"Anyone familiar with Matlab has probably typed 'why' into the command window at least once, after typing 'who' so many times, just out of idle curiosity. It might not be very productive to sit around the computer monitor with your friends laughing at the random answers Matlab generates to the question 'why,' but it's fun, harmless, and very true to what engineers think is funny. But more seriously, yes, I have done several school projects using Matlab and Simulink. It might not be my first choice for making a simple home budget spreadsheet, but for any technical task requiring repeatedly processing large amounts of data in flexible ways, for building simulations of control systems and even creating autocode from them, it's a good tool. I am open to learning any additional tools that ABC Corporation uses, but already knowing one such powerful tool is a good foundation, and it sounds like you are already using Mathworks products, so I could hit the ground running on that score."