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Thinking like an engineer

James Odle graduating with electrical engineering degree

By California State University, Bakersfield

May 9^th, 2024

Unlike many of his peers in California State University, Bakersfield’s School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering, James Odle was not always interested in a career in the sciences.

“I used to hate science and math all through high school,” he admitted.

Odle’s time in the Navy as an electronics technician slowly changed that. He realized he was good at repairing technology, and his mentors and friends in the military encouraged him to pursue his education.

This month, after years of working away at his degree in between deployments, Odle, 26, will graduate with his degree in electrical engineering.

“There was a bunch of hesitation about going to school for engineering,” Odle said. “I wasn’t the best at school. I didn’t know if I could do it, but then I just jumped in.”

‘Anything but linear’

Originally from the Bay Area, Odle moved to Taft as a young child. He enlisted as a reservist in the Navy at 18, following in the military footsteps of his father, uncles and cousins, all of whom served in different branches. Growing up hearing their stories, he was eager to enlist and create some of his own.

Not only did his service give him the chance to travel, it also instilled in him a sense of discipline that made him a better student, a major improvement on his high school days of missing class and blowing off assignments.

Odle initially started his college career at CSUB as a criminal justice major in 2016 before leaving for boot camp. In the military, he was assigned as an electronics technician due to his interest in computers. About a year later, he enrolled at Taft College and got associate degrees in math and criminal justice. With some encouragement, Odle decided to transfer to CSUB and study electrical engineering.

Starting back at CSUB in 2020, Odle left for a deployment to Djibouti, Africa in March 2021, returning to his education again in the fall of 2022.

“My academic journey has been anything but linear,” Odle said. “It’s been hopping back and forth. I tell everyone that I’ve taken a bunch of sabbaticals.”

Odle admitted there was a time during that deployment that he questioned whether he wanted to come back to school, but his Navy buddies would quickly call him out on it, telling him he was so close and he had to see it through. Ultimately, the breaks in his education proved to be refreshing.

“Engineering is super hard, so sometimes your brain gets fried,” he said. “So it was nice breaking away from that. It’s completely two different worlds. When I got done with that deployment, I was excited to go back to school. It rejuvenated my hunger for education.”

‘Boundless creativity’

Initially, Odle’s time at CSUB was limited to his time in class. Once he was hired as an intern at the Fab Lab, he found himself getting more involved on campus and making friends both in and out of the electrical engineering program.

“I love the CSUB community,” Odle said. “All the professors are willing to work with you. If you don’t understand a topic, they’re always in their office. The students are extremely helpful. We’re always studying together. I don’t know how many times I was in the library until it closed with a group of students.”

With most of his classes already completed in his final semester, Senior Project II was the last class Odle needed to finish his degree. For this, he and two classmates worked on a mobile multi-frequency signal jammer, something they envisioned that the Department of Defense and law enforcement agencies could use against technologically capable bad actors. Odle explained that their product is essentially a drone that can interfere with other devices by sending it bad information.

Dr. Amin Malekmohammadi taught this class and was impressed with Odle’s work.

“James Odle is a visionary whose projects stand as testaments to boundless creativity and unwavering dedication,” he said. “With each endeavor, he not only meets expectations but reshapes them with novel ideas that captivate and inspire. A true trailblazer in every sense, James paves the way for innovation, setting new standards and leaving an indelible mark on every project he touches.”

When he wasn’t in class at CSUB or working on a second degree in cybersecurity from the American Military University, Odle spent lots of time in the Fab Lab. In the Navy, Odle works with radios, and he found a fellow radio aficionado in former Fab Lab specialist Bobby Hartsock.

“He helped me out with a lot of concepts I didn’t understand,” Odle said of Hartsock, who moved out of state earlier this year. “We’d talk hours about radios. We were always doing cool projects, like tearing apart electronics and fixing them up.”

James Odle with NSME dean Dr. Jane Dong and CSUB interim president Dr. Vernon Harper at the Order of the Engineer induction ceremony

James Odle and classmates at the Senior Engineering Design Expo

Thinking like an engineer

Last summer, Odle interned at Northrop Grumman as a systems engineering intern and has since been offered a full-time position as a reliability engineer once he gets his degree. In both jobs, Odle has worked in a lab similar to the Fab Lab. His job involves opening electronics to assess their component parts.

Working for Northrop Grumman has been a dream of Odle’s since he was 19, and he nearly quit school to take a job there a couple years ago. Now that he’s about to officially join their team, he’s glad he stuck with his education.

“Prior to CSUB, I would be able to do the job I have at Northrop now; however, with CSUB, I’m able to understand it a lot further,” he said. “I didn’t know the theory behind any of it. I was just like, ‘Oh, this is broken.’ But CSUB made me think more like an engineer, made me understand the theories and made me have much better critical thinking.”

Odle thinks his experience working in the Fab Lab made his resume stand out when he was chosen for the internship, but the hours of tinkering there gave him more than that.

“The Fab Lab gave me the confidence to pursue my ideas,” he said. “It gave me the confidence of seeing my ideas come to fruition.”

With a job lined up for after graduation, Odle is ahead of the game but already thinking about what’s next.

“It feels amazing to be almost done, but I’m very goal-driven, so I’m already looking at a bunch of master’s programs,” he said. “I know my education is not going to stop with CSUB, but it does feel great to check that box of getting my undergrad done.”

To celebrate the milestone, Odle will walk in commencement later this month. His mom and other family will be traveling to attend, some making the drive south from the Bay Area and others flying all the way from Peru.

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Footnotes

Story and lead photo by Kelly Ardis, communications specialist, School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering (NSME); other campus photos by Abel Núñez-Guerrero, Outreach & Community College Coordinator for NSME; personal photos courtesy of James Odle

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