with everything."
—Marlis McCollum, Corporate Communications for the MITRE Corporation