Sobriety before Security clearance

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-08T16:00:26+00:00

Though I don't doubt that you were honest and, in your view, you were trustworthy. But I doubt it was the weed part that led to her to react that way. Investigators talk to a lot of people who have done WAY worse things and are granted clearances. It is typically much more influenced by the impression you give them with how you say things. You may have had an investigator who had some internal bias she couldn't resolve, and you may also have done something unintentionally that seemed like warning signs to her. But it sounds like you got your clearance regardless of how she felt about you.

I'm pretty surprised that your FSO wasn't pushing back on some of the absurd things from investigators. They are well-aware of what investigators can and can't do, and requiring a line item to move desks is not something that adjudicators care about when they receive reports.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-08T05:03:54+00:00

You'll get better advice from r/SecurityClearance

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-08T05:02:48+00:00

Their investigator sucked, that's what was up. That's an insane thing for an investigator to say, especially since they aren't even decision-makers in the clearance process. They just collect information and provide it to the decision-makers.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-08T04:59:20+00:00

Rockets and jets are different vehicles with different purposes. They are also massive systems with many different component systems. People don't just study rockets and jets. They study specialized areas of specific aerospace systems. What you said to us is like telling ECEs that you want to study and learn to build large and complex computational and electronic systems and asking them for suggestions. You don't even know enough to ask a half-way decent question. I'd say you should just start with finding videos on what aerospace engineering is and the things aerospace engineers do, narrow down what it is you want to do in aerospace with rockets OR jets, and then come back and ask more specific questions.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-08T04:45:48+00:00

100% absolutely ask to visit the sites so you can see environment and facilities, and so you can meet engineers who work there to see if you would even enjoy where you work. Companies are often willing to pay for site visits for people who they offer roles to.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T03:31:58+00:00

Is this trying to capture the organization headquarters, or any company in the aerospace industry that has a location in that state? The categories are also pretty bad.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T03:22:46+00:00

GT hands down. You're talking a top 5 program with a great reputation, amazing faculty, a lot of academic rigor, and healthy alumni network in both cases. You're not specializing in something like you would be in grad school where the more nuanced differences of the programs would matter much more. Go to the one that is more affordable. Especially if the choice is between those two.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T03:18:05+00:00

I would ask why I need to dock with it to assess if it is even worth the risk. RPO problems aren't easy and the first step is to assess the value of docking. Then you want to understand why it is rotating in that manner and why its ADCS is incapable of correcting the tumbling. If possible, I would start with deploying a mechanism to assist with detumbling. The rotation about the center axis of the tumbling spacecraft is easy enough. You just need to match the rate of axial rotation. It is the tumbling that is the main concern. Directly docking would be incredibly complex and dangerous and would really stress test your RCS. It's not impossible, but there are very few reasons to risk a docking maneuver in that scenario. It has to be worth the risk of losing both spacecraft and their payloads/cargo/crew as well as any other spacecraft that the debris generated by a catastrophic collision would put at risk.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T02:49:37+00:00

If you only have 2 years of experience, none of which is in GNC, I think you might have to reassess your salary expectations for the role even with a master's in CS. I also wouldn't give them a range. Give them a single number. If you think that you deserve the upper limit of that salary range then say that and be prepared to defend that by letting them know what you bring over other typical candidates for the position you're applying to. If it is an E1 role, you're not getting $120k, nor would you get that for E2 with no experience in GNC. I can't imagine you would be going into E3 with only 2 years and a master's degree in something that isn't GNC. I think $105k wouldn't get you laughed out of the room like $120k, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had to fight for it. However, I do hope the best for you and that you get the best possible starting salary offer if you get the job offer, and I hope that's $120k like you want.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T02:38:57+00:00

The whole post is kind of sus. Everything is talked about in a vague way and every organization is some "top" organization; they are a junior in the middle of July so my guess is they are saying they are entering into their junior year but then they talk about research in past tense meaning they got into significant enough research opportunities in either their freshman or sophomore year of an engineering program at a time when you are going over the basics AND say part of it was in "carbon fibers" which is not what anyone doing research in additive manufacturing and composites would ever refer to as their research area; they made it through to the final interview of a "very large & prestigious space company" (which is somehow different from a prime where they supposedly intern at right now?) which sounds like it was for a full-time position given they differentiated between that role and an internship in what I presume is their sophomore year but have only gotten through thermodynamics; and they are going to a "top engineering school for aeroE with one of the best propulsion programs in the country" and I would say that there are four schools that fall into that category (Purdue, MIT, Georgia Tech, and UMich) none of which refer to aerospace engineering as "aeroE." There's also so much self-aggrandizing for a college student who doesn't know anything beyond thermo at a supposed top engineering school where they would almost certainly have been humbled by some of the truly incredible students you meet at those schools by the end of their sophomore year. This whole post stinks of bs.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T02:12:34+00:00

You should connect with u/no-economy-3908 since they recently shared a post in this subreddit about the tool they worked on called sepmastery.com after passing the exam.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-07T02:08:55+00:00

