About IBM People

A College Debate: Engineering or English?

Donna Freck

Donna Freck debated two majors early in her college life: engineering or English? "I was always good at math and science," Freck said, "but I also liked English." She applied to schools that had strong programs in both areas and chose the University of Virginia where she started out focusing on engineering. "My reasoning was that it would be easier to switch from engineering to English than from English to engineering," she said. "I really enjoyed my engineering courses and I even took a few English classes, which made me realize that I made the correct choice after all." Freck graduated from the University of Virginia with B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and has put her education to good use. Today she works in IBM's Server Group as the manager for switch management software development. Her team of 20 develops the code that controls and initiates the SP switch. "Basically, we write the code for a switch that connects many computers together and allows them to talk to each other in a parallel environment." Her team has proven how important diversity is in the engineering world. "Engineers are very good problem solvers, but each engineer has his or her own way in going about a problem," Freck explained. Her team consists of 13 men and seven women, made up of longtime IBMers as well as people who have only been with the company a few years, with a variety of nationalities represented as well as different ages. There are people with bachelor's and master's degrees, Ph.D.s as well as people without engineering degrees. "When we brainstorm, we get the benefit of all these experiences," she said. "Everyone brings opinions and their own personal way of looking at the issue, which is a lot of fun, but also helps us arrive at a stronger solution." What kind of advice does she offer students? "No matter what you do, get familiar with technology and what it can do," she said, "and when thinking about careers, take advantage of family and friends who know about the careers you're interested in." "What I've found is that engineering can be the basis for many different fields," she said. "I have friends from school who practice medicine, design airplanes and develop software for computer games. At IBM, there are opportunities along many different lines. If you want to be a deep technical person, you can do it. If you want to manage people, there are opportunities for that. If you want to make a change from hardware to software engineering, find a way to do it. Dream big and pursue your dream."