The Vision of Spring ’14: The View from Week 1

The first week of Spring semester 2014 has now come and gone, and we all have a better picture of what to expect in the upcoming months of the semester. Around Seidenberg HQ, there is a buzz from students who eagerly anticipate an exciting semester ahead of them.

For example, senior Seidenberg student Valerie Cayo has mentioned her enthusiasm towards her honors thesis, which she is working on alongside of Professor Dwyer, Seidenberg’s Information Technology department chair. Her thesis revolves around game design, and Cayo states she’s just getting started and looks forward to where the project will take her, come May.

(L to R) Derek Li, Josué Vicioso, Valerie Cayo, and Aldous Castello hang out at Seidenberg HQ to work and relax between classes.

Another senior, Aldous Castelo talked about his goals for the semester: finishing stronger than ever, which he thinks is possible with a great first week. He specifically mentioned his goals of working hard in his most challenging, yet most interesting, class, Software Engineering with Prof. Scharff. Derek Li, a senior as well, also spoke of his intent to work hard this semester. He points out that he enjoys the rigor of his classes and the brain work required for each. Li also looks forward to his independent study with Prof Benjamin, who will work with Derek to learn more about artificial intelligence. Adding to the hard working student body, second semester freshman Artem Karapetyan is already putting effort into finding an internship by signing up for the career center‘s workshops that will whip him into shape for interviews and opportunities.

Check out FTC’s Facebook!

We also took a moment to talk to Dr. Kline about what he’s looking forward to. Kline eagerly brought up his involvement in the Hudson Valley First Tech Challenge, “an accessible, challenging robotics competition for students of high school age,” (FTC). The Hudson Valley Regional Championship will be held on fast-approaching February 16th, the winners of which will advance through levels, leading to the World Championship to be held in St. Louis, Missouri come April.

 

A Message Seidenberg’s Career Services Correspondent: Svetlana Kotlyarenko

“Welcome back! I hope the first week of Spring Semester went smoothly.

By way of introduction, my name is Svetlana Kotlyarenko and I will be your new Career Counselor. If you’re interested in securing an internship, job, need your resume reviewed, would like to prepare for an interview, or just chat about your career, I am your go-to person.  For your convenience, I will hold office hours every Wednesday from 1:30 – 4:30 PM right here at 163 Williams Street, and will be available all other days right across the street at 41 Park Row, 14th floor.

If you haven’t started to give internships a thought, I encourage you to do so. In addition to strong academic performance, employers want candidates to have hands-on experience in their field of study upon graduation. In other words, if you want to land a great job out of college or attend graduate school, completing an internship or two during your academic career is crucial.
With that said, Career Service has lots of great opportunities in the tech industry. I will send internships your way bi-weekly. Please keep an eye out for that email!

There are 4 easy steps you will have to take to complete to participate in the internship program. They are as follows:

1: Complete Online Webinar
Learn the basics of Career Services, eRecruiting, and what’s expected of you. This is the first step in the internship process and is MANDATORY for participation in Career Services Internship Program.

2: Attend an Interview Workshop
Develop the skills to get the job! Discuss difficult questions asked by employers and learn about the different interview formats. To sign up visit our website homepage for the schedule. This is MANDATORY for participation in Career Services Internship Program.

3: Schedule an Appointment with a Career Counselor
Schedule an appointment with a career counselor. Be sure to bring in a resume draft.

  • During your first meeting with your career counselor you will be asked to sign a student agreement.
  • After revising drafts, the next step is to get your resume officially approved by your career counselor.

4: Using eRecruiting
Once your profile is completed on eRecruiting, you are eligible to connect to jobs, employers, on-campus interviews, and events throughout Pace University’s worldwide network of campuses and employers.

Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions (skotlyarenko@pace.edu).

I look forward to meeting all of you in the coming weeks.”

-Svetlana

Note: Svetlana’s office hours will be as follows:

Monday, Tuesday, Friday – 1-2PM or by appointment at 41 Park Row, 14th FL
Wednesday 1:30 -4:30 by appointment at 163 Williams Street
Thursday – 11 AM – 1PM; 3:30PM – 5PM by appointment at Goldstein, Office 311

Advice: Why Am I in This Class?

“Why am I in this class?” is not something you want to be asking yourself halfway through a semester, yet this question still resonates from many corners of the student community. At this point, the best you can do is hunker down and suck it up– sorry, folks. But, when it comes to a new semester of courses (like now, with it being the first day of class), you can preemptively eliminate the possibility of arriving at that moment when you’re in a classroom thinking, “OH GOD WHY??”

The first tip we offer may be an obvious one: check RateMyProfessor! Everyone knows about this resource but some people still forget to use it or have not yet realized how useful it is. If you’re curious, check out the reviews of professors you’ve had before, you’ll quickly see that the reviews are often accurate. One downside is that professors are often required to teach core classes that no one enjoys, which gets them bad reviews. Posts by students list which class they took with the specific professor, so for the most accurate review, read posts by students taking the class(es) you’re looking at.

If RateMyProfessor still doesn’t convince you to take or avoid a class, ask your peers. They can usually offer more insight than anonymous reviews on the internet. Better yet, they can give you more information on what you’ll be learning. Great or shabby professors aside, sometimes the curriculum of certain courses is just not your cup of tea. Peers can help you distinguish between exciting and drab courses.