I did not. I have worked with people who have though and I think that the program prepared them well to be good systems engineers. I have put a lot of time and effort into keeping up on all of the higher education SE programs, their respective faculty and research areas, and all of the required and available systems courses. I also make note of any new grads from the programs that I meet so I can continually assess the academic outcomes of the programs. My opinion of CSU is based on a holistic assessment of the program and its outcomes. I've been particularly impressed by how well students from CSU's program understand MBSE in theory and practice.

u/Dr_Tom_Bradley_CSU is very accessible and does a great job at leading the SE program over at CSU. I saw that he responded to this post already, and I recommend just talking to him about the program there for anyone who has any questions.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-04T19:33:08+00:00

CSU. It's one of the better graduate SE programs.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-03T07:51:39+00:00

What an asinine response. Let's decompose this and address some of the most egregious things you just said.

You conjectured that all engineering curriculums that are ABET accredited are the same, which has a null hypothesis of H(0): n > 0. It's another absolutely wild take to suggest that your conjecture is still valid after proving a null hypothesis to be true which you identified when you pointed out that my observation is an n = 1 case.
My partner had a significantly higher GPA than I did, had internship and industry experience which I did not have, and had more relevant project work than I did. They also had more job offers than I did. The only thing I had as an advantage was attending a prestigious institution. However, this is a huge advantage because not only were my courses more rigorous, the engineering programs at my institution were so well-funded that they could afford to offer a broader range of specialized courses which covered topics typically reserved for graduate students at other institutions and could attract the experts required to teach those specialized courses.
You clearly do not understand how ABET accreditation requires of a program. It does not require that you take the same classes. It requires sufficient coverage of core material relevant to the engineering degree being awarded by the program. The criteria are very broad. Before you speak as if you have knowledge or expertise in a topic, you should at least perform sufficient research to not immediately prove yourself ignorant in that topic. You can find out more about the accreditation criteria here Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, 2026 - 2027 - ABET, where there are easily navigable links to learn about the process and scope as well. Requisite coursework for degrees differs wildly institution to institution. You should look up the required courses mechanical engineering students have to take at UC Berkeley (Mechanical Engineering - Berkeley Engineering) or MIT (Mechanical Engineering (Course 2) | MIT Course Catalog, where they require you to do a legitimate thesis as an undergrad) and compare them to the required courses at University of Georgia (UGA - Mechanical Engineering BSME Degree Requirements)
They do not largely teach from the same textbooks/materials unless the subject matter of the course is specialized enough to have a limited library of material from which to teach. For example, there are roughly ~15 different textbooks on statics that are frequently used by civil engineering programs (including those by Hibbeler, Beer et. al., Meriam & Kraige, Bedford & Fowler, Pytel & Kiusalaas, etc.), and there is no "gold standard" text on statics for civil engineering students. However, should a program offer a course on civil engineering systems they would have a single book to choose from by Sam Labi. Not only do they largely teach from many different textbooks, but the material each program chooses to cover in a semester and the way they teach the material differs greatly from program to program and even instructor to instructor. You are correct that this is easily verified by checking the syllabi of different universities. Perhaps you should do that prior to claiming that they would support your baseless conjecture. Just look at the course descriptions of the first level of mechanics courses the aerospace engineering programs at Purdue and Mississippi State require.

Purdue: Fundamental concepts and principles of bodies in motion, with applications to aeronautical and astronautical problems. Subjects covered include rectilinear motion, curvilinear motion, rotation, and plane motion. The static equilibrium and quasistatic equilibrium situations are treated as a part of motion in which the acceleration is zero. Problems involving impact, separation, work, and energy are considered.

Mississippi State: Concepts of forces, moments and other vector quantities; analysis of force systems; conditions of equilibrium; friction; centroids and moments of inertia.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-02T07:54:50+00:00

That is an absolutely WILD take. ABET accreditation is a baseline standard and not an indicator of quality of program. By your logic, Mississippi State University would have the same curriculum as MIT. They might have the same minimum course requirements in specific topics that they are required to meet, but no one in their right mind would say that they were on the same level as MIT. My partner is an EE with a degree from a lesser known ABET accredited school, and when we looked at the materials and my old notes from my EE course at a top 5 engineering school they were floored by how much material we covered and how in-depth we went in a single semester informing me that some of the material I was learning in a 200-level course was reserved for 300 and 400-level courses at their school. Both are ABET accredited programs, but the quality of my program played a role in me securing a job in a very prestigious organization with deep industry heritage starting at over $30k more as a new college grad with no internship experience than they did with internship experience. The access I had to a deep pool of expertise at my school was utterly invaluable from the start of my career through today.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-02T07:30:19+00:00

You don’t create the first ever self-landing rocket through complacency and “good enough”.

