Fitting the Pieces Together

Physics. Math. Economics. Psychology. As a high school student, Charles Wszalek loved learning how it all worked. As a freshman, he began coding, taking every class his school had available. Then, as a physics major at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, he found that coding played a large role in what was required of his studies.

“Being forced to sit down and understand physics through code, like making ray tracing programs for my optics classes, pushed the limits of what I could get my code to do,” he says.

Around the same time, he started using code to solve some of the real-world problems he encountered. In one instance, he wrote a simulation to figure out how to pay down his college debt.

“Being able to explore coding from many different angles while applying it to something difficult like physics gave me the resume I needed to get the job I have today,” he says.

That position is with Wisconsin-based Epic Systems, which develops support software for healthcare organizations. The software includes patient tools like MyChart, as well as programs used by medical providers, labs, and billing departments. As a server systems technical solutions engineer (SS TS), Wszalek ensures that employees who run hospital servers are following best practices. If a problem arises, he’s the software expert who can provide help.

Wszalek is currently undergoing training for his position, a unique role requiring specialized knowledge, such as in the MUMPS, or M, programming language, Unix administration, and the proprietary systems that Epic has created over the years. For Wszalek, the training has resembled the many computer science classes he enjoyed taking in high school and college.

“The most challenging part has been creating brand new tools from scratch with the vast code base that Epic has created,” he says. “This is because of the sheer amount there is to learn and because it’s so new to me.” In preparing for a highly technical, customer-facing support job like this one, Wszalek says it was important to learn how to accomplish difficult tasks with code and to have a concrete way of demonstrating that experience. “Being able to maintain professional relationships is also a very big thing in customer-facing jobs,” he says.

Once the training is finished, Wszalek will begin his role as a TS. But even with his training completed, Wszalek plans to continue exploring and learning new things.

It’s what he would advise anyone to do. “I always felt discouraged when reading things about people who found their calling as soon as they were born and then became world-renowned physicists in this field that they loved their whole lives, because that’s not where I was or am,” he says.

Instead, he always felt as though he hadn’t yet found what was right for him and has only recently been able to look back and discern how all the pieces fit together. “Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve found until much later,” he says.

During an SPS summer internship with the American Physical Society’s careers program, Wszalek wrote articles about physics degree holders at all levels who were employed in a variety of careers. “This gave me great insight into the serendipity of many people’s career paths and allowed me to give myself a break with the fact that I had absolutely no idea where I was heading,” he says. “At the time, I was trying to find a path that really spoke to me, but I was having a lot of trouble. A bunch of my friends were finding fields in physics that they were going to commit their lives to, and I was just not there.” Wszalek hoped that writing about physicists with interesting careers would not only help him but also others in his position.

“I’m always just making the most of the situations that I’m in and doing the best that I can,” he says. “My studies definitely led me to where I am today, but not in an obvious way.”