A friend of mine's working on a bunch of DARPA projects, and his path was:
1. Attend a top liberal-arts college (CS, Amherst)
2. Get master's degree from top research university (HCI, Carnegie Mellon)
3. Work for General Dynamics
4. Stick around long enough to get promoted, kick butt, etc.
5. Profit!!!
BTW, he said that chances are, whatever the next big thing is will come out of DARPA. His bet was on pervasive computing - DARPA's apparently doing a lot with computers in clothes, computers in canteens, computers in backpacks, computers in visors, basically computers everywhere. The logic being that most of their troops are getting deployed to inhospitable environments (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and if they can monitor environmental conditions for things like excessive heat, sandstorms, laser sniper sights, explosive residues, they can save lots of soldiers' lives. And of course, if it trickles down to consumer uses it could completely change how people use computers.
1. Attend a top liberal-arts college (CS, Amherst)
2. Get master's degree from top research university (HCI, Carnegie Mellon)
3. Work for General Dynamics
4. Stick around long enough to get promoted, kick butt, etc.
5. Profit!!!
BTW, he said that chances are, whatever the next big thing is will come out of DARPA. His bet was on pervasive computing - DARPA's apparently doing a lot with computers in clothes, computers in canteens, computers in backpacks, computers in visors, basically computers everywhere. The logic being that most of their troops are getting deployed to inhospitable environments (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and if they can monitor environmental conditions for things like excessive heat, sandstorms, laser sniper sights, explosive residues, they can save lots of soldiers' lives. And of course, if it trickles down to consumer uses it could completely change how people use computers.