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For David Liszewski, choosing a college major wasn’t about chasing a dream job. It was about chasing good problems.

“I love solving problems,” he said. “I knew [mathematics] would be a great degree as a launching platform for what I wanted to do.”

This mindset led him to ����ԭ��, where he earned a degree in . Today, he’s a machine learning engineer living in Seattle and working remotely for Centerfield, a digital marketing and technology company based in Los Angeles.

A Math Major with Real-World Focus
Liszewski grew up in Hermitage, Pennsylvania. ����ԭ�� offered the right balance of location, affordability and academic opportunity.

He chose the applied mathematics program because he knew he wanted to go into industry, not academia.

“I chose applied mathematics to get some real-world applications,” Liszewski said.

During his time at Kent, Liszewski joined the Math Club, made lifelong friends and explored a variety of math, physics and computer engineering courses. That broad foundation helped him discover what he was most passionate about: statistics, modeling and data science.

He also worked on a research project in the Physics Department, creating a program that automated data analysis for transistor testing.

“That was great to be involved with and get experience of what the research world looks like,” Liszewski said.

Courses That Shaped His Future
A few classes at ����ԭ�� stood out as pivotal to Liszewski.

Liszewski said Mathematical Models, Dynamical System and Computational Statistics were the courses that really built the foundation for what he uses now.

Those courses introduced him to optimization and probability, two areas that would later shape his graduate studies and career.

A Career Built on Data and Collaboration
After graduating from ����ԭ��, Liszewski went on to earn a Master of Business Analytics from the MIT Sloan School of Management. While much of the program was remote due to COVID, he still moved to Boston to be part of the experience.

“That program helped refine my opitmization and machine learning skills even further,” he said. “That then helped me land a job for my career as well.”

Now, as a machine learning engineer, Liszewski writes code in Python, analyzes large datasets with SQL, meets with teams and builds systems that improve business decisions.

One of his projects was to build a model that helps route customer service calls to the best available agent, based on past performance data.

“The goal is to improve the experience of our agents and consumers, but also increase conversion rates,” Liszewski said.

The work is technical, but Liszewski also emphasized the collaboration and communication required to succeed.

“It’s a lot of collaboration working with others to try to find the best solution and a lot of communication, building out charts and graphs to show the trends that we’re improving,” he said.

A Growing, Changing Field
Liszewski sees machine learning and data science as fields with enormous growth potential.

“Every company nowadays has data to work with,” he said. “They need data analysts and data scientists to anaylze that data and help improve their business.”

He also sees math as the engine behind many of today’s most powerful tools, including AI.

“Mathematics is like the gears of the car,” Liszewski said. “With all the changes we’re seeing with AI, getting that knowledge and understanding in the field is going to be super helpful for your career and life in general.”

Advice for Future Students
For students considering a major in mathematics, Liszewski encourages them to stay open-minded and get involved.

“Take every opportunity that comes to you,” he said. “You’ll never know where they can lead you.” 

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