A Quote by Aaron Patzer
I always knew I wanted to be a technologist, so I went to Duke and got a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Really, I thought my goal in life was to be an inventor, a problem solver, so I thought I needed a Ph.D. to be good at inventions, but it turns out that you don't.
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I've actually started a number of businesses in my career. So I'm 28 currently, but when I was about 16, I started building Websites, and that's how I put myself through school. I went to Duke with a degree in electrical engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and then to Princeton.
I had originally wanted to be a lawyer. Even when I went to college and majored in engineering, I still thought I'd get a law degree. Then I started taking electrical engineering classes where I saw some of the innovation happening around computers and solid-state technology in the mid '80s.
When the media would call and want to interview me, I thought it was 'cause they really wanted to find out what I thought about things. I thought it was because they really wanted to find out who I am. That's not what they wanted. They already in their minds knew who I was and they didn't like it, and they wanted face-to-face opportunities to expose my defects and my problems and my racism and bigotry and all this.
In life sciences, we find a reasonable balance between men and women. In engineering and computer science, we have a major problem. A very small percentage of women will be in computer science.
My first introduction to computers and computer programming came during my freshman year of college. I majored in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science, so I learned during my required courses at Vanderbilt University.
I thought I wanted to be an electrical engineer, which I turned out to be. But I was always curious about other things too, and what if I got interested in history or the law?
I was always fascinated by technology and wanted to understand it so when I went to UCLA I studied electrical engineering figuring they knew how things worked.
I wanted to further my education, so I went on to get a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and came back and served about ten years in the Canadian Navy as what we call a combat systems engineer.
Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'être. Virtually all of our aunts and uncles had Ph.D.s in science or engineering, and it was taken for granted that the next generation of Chu's were to follow the family tradition. When the dust had settled, my two brothers and four cousins collected three MDs, four Ph.D.s and a law degree. I could manage only a single advanced degree.
My background, I really am a computer hacker. I've studied computer science, I work in computer security. I'm not an actively a hacker, I'm an executive but I understand the mindset of changing a system to get the outcome that you want. It turns out to make the coffee, the problem is actually how the beans get turn into green coffee. That's where most of the problems happen.
Space camp was actually, like, the best summer of my life. It was amazing. But I thought I wanted to be a computer programmer, and among computer science folks, Turing is this object of cult-like fascination.
I love technology. Matches, to light a fire is really high tech. The wheel is REALLY one of the great inventions of all time. Other than that I am an ignoramus about technology. I once looked for the 'ON' button on the computer and came to find out it was on the back. Then I thought, anyone who would put the 'on' switch on the back, where you can't find it, doesn't do any good for my psyche. The one time I did get the computer on, I couldn't turn the damn thing off!
My goal was to always get my degree. Once I did that, I thought I could pursue any other passion because I had something to fall back on if I needed it.
When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.
I thought that I knew the world pretty well. I mean this is what I do for a living, I've been in government or in the Navy Reserves for 13 years. I've got an undergraduate degree and a master's degree focused on that stuff so I would put myself on the what I thought was the more well educated end of the spectrum on these things.
I think I subconsciously knew you needed life experience to direct, and the best films are directed by people who have really lived, with exceptions like Orson Welles, who just burst out of the gate. There are prodigies like that, but for me, personally, I thought I needed life experience.
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