Professor Tom Brown. Dr. Brown - Informational Interview Case

Date: September 21st, 2012

Subject: Informative Interview

I conducted an informational interview with Professor Tom Brown. Dr. Brown is a Computer Engineering professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. The interview took place on Friday, September 21st, at a restaurant near Georgia Tech campus in Mid-town. Dr. Brown is actually received his PhD degree from Georgia Tech and decided to return to teach after extensive work experience in the Information Technology field ranging from consulting for a Fortune 500 company to working with Information Security for the United States government. I choose to interview Professor Brown because I am interested in the IT field and he has an illustrious career in the industry.

The first question that I asked Dr. Brown was why he chose to pursue a degree and career in technology as opposed to any other major. He responded by saying that he was always interested in working in technology because it is always changing and it has a great impact on his life because it is used every day. He has been the project leader in some of the research projects conducted by the federal government dealing with information security and protecting information. Professor Brown also worked as an IT Consultant for Accenture in which he helped integrate new systems for clients. One thing that he made clear was that research is very important and it is what keeps everything moving forward to new discoveries and technology while being able to explain the technology makes you an asset to wherever you are.

Throughout the interview Dr. Brown stressed his opinion that if one is interested in being established in technology, schooling and certifications are needed to advance and have a varied career in the IT industry. Being comfortable with multiple systems and technologies being comfortable with jumping back and forth between them is