As a recent graduate of the Binary Institute of Technology (BIT), one of the leading institutions of science and engineering in the world, you have just entered the job market. After locating the college placement office on the campus BIT map, you have wandered in to begin your search for an exciting and challenging career. The people there have scheduled several interviews for you, and you have begun your job search by talking to representatives of several big companies.

After careful consideration of the dozen or more job offers which are currently in front of you, you have decided to accept the job with the Applied Computational Mathematics and Engineering Company (ACME). ACME is a huge international corporation with many very diverse interests. Some of these are computers, energy, construction, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, mineral exploration and oceanography.

You are employed by the Subdivision On Large, Vincible Exercises (SOLVE). It is the job of SOLVE to act primarily as a consulting group for the rest of ACME. Whenever someone at ACME has a problem, which proves too difficult to tackle, SOLVE, is called upon. It will be your responsibility as an employee of SOLVE to be one of the general trouble-shooters and consultants who help out throughout all of ACME.

Your boss, Biro Kratt, knows nothing about computers or mathematics, so he will be relying heavily on you to handle the problems, which might come up in this area. Fortunately, you took a numerical methods course at BIT, so you feel confident of your ability not only to get the job done, but also to get it done well.

Some of the projects that you will be assigned will be easy, while others will be difficult. Each project will describe some situation that could conceivably occur in the real world. Thus, the formulation of the problem itself is occasionally the hardest part of the whole project. Very often, you will be given extraneous information and you will have to decide which information is important, and which is to be disregarded.

For each project, you will need to use the computer in some way. You may need to write a program, use a canned package, or use Mathematica. In addition, you will be asked to prepare a project summary for each project. This summary should describe everything that you did on the project: how you decided to solve the problem, what your program does, what the numbers produced by your program mean, and any other information which is relevant to the particular project. The project summary is one of the most important parts of any project; be sure to treat it that way.

Your career with ACME promises to be entertaining, challenging and occasionally demanding. If you work hard, it will be rewarding too.