Next, if your peers and RateMyProfessor have both convinced you to take a course, but classes start, and you’re not feeling it right away…drop it! Believe it or not, all students have a two week grace period to drop classes without penalty. Sometimes the classroom atmosphere, the students, the professor–could be anything–make you feel so unenthused about a class and that feeling is obvious on day 1 of class. If this happens, log onto portal and leave! You can even pick up another course or take the same course in a later semester, maybe with a different professor and definitely with different classmates.

Now and then, classes trick us into loving them and stab us in the back later, which is rather unfortunate and unavoidable but also rare. Usually classes are doomed from the start if they are to be bad. This is easy to avoid if you do your research prior to taking a class. Doing this will help you find the classes that excite you. Don’t set yourself up for that mid-semester panic you’re bound to go through if you’re in classes that are wrong for you; going through these techniques will help you find the exact classes that excite you.

 

 

Welcome Back, Students!

Who’s ready for Spring 2014?! We here at Seidenberg hope you have all had the most enjoyable holiday break, but maybe by now you’re feeling the itch to get back into the swing of the semester and to get started on all those projects you have in mind, eh? We’d like to welcome all the beginning-of-the-semester initiatives anyone may have, and urge you to carry that gusto with you all the way through the spring until it feels so normal that you never lack in productivity again. That’s always the goal, ain’t it? Here are a few things to expect for the upcoming months that are specifically geared towards making this semester a successful one.

Make this your first goal of the semester if you’ve got nothing else.

First off, the wifi! Yes, Seidenberg HQ finally, finally, has the new PACE-WIRELESS wifi system, so good riddance to the dark, wifi-less corners at HQ that only SEEMED like great places to crack down on work. From now on those corners will support your endeavors with reliable wifi, as will the rest of our space here on William St.–hallelujah!

Next, a few shout outs to classes that will be available and a reminder that it’s not too late to register; Prof Linda Jo Calloway will be teaching a course that focuses on ways that new web media interact with content, which is critical to understand when designing for the web. The course is writing enhanced and still has spots available, so grab yours before it’s too late! Full course info is available via Schedule Explorer using CIT 335 and CRN# 21931 as references. Another class worth mentioning is Prof Dwyer’s interdisciplinary course on CIS and Surveillance in society. This class is the required CIS101 course paired with Film Studies, which work together for a unique approach to computing. The class has ONE more spot available, so don’t dilly-dally! (INT198h, CRN# 23188)

Lastly, we’d like to extend a warm welcome to all new grad students joining us for the first time this semester!

It’s been a quiet month of holidays, but we’re ready for the semester to start! We’ll be seeing you around shortly, and until then, keep checking in for other bits of news and stay safe in this snowy weather!

[Edit: previously mentioned deadline for DoD scholarships has been redacted due to changes in the scholarship availability. Those who currently receive aid from DoD will not be affected, but new applications are currently not accepted.]

The ‘Dark Horse’ of Seidenberg Initiatives

Of Seidenberg’s four initiatives, we often don’t get around to talking about  Distributed Teamsin comparison to how much we talk about the other three. So let’s talk about it.

Distributed Teams, also commonly referred to as ‘Virtual Teams’ or ‘Remote Teams,’ are groups of people who collaborate on one project together, except not all the team members are in one location. Now that the world is becoming more and more connected through the internet, but physically getting from place to place still takes time and money, people are continuously improving ways to work together from a multitude of locations. These locations can be as close as our two Pace campuses, or locations can be dispersed across the world (see: Design Factory).

This method of collaboration is still relatively new, and requires constant TLC, which Seidenberg has been researching and testing through various projects. Seidenberg chooses this field as one of our top four initiatives because it offers students, alumni, and faculty a global experience. Students, alumni, and faculty can all benefit from partnerships with universities around the world, as well as companies who choose to incorporate global perspectives when designing or distributing a product. Distributed Teams as a method of collaboration is rapidly gaining importance in the professional world, and we here at Seidenberg prefer to stay on top of the changes and innovations in the field.

 

Student Creates Mobile App at Developer’s Conference in South Korea

Every now and then, students from the Seidenberg get to head off on an adventure across the globe. Recently, we had an update about a team of students traveling to Finland (read about it here)– today’s post is about one student’s recent trip to South Korea. 

Alexander Gazarov (right), a graduate student studying computer science, is the latest of many Pace students to experience the international tech world. He has just returned from a developer’s conference in Seoul, South Korea, where he built an app with developers from all around the world. Gazarov found out about the conference – the Tizen Developer’s Summit – through another conference he attended here in the United States, the Samsung Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

The app Gazarov worked on in Seoul is currently known as Benefit Society. It can be used to determine how much each person in a group should pay at a bar. For those of us who have experienced how difficult it can be to work out the tab during a night out, as well as the arguments that can come with it, the app does all the hard work for you and ensures the night remains fun and confusion-free. Its simple interface means even the hardest of partiers can benefit. Working alongside developers from Russia and South Korea, Gazarov used the language C++ to develop the Benefit Society app. At Seidenberg, we are extremely proud to have a student like Alexander Gazarov representing Pace internationally and creating apps that will help make life a little bit easier – at least at the bar.

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