For the first time ever, Pace University has joined forces with One Hundred Black Men of New York for the Jr. 100/Pathways to Success program. The Jr. 100 program is a world-class leadership and educational enrichment program that helps prepare High School students (such as the four students pictured below) to become intellectually sophisticated citizens with a vigor for personal growth and learning. This partnership will feature a rigorous and enriching curriculum that will not only challenge scholars academically but also help shape their perspectives on society.
Kaliv Parker from One Hundred Black Men’s Board of Directors mentioned that the organization is enthusiastic about their partnership with Pace University. He states that,
“This level of engagement will allow us an opportunity to up-level our offerings during this year’s program while catalyzing new opportunities for our scholars. We are very confident that our scholars will be immensely prepared not only for college academia but for all of their next stages of life.”
This new relationship between Pace and One Hundred Black Men has been spearheaded by Pace Government & Community Relations‘ assistant VP Vanessa Herman, and Seidenberg’s Associate Dean Dr. Jonathan Hill. Alongside Herman and Dr. Hill, Olga Bogomolova and Caitlin Grand have been in charge of Pace’s content for the upcoming events with Jr 100. These two women are also acting as mentors within the program, and helping them are student mentors Sabiya Bacchus (CS ’15) and Siobhan Wilmot-Dunbar (CS ’16).
Sessions will be held on Saturdays, February to June, at both Pace University and TD Bank, and will include multiple interactions between Pace’s affiliated universities (Aalto U and Duoc U, for example) as well as companies and associations that are proud to join with 100 Black Men of New York. The primary objective of the program is to enhance life, leadership and team-building skills, while expanding awareness in college academia, entrepreneurship, and corporate careers.
Additional sponsors for the events and partnership include Macy’s, Bloomingdales, CIA, and Estee Lauder. To keep up with the progress of Jr. 100, check out the follow social media handles for updates!
Seidenberg student Anthony C. Martini (MS/CS ’16), recipient of the NSF CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service, reflects on his recent experience at ShmooCon. He writes:
“Readers,
First and foremost, thank you to the ‘Shmoozers’ who sponsored my trip thought the Shmooze-a-Student Scholarship awarded to 25 attendees each year to help subsidize the trip expense for students. I have received the scholarship for 2 years in a row and found the experience invaluable and encourage all students to apply.
ShmooCon is different; “ShmooCon is an annual East Coast hacker convention hell-bent on offering three days of an interesting atmosphere for demonstrating technology exploitation, inventive software and hardware solutions, and open discussions of critical infosec issues” (Shmoocon.com). The philosophy is to keep the conference at around 1400 attendees, and thus manageable by Mr. Bruce Potter, Mrs. Heidi Potter, and the ‘ShmooGroup’ team.
(Left to right: Anthony Martini, Bruce Potter, Heidi Potter, Nolan Hsu a student)
ShmooCon itself is a very affordable conference, which allows many young students and professionals to attend. However, spots at this conference are highly coveted and often sell out within 20 seconds after spots become available online (we like to call this “Happy F5 Day!” in reference to the online browser refresh key). I feel that this conference’s InfoSec industry to hacker-con ratio would be about 30/70. This dynamic leaves room for being silly over professional, spontaneous over regimented, and laid back rather than rushed. Also if you are a swag-monger, you could easily leave the conference with enough security vendor t-shirts to impress your friends with one for each day of the week.
Real life representation of a ‘Shmoo’ made by contest winners of Barcode-Shmarcode
Anthony Martini himself, showing of some #PacePride
ShmooCon is very entertaining, offering 3 tracks of talks all weekend as well as events such as Lock Pick Village by Toole, ShmooCon Labs, Hack Fortress, Wireless CTF and just so many more. Winners of events often win the most up-to-date gadgets ranging from tablets to entire 3D printing machines to tickets for next year’s con. Below is the winner of this year’s ‘Barcode-Shmarcode,’ in which contestants must make the most impressive and functionally scanning barcode.
The Theme:The Shmoo: What is a Shmoo?
The Shmoo is a mythical creature and does not have much significance in the ways of security or hacking, per se, but it does promote the individuality that is the essence of the con. All in all, this conference has a very unique culture that is sure to remain so for many years, andif you need a hacker or security conference to attend as your first, this should be the one. You can view many of the talks for free at the website, in their archive that is provided free of charge to the public; however, the benefit is to be amongst others in the community — to mingle, make friends and build a professional network. Did I mention that many of the vender booths are hiring students for internships and full-time positions? I hope to see you at ShmooCon of 2016!”
If anyone has any questions please feel free to reach out to the ShmooGroup at info@shmoocon.org. We also offer more opportunities for conference scholarships! You can get all the information here.