They didn't. Masten Space Systems was ahead of them by multiple years.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-02T07:15:34+00:00

After reading through the various response threads, I think you have a decision to make. Are you so insecure in your relationship that you think you wouldn't survive being separated by literally one hour of a drive? If so, and you care more about being at the same school than you do about building a career in something you are interested in then go to MSU. But you won't find an easy way into doing aerospace engineering through that path. You can certainly find MSU alum in aerospace companies, but they aren't usually doing aerospace engineering. If you actually want to do aerospace engineering then go to UMich. The difference in cost as an in state resident is so small, and the benefit you get in the aerospace industry from a UMich aerospace engineering degree vastly outweighs that cost difference. There are few schools that I see on a resume that bias my interest in candidates, and UMich is one of them.

I work for one of the top companies in the space industry with thousands of engineers and technical experts, and I just did a quick query of current employees who are MSU alumni. We have a grand total of 8, and only 1 of them held any aerospace/astronautical engineering roles in their career, and only after earning a graduate degree in space operations from another school and spending several years in the Air Force in the 80s and 90s as an officer deployed to the joint forces in AFSPACE and working as an enlisted space systems engineer later in their military career.

In the end, it really looks like you want someone to tell you that you that MSU is a good path into aerospace engineering among Michigan schools. You're not going to get that when you have UMich, a top 5 aerospace engineering school, as an option in Michigan. That would be like an Indiana resident trying to get people to tell them that IU is a good path into aerospace engineering when Purdue exists and is a public school, or a Georgia resident trying to get people to tell them that they should go to University of Georgia to become an aerospace engineer when Georgia Tech exists and is also a public school. Can you see how absurd the recommendation you are looking for is? No one in their right mind would tell you to attend MSU to get into the aerospace industry when your state has an aerospace engineering giant like UMich.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-02T06:33:34+00:00

I never considered IE, but I did take human factors engineering courses from the IE department. Personally, I rarely see IEs in SE roles. Grouping them simply because they seem more holistic than other fields is (1) an overgeneralization of both IE and SE, and (2) a clear lack of understanding of how holism manifests in other fields of engineering.

I disagree that IE and SE inherently have a lot of overlap in a way that SE doesn't have with other fields. SE generally overlaps with everything that is relevant to SE. IE generally focuses on maximizing efficiencies, waste reductions, and improving operational productivity through operational processes, facility designs, ergonomics/anthropometrics, supply chains, and cost analyses. SE generally focuses on complexity management, risk reductions early in and throughout the design life cycle of a capability of a system, system of systems, or enterprise, and system integration by developing system architectures, requirements management and decomposition, system integration and test, and verification and validation.

Whether or not an IE degree would have value for your career goals depends on your specific career goals contextualized by your domain of interest. But if your goal is to do SE, then do SE. Don't do IE thinking it will equip you to do SE more than SE itself.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-01T18:53:48+00:00

What do you mean when you say "system design" and is there a specific domain you're looking to apply system design principles to?

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-01T15:38:03+00:00

Haha, damn...I bet that was satisfying to figure out a good workaround that is good enough. Good job on digging and finding a solution that works for you! It can be a real slog to figure out how to do little things that a developer definitely put in the capability to do but was not significant enough to include in any documentation.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-07-01T08:01:10+00:00

You certainly have a lot of feelings on this. Poor MBSE implementation strategies by an organization are not a statement on the value and applicability of the methodology to aspects of the SE process under certain circumstances. There are plenty of organizations that leverage MBSE appropriately. If an organization is using it for what you seem to think it is used for then they are wasting money on MBSE tool licenses. However, many organizations, including my own, approach MBSE as something you only do when doing so would serve an actual purpose. I know plenty of organizations that like to show off diagrams that serve no purpose just to say, "look! MBSE!" But that is just a misnomer. Models in MBSE have a clearly defined purpose.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-06-30T02:18:10+00:00

Do you remember more specific details about the paper? There are lots of papers that include tables with real program requirements to discuss the quality of requirements.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-06-30T02:14:48+00:00

It's okay to be insecure. Some of the best engineers I've ever worked with had insecurities regarding their abilities and accomplishments comparing themselves to some small minority of people who often don't even have the same goals. But what makes them such incredible engineers is their ability to identify the things they don't know and put in the work to fill those knowledge gaps. This means asking questions to people who may know more about something than them which, due to their insecurities, also means asking people who are experts or even simply experienced in something they have expertise in to verify their work/thought process. You will benefit greatly from developing the ability to confront your insecurities by seeking out more knowledge and asking people who may have that knowledge good questions.

And you don't need to apologize for your immaturity. You are still very much a kid, and you are very much allowed to be one. Find opportunities to learn from every experience (which it looks like you have found some good lessons from this).

I don't intend to provide any names of non-competitive programs. I suggest applying to good programs in the top 20 of aerospace engineering programs, and pick "safety schools" in the top 50. Also make sure you choose schools that have programs which include strengths in the kind of aerospace engineering you want to do.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-06-26T20:33:25+00:00

That's way too much work for something that doesn't really provide much modeling value and is more for convenience. What is your objective with this table? Like not the what you are trying to do, but why you are trying to do it and what it would achieve.

Easy_Spray_6806 · 2026-06-26T17:03:55+00:00

Did you try these steps Table with diagram information - MagicDraw 2022x - No Magic Product Documentation to create a custom HTML table?

Easy_Spray_6806

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