Alumni Spotlight – Parker Hopkins
Meet Parker Hopkins, Wake Forest Physics and Mathematics Major class of 2021. Parker now works in the financial sector. In the following interview Professor Macosko discusses with Parker his experiences as a student and career path. Parker provides valuable advice to students regarding education, career, and life.
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Prof. Macosko: What are you doing now career-wise?
Parker: I work for Wells Fargo in the COSO Remediation team that is based in Charlotte. I mostly work from Baltimore MD (where I grew up) remotely. I do spreadsheet reporting, data analytics and record interactions and meetings for my team. I talk to team members to build professional business skills in Corporate America.
Prof. Macosko: How did Wake Forest Physics help you get where you are today?
Parker: Well, I have always loved physics (and math among other academic subjects), Wake Forest physics taught me to work hard, ask questions and approach things from different perspectives. All these skills apply to financial work and such and are analogous to solving a hard physics problem from first principles. Someone asked me why I got a finance job as a physicist, and I said that even if the content does not directly apply, the principles and thinking skills do. My former physics advisor Gregory Cook said finance work is a natural fit for many physics majors.
Prof. Macosko: Do you have an anecdote you would care to share either from your time at Wake Forest physics or from afterward relevant to Wake Physics?
Parker: Just take advantage of the opportunities and such, get help early. Talk to the professor for physics (or any class), go to office hours. Be clear and concise when communicating a point and such. I like to talk about connections of ideas, such as how vector calculus applies to electromagnetism problems, or how group theory is employed in particle physics work.
Prof. Macosko: Is there anything you would like to share with prospective or current students?
Parker: Find something you like doing and such if not for work or school outside of it. I like learning in general and am considering taking physics (or math, maybe intermediate electricity and magnetism or maybe mathematical statistics, or a permutation and asymptotic analysis math class etc.) classes at Towson University Spring 2024 towards a masters eventually. For others this may be research in a lab, reading and researching about history or philosophy (which I enjoy), or a hobby and sport, such as tennis. Often when we love doing something it does not feel like work at all. This is a great attitude towards life and such.
Prof. Macosko: Can you offer any advice to do well in classes and life?
Parker: Take life and classes one step at a time. Email professors about questions, points of clarification etc. Show work when doing a problem, sometimes even write out words to describe what you are doing and why. Try and understand not only what you are doing but why you are doing it. I like connecting ideas about things outside of physics (and math) as well such as how the past influences the present in history, and how the present compares to the past. People always say we study history “to not repeat the mistakes of the past”. This is true to a degree, but as humans we are doomed to make mistakes and often, they are similar to ones in the past. History also gives us perspective on life and how society got to be the way it is now.