Seidenberg students and cybersecurity scholars Cynthia Shaw (BS/IT ’15), Anthony Martini (MS/CS ’16), and Luke Babak (BS/IT ’14) traveled to Washington DC in mid-January to attend the CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service (SFS) Job Fair. The annual event is an opportunity for students in the SFS cybersecurity scholarship program to meet and network with federal employers with the scope of securing an internship or permanent position. The students had the chance to interact with representatives from over 40 federal agencies, and it is expected that they will get to parse through some interesting offers in the months to come.
Seidenberg’s own SFS alum, Christopher White ’13, ’14, a Cyber Security Engineer with the Johns Hopkins – Applied Physics Lab, was one of the four alums to speak in the SFS Job Fair Alumni Panel.
So very proud of all of you!
Pictured from left to right: Anthony Martini (MS/IT ’16), Cynthia Shaw (BS/IT ’15), Luke Babak (BS/IT ’14), and Li-Chiou Chen, Professor, IT WEST Department Chair and Cybersecurity Scholarship Program Director.
This winter break I embarked on a quest to make the Pace Computing Society bigger than itself. In the process I was faced with challenges and disappointments but (kinda) accomplished what I set out to do. Over the intermission I wrote tons of emails, made several phone calls, and attended many events. With these activities I’ve learned how to make meaningful connections and get out there to make things happen.
I started my journey with the goal of getting guest speakers for every PCS meeting. I began by writing emails to celebrities who have invested in startup companies. I know it seems like an unreachable goal but I figured if you took a shot in the dark you might hit your target. Well, I didn’t hit my target but I did manage to graze a few people nearby. I emailed the managers of celebrities such as Nas, Andy Samberg, and Leonardo DiCaprio. That was when I was able to find their email. It was by pure luck and great search engine skills that I was able to find some of the managers’ contact info which I doubt were reliable. I mean I found Nas’s cell phone number in a matter of seconds…I don’t think it was his number. I did not get a response from their managers which was expected so I lowered my standards a bit.
The WeWork office space in downtown, NYC
Next, I contacted the CEO’s of big companies such as Twitter, Spotify, and Tumblr. Spotify was the only company that responded. The CEO’s assistant essentially said no, but that was enough encouragement I needed to get out there and email more companies. I then proceeded to email local startup companies. I figured if I got in the “I help you, you help me” mindset, companies would send speakers to us. In the email I asked them the send a representative, which would be a great opportunity to promote their business and garner users and revenue through our students. The next few days were followed by emails from the companies explaining how they were unable to speak at our meetings. I did get some success, however. Someone from the partnership department at WeWork contacted me and forwarded the email to the Director of Business Development there! He was willing to speak for our first meeting. Next came several speakers from companies such as BuzzFeed, General Assembly, HATCH, UNICEF, Strolby, IBM, and Uncubed who were willing to come. With every person that responded there were two companies that didn’t and with every one that did responded, half said no. There were some people that said they were willing to speak at PCS but when I sent an email to follow up they never responded.
With several speakers confirmed for the spring semester my next step was to broaden our audience and reach people who weren’t PCS members to have them attend our meetings. One way to do this was to contact local high schools. I tried a few but they declined the offer. However, the adviser of the Girls Who Code chapter at Brooklyn Tech offered me hope. They weren’t able to attend our meetings because of the conflicting times, but offered for me to speak at their first meeting. We were allowed only 3 minutes, so we had to be concise. Kendra, vice-president of PCS, and I went there and delineated what Pace University had to offer in NYC and the tech field, and explained the Stem Camp and Summer Scholars program. Afterwards we offered them gifts. The teacher was very grateful and told me to send her more information on the summer programs. That event made me feel as though the publicizing of our club was an essential way to get us known to people who would not have known us otherwise. This motivated me.
Zakiya Sims at Brooklyn Technical High School
My next mission was to get our name out there. I sought to do this by creating the PCS website and promoting the club’s events on Facebook page and Eventbrite. I also attended a Women Who Code front end development discussion group with Kendra. There we met female software development and coded in JavaScript… and raided their refrigerator. We were able to get the business card of one the employees which could be a potential opportunity. I continue on with the goal by accompanying Wilfredo, project manager for Seidenberg and Kendra to the WeWork headquarters. We got a tour from our first speaker, Jesse Middleton. He talked to us about the company’s goal which is to create a community through the work spaces. He also told us that there were a few “fast growing startups” that worked in the building and suggest that we can get a group of our members to tour their work spaces. It seemed like a great idea as several of our members’ are looking for jobs.
The break is starting to come to an end but I still aim to continue finding more speakers, events, and business opportunities for the members of PCS. This week I was planning on going to a Lunch Talk where I will practice my sketch noting skills in order to glean information to pass on to the members. Furthermore, I will be going to Playtest Thursdays at NYU Poly to perhaps procure more attendees for our events and get more ideas and connections. In addition, I will be attending a hackathon, sponsored by Spotify, to gain experience and exposure that I will share with other PCS members. I would not have thought a few months ago that PCS would be where it is now but I pulled a few strings, made it happen, and now we’re known by a bunch a girls at Brooklyn Tech, the speakers I’ve invited, people who saw me steal food at the WWC meeting, and soon the world.
