December Alumni of the Month

Name: Moustafa Mohamed
Major: Geographic Information Systems
Year of graduation: 2012

Current employment status:
·         Employer: Leidos Inc
·         Position: GIS Analyst

Did you/do you currently go to graduate school? No

Why did you want to be a GEOG/GIS/ENSP major?
I was lucky enough to travel the world and experience many different cultures and visit exotic places. My father loved to travel and took us on many trips during our summer vacations so I grew up with a very diverse view of the world. When I started attending UMD my interests were in the humanities, such as history, political science and anthropology, but I wanted a technical degree. GIS was the perfect choice in this regard because it was the best mix of both worlds. You can’t be an effective GIS analyst without taking human geography into account and in that regard, I was very fortunate to have experienced different cultures and visited other countries.

What internships or independent research did you do as a GEOG/GIS/ENSP major?
I interned with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). I was tasked with the GIS portion of the TCOTRN project. The nature of this assignment was to map potential drug and weapon road routes to the United States from Central America. Opensource GIS data was used in this project as well as NGA Geonames. The web of roads then became a network which we analyzed using the Network Analyst tool. I was tasked with this work for 6 months and it was very relevant to the work I did starting with Leidos.

What recommendations would you make to current GEOG/GIS/ENSP majors for career and academic success while they are still undergraduates?

I would recommend that undergraduates work on their programming as that will increase their job marketability significantly. I would also recommend that students attend the Geography Job Fair every semester. In addition, the GIS community is very niche so make as many friends/contacts as you can while you are still at UMD.

What recommendations would you make to current GEOG/GIS/ENSP majors for career and academic success after graduation?

After graduation, I would recommend that fresh undergrad keep their skills up to date. GIS is a rapidly changing field and there are new tools and programs for use coming available very often. In addition, the job market is very fragile and as a result it may take a while to get employed right out of college for those that choose to. Just keep applying and don’t give up.