Home again and very sleepy:

Apologies for this being so long. I'm really trying to decide what I thought, so I'm not sure this will be interesting to anyone but me.

The base is in Pax River, MD, about an hour south east of DC. It's right on the Bay and is very pretty, but the city of Lexington Park (closest to the base) seemed just like a bunch of chain stores, spread out along the highway going through. So that wasn't so nice. The distance from DC (and Baltimore is a manageable two hours) is nice, and there's a lot of water stuff to do. Because of the number of interviews I had and a general very rushed schedule, I didn't have much time to drive around and see apartments and stuff, so I only really saw the main road and the base. Maybe off of the highway, the town is a bit nicer(?).

The first night I got there, there was a dinner, with several of the managers talking a bit about their departments. We could try to schedule extra interviews for the next day if anything any of the managers said sounded interesting (and I scheduled one). The food was pretty terrible, and some of the speeches pretty boring. My flight was a bit late, and I got a little lost on the way, so I ended up barely making it to this on time, and I didn't have time to check into the hotel.

That ended about 8:30, so I went to the hotel (which was a five-sunburst Days Inn, apparently), got a room, read about my interviews for the next day. All I really knew were the departments and the names of the people I was interviewing with, so reading the stuff didn't exactly take long. Then I watched Clueless (on cable!) and ironed my shirt. An exciting night.

I didn't have to be in until 9 the next morning, so I left at like 8:30 and hung around with a couple of people once I got there. My first three interviews were with people in the cost department, which, well, I'm not that sure that I'm interested in that. My first interview probably the most structured, and he was definitely the most prepared; he'd highlighted my resume and asked me about specific things on it and classes I'd taken. It went OK, though I'm told he really like statistics, and I definitely didn't talk about stat with him. I had another interview right after, with two people who were replacing a guy who had had to go out of town. One of the people had actually grown up at IIT, which was kind of cool. Anyway, other than that, I don't think that interview went well; it was a lot of umm-ing and let me look at your resume and I don't really know how to deal with that. Then I had an hour and a half till my next interview, so I went back to the main area and talked to people. The third interview went pretty well too. He had a sheet of questions that he just sort of went down, but he really liked my answers. My phone did ring at the end, but it was on vibrate, and I don't think he heard it.

After that, lunch, which was at a bar on base. It was a buffet, and the food came out of troughs with giant slotted spoons. A little scary. We took a tour of the base on the way, which basically consisted of the guy saying: "Well, that's a really good fishing spot...oh, and there are some planes...and you can catch crabs from that bridge there...and that's a building...and THAT is a saltwater pond, which uses different fishing methods" and so on. It's very pretty, and there's a lot of stuff on there, which is one of the advantages of working with the military, I suspect.

I had one more interview at two-thirty, so I thought I'd be done by three. It was another two-person interview, and while the woman was talking, the guy mostly stared at me. Very uncomfortable. Or is this regular interviewing etiquette? When he was talking, she basically watched him. But the project sounded pretty cool, warfare analysis, so I'd be using things to predict the outcomes of battles. At the end, they told me that they were doing a lab tour at 3:30 that I could come to, so I waited around for that. It was a basic computer lab, with a bunch of different OS's on the computers and they showed some of the simulations that they do. Anyway, it was also pretty cool, but it meant that I didn't get back to the hotel till 5. There was a social thing at the bar we'd had lunch at that evening, but I decided to go to dinner with people and then go check out the bars that supposedly existed on this island (yes, I know).

We had dinner and drove over. There were approximately two bars, but one was an outdoor Tiki bar, which was kind of cool and we had drinks there. After we'd been there for an embarassingly long time, a couple of other interviewees showed up. They stayed for a bit, then we went to the other bar. After maybe half an hour there, we decided to go back to the hotel. They went to hang out in one room, but by then it was almost one and I had to leave at 6, so I just went to sleep.

I got up really early and drove back to the airport the next day. I got back here about noon.

Overall impression: It seemed like it would be a nice place to work, but not really for me. Like, I bet the benefits are great, the location isn't bad, and all that, but I just wasn't that interested in the jobs. It was more designed for engineers, and they just randomly brought in some IT people and some OR Analysts, but everyone else was an engineer. And I like engineers OK, but I don't feel like almost having to be one. Conversely, I don't think I was really what they were looking for either. Too into pure math, not enough stat, and ultimately not enough passion for the job. We'll see, though. I might get an offer from cost, but I don't think I'll get an offer from the department I was really interested in. It was definitely a good experience for me though; a chance to interview without that much pressure since I didn't really want the job.