While Downey High’s Ms Katsufrakis has enjoyed a lengthy stint as a math teacher, she spent many years as engineer before her current job. With her past knowledge, she hopes to give advice to students considering a career in the field.  

Q1: When and where did you work as an engineer? 

I worked at that Rockwell that’s located here in Downey bear the space shuttle and I worked from 1984 to 1994, 

Q2: What was your position? 

I was an electrical engineer. For half the time I worked on electrical services to the payload bay to make sure that people that wanted to fly their experiments didn’t use too much of the shuttle’s power and keep everything balanced out. The second five years I was there I spent in the software department to make sure the software was being patched properly when things were being fixed. 

Q3: What do you feel was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome in that job? 

I guess the biggest hurdle would have been raising children and working full time in my position.  

Q4: How do you feel that your engineering knowledge has transferred into your current job as a math teacher? 

I always wanted to be a math teacher. Seeing things in the real world is obviously very applicable to both math and science, so I guess it all just intertwined. Being in the workforce allowed me to see how important the math I wanted to teach really was. 

Q5: Do you have any words of advice to students considering entering the field of engineering?   

Yeah. I see so much potential in so many of the students to become engineers. Maintain your grade point average, ask questions, talk to your counselors and find out what you need to do to enter that field. Don’t miss any of the opportunities you need to take to enter that field. There are more out there now than ever