Zachary Beever, Music Composition to Electrical & Computer Engineering

Zachary’s undergraduate degree is from Boston Conservatory in music composition. His major explored classical music in the modern era including writing music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and solo instrumentalists. Now, Zach’s headed to an electrical engineering masters degree with a focus on electromagnetism and circuits. Zach aspires to use his new knowledge to become an engineer on experimental physics projects.

What brought about Zach’s change in direction from music to electrical engineering? Zach had  always been interested in physics and math and he decided to attend a community college to prepare to apply to LEAP.  While at the community college, Zach was one of four students selected from a competitive nationwide application to work at Fermilab in Illinois. Fermilab is America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory where scientists explore the subatomic world and build high performance computers.

How does his music background impact his current engineering path? Zach says “In music when you practice you get better-if you are struggling at first you work on it! It’s the same now, work on it and then a year later you will realize you’ve made huge progress.”