>> [Background music] Aeronautics & Astronautics
is at the forefront of revolutionary technological
developments.
The educational and research opportunities,
aerospace-based information systems, energy,
complex autonomous systems, composite materials,
aerodynamics, and propulsion ensure our graduates
will be competitive well into the future.
>> Ian: My name is Ian.
I'm a senior at the University of Washington
in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department.
Ever since I was a young kid, I've always
been interested in airplanes and space flight,
especially since watching the Apollo 13 movie
and the Apollo 11 landing on the moon.
When I was in high school, I visited the Museum
of Flight in Seattle and the Smithsonian Air
and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and that
just furthered my interest.
I came to the University of Washington because
I knew they had a great College of Engineering,
and in particular, a great aeronautics department,
and I knew that this is what I wanted to do
with my life.
>> Deanna: My name's Deanna from the University
of Washington.
I'm in Aeronautics & Astronautics.
I found out about aeronautics and astronautics
at UW, and I've always had a really strong
interest in airplanes and space exploration.
So, when I found out that there was this opportunity
at my school to further my education in that
and actually get a degree in something that
would allow me to work in the space industry,
that got me really excited...
>> Ian: It was really fortunate being in the
aeronautics department because we have a great
study-abroad program over in France with one
of our associate professors.
It was really cool, especially since we got
to spend four days up in Paris at the Paris
Air Show, where we got to see the new Airbus
A380...
>> Deanna: Eurocopter
>> Ian: ...Eurocopters, the Ratheon jets,
and all the new planes that are coming out
in the aerospace industry.
>> Deanna: Yeah, and we got to sit right on
the runway and watch all the planes take off
right in front of us.
And also, we got to take, like, all those
classes there from the four main aeronautics
schools in France.
Aeronautics & Astronautics is always on the
forefront of technology.
It has a little bit of electrical engineering,
mechanical engineering, civil engineering,
and you get to apply the fundamentals of those
subjects into space flight and aerospace.
>> Ian: There's so many exciting opportunities
from space flight to commercial flights to
the private industry to the military.
Especially around here in Seattle, there's
all these companies that we can go into, from
the larger companies such as Boeing, to the
hundreds of smaller companies all over the
Puget Sound area.
>> Deanna: I've had two different tours down
at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
My first internship, I was responsible for
creating a graphical user interface that displayed
trajectory data of the International Space
Station for other flight controller groups
to access at any time that they needed to.
And right now it's actually on their web page
and being used as a beta version, so it's
nice to see something that you've worked on
actually getting put into play.
On my second tour, I got to work on certifying
hardware and qualifying hardware for the next
shuttle mission.
Before each mission, you have to go through
strenuous testing and revalidations of all
the components especially crew survival hardware
because this hardware has to work.
Otherwise, you lose your crew.
And this shuttle mission was really special
because it was the Hubble mission, and so
our group had double the amount of hardware
that they typically would have had to qualify,
so I got to experience what itwould actually
be like working in that group.
And I got to actually meet the entire shuttle
crew for this upcoming mission and sit in
the shuttle mock-up.
I actually got to do the crew escape.
It was really, really a good experience because
I was working with this hardware all summer,
and I got to learn a lot from these different
experiences and multitasking and meeting short
deadlines.
It was very much real time engineering.
Students should be interested in aeronautics
and astronautics because we're at the forefront
of technology.
We're dealing with aircrafts and space vehicles.
These are things that are taking us above
and beyond where our expectations may go,
and it's a very exciting industry.