-Zakiya Sims, 1st year Computer Science at The Seidenberg School & treasurer, PCS.
Cue the anxiety and additional stress to your already packed workload: it’s time to talk about applying to Grad school. Many of you may already be in full swing of applications for starting school next fall, or if not, and you’ve still got a year or so before you start, we’ll give you a bit of insight on the process from start to finish. We decided to call up our ole pal and recent Seidenberg graduate Daniel Rings (CS ’14) to ask him a little about his process that led him to the steps of The University of Michigan to study Computer Science and Engineering, his first choice out of the schools to which he applied.
In the start — an early start — Daniel suggests that you get all the preliminary paperwork and requirements out of the way. After deciding which schools you want to apply to (after visiting campuses or researching schools you’re interested in), the next step is to take care of the basics, like the GRE, gathering transcripts, getting a start on recommendations, and all the other generic paperwork that all applications will require. GRE testing is available all over the city — Rings took two practice tests leading up to the official exam.
When it comes to letters of recommendation, Daniel mentions that it’s crucial to ask your professors (the ones who have known you or worked with you at your best) as early as possible. Professors are busy people and — hate to break it to ya’ — your letter of recommendation is not going to be their first priority. Luckily, professors are understanding of the fact that your letters are important to you and your success, so giving your professors multiple reminders (constant, Daniel suggests. Daily, even) about the letters is definitely excusable.
Applications take time, for sure, and keeping on top of all their requirements while managing a full course load may be tough, but with a decent head start on the easy stuff (the aforementioned material), you’ll have plenty of time to focus each school’s own requirements. Schools vary on what they need for essays, portfolios (or Github for many of you), websites, interviews, and more. These are the harder parts, and Daniel mentioned the benefits of keeping a To-Do list to keep track of it all, and to have anyone at all read multiple drafts of your essays (even some rando on the train if need be). Time management is important, but Daniel says he didn’t sweat it too much; “On the days that I worked on the application, I played significantly less Smash Bros.”
In Daniel’s case, for many of his applications, he applied to the PhD tracks, since it’s understood that many universities are more willing to accept applicants who plan on sticking around for their PhDs. Even if you’re not yet planning on picking up a PhD (though you totally should, eventually), you may have a better shot at being accepted, and not all of the PhD tracks require full commitment.
Use your resources (professors, peers, mentors, etc) and use your time wisely! If you’ve still got a few years before the application process, don’t forget to start boosting your resume by getting involved around school or town — you know the drill. Daniel specifically mentioned that “a combination of [his] personal projects/hackathons and [his] most difficult classes” prepared him the most for Grad-life. There’s a lot of work to be done when it comes to applying to Grad programs, but you have all of Seidenberg’s support when you decide to take on the challenge!
The Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems offers terrific undergraduate and graduate degrees. However, did you know that they also have a unique online program for adults who are looking to start or complete a degree in Telecommunications? The NACTEL (National Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning) Program at Pace University has been providing Associate and Bachelor’s degrees in telecommunications since 1999. NACTEL students are primarily adults who work full-time and are located all over the United States and the world. Students work in a variety of fields within the telecommunication industry and some are also part of the military.
Last month, NACTEL students received the Institutional Service Award from CAEL (Council for Adult and Experiential Learning). The Institutional Service Award typically honors a college or a university for providing exemplary service to adults. NACTEL was given the award because they are an industry-education organization that has provided exemplary service to adults and has made significant contributions to the field of adult learning and workforce education for the past 15 years.
Pictured below is Pace University’s Ward Carpenter, Director of NACTEL, and Nancy Hale, Special Program Chair, accepting the award in Chicago, IL on November 12, 2014 at CAEL’s Annual International Conference.
(Left to right: Ward, Jim Spellane (IBEW), Nancy Hale, Pamela Tate (President and CEO of CAEL), Jeffery Batiste (Verizon), Susan Kannel (CAEL NACTEL Program Director), Rich Hake (Century Link) and Marianne Groth (Verizon).
In the past they have received multiple awards, which include:
In 2014 NACTEL was selected by G.I. Jobs magazine as a Military-Friendly School.
In 2013, U.S. News and World Report named NACTEL at Pace University #1 as the Best Online Bachelor’s Programs.
In 2013, U.S. News and World Report named NACTEL at Pace University as the top Online Bachelors program in the country AND the best Online Program for Veterans.
Kaliv Parker from One Hundred Black Men’s Board of Directors mentioned that the organization is enthusiastic about their partnership with Pace University. He states that,
