We’re closing in on college application deadlines. One of the albums that my mom kept included a recommendation letter for my own application to MIT in 1979. I was working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on the Pioneer Venus project (specifically, data analysis for information streamed back from the Orbiter). Goddard was a two-tiered plantation where the elites were federal government civil service employees and the slaves were employed by contractors. In my case, the contractor that actually sent me paychecks was Computer Sciences Corporation, though I worked on site at NASA every day. My boss was Naren Bewtra, who was born in India and came to the U.S. to earn a physics Ph.D. at Cornell.
Here’s the album page:
Related:
I read a book on Fortran in the late ’70s, and first got a chance to use it in 1984 at a summer college program for high school students, “Scientific Computing”. I worked for a sailboat store as a high school student, much more fun IMO and I met cuter girls. A lot of the “codes” [sic] for linear algebra in supercomputing applications are still in Fortran 90. My first language was Basic, which I used to write a fantasy baseball prototype in when I was 14 on one of the first IBM PCs. I didn’t even apply to MIT, much less Caltech–I was dorky enough. I wish you were still working with us on interactive and non-interactive graphics, especially in Lisp, your creative ideas are needed. I’m the “embarrassment” (formerly the non-PC “black-sheep) of our family, so my mom didn’t keep records of my National Merit semifinalist accomplishment.
Wikipedia –
“Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) was an American multinational corporation that provided information technology (IT) services and professional services. On April 3, 2017, it merged with the Enterprise Services line of business of HP Enterprise (formerly Electronic Data Systems) to create DXC Technology.”
@philg: “Goddard was a two-tiered plantation where the elites were federal government civil service employees and the slaves were employed by contractors. ”
1979 was long before paid 4-week+ furloughs for federal government worker elites.
Very solid letter but where is the section about your extensive struggle against repression by your relatively Privileged NASA colleagues, not to mention the adult GWU undergrads excluding and Marginalizing you (via wedgies, hazing, forced binge drinking, etc). Or your Native American roots (great aunt twice removed Elizabeth). Would being a mere youth rocket scientist (ok, rocket software engineer) cut it these days?