Patrick McDonough

Year of graduation: 2014

Major: Geographic Science: GIS, Remote Sensing, and Computer Cartography

Employer: UMD

Position: Faculty Research Specialist

What internships or independent research did you do as a GEOG/GIS/ENSP major?

Before becoming a GEOG student I worked as a research assistant in Daniel Lathrop's Non-linear Fluid Dynamics lab where I was tasked with creating a microphone to record the sounds inside liquid helium as it became a superfluid at 4 Kelvin.

Once I entered Geography I worked in Tatiana Loboda's lab where I identified burned crop fields through satellite imagery.

I also gave a presentation on VIIRS to Tatiana and some of her graduate students.

I also worked as a TA in several different classes, both online and in person.

Why did you want to be a GEOG/GIS/ENSP major?

I have always enjoyed maps, looking at them, making them, etc. I also like statistics and working with large amounts of data. When I found out that I can combine those two hobbies with GIS, I knew I'd found the right major for me.

What recommendations would you make to current GEOG/GIS/ENSP majors for career and academic success after graduation?

Take some computer science, statistics, and physics classes. Being competent in computer science is incredibly important for any research that you may want to do and looks very good on a resume. Statistics is already required but taking more than one will definitely help you when you have to handle large data sets. Lastly, if you have any desire to go into remote sensing, the physics department offers a really useful class on the physics of light that I would recommend students should try to take. Any further degrees definitely help in the job search.

What recommendations would you make to current GEOG/GIS/ENSP majors for career and academic success while they are still undergraduates?

Go to career fairs and talk to people. Even if you don't find a job you like there, get some contacts and get on some mailing lists for the hope that you find out about jobs through that. Lastly, make sure to talk to your teachers. They do more than just provide you an education. Some may even have really interesting research that you could become a part of.

Congratulations Patrick!!