Summer 2013 – Page 2 – Seidenberg School News

Summer STEM Camp 2013

What has Seidenberg HQ been up to lately?

We have been busy with STEM! A distinguished group of 20 talented New York high school students have been invited to participate in a 3 week long STEM camp experience. Much like what we did with this year’s Summer Scholars Experience, this educational camp aims to raise awareness about the importance of STEM in addition to exposing the students to the many opportunities that STEM has to offer. As the camp kicked off, our bright participants were placed in teams of 4 and asked to come up with a concept for a STEM related mobile app and website.

A Day in the Life of a STEM Camp Participant

Each day the camp is filled with excitement and adventure. Students not only learn about coding and Photoshop but they are exposed to a wealth of knowledge from experienced guest speakers and dedicated mentors, including Pavel Kibrik, who talked about the importance of sleep, and Pace professor Samuel Baruch, who discussed his experiences at Columbia where he earned his degree in Math. Our bright campers also get a cultural thrill when visiting different top tech companies, startups, and tourist attractions around NYC. So far, our campers have attended the UNIFCEF CUNY design challenge where they had the chance to learn how students are using STEM to improve the quality of life of the less fortunate. Our campers also visited the NY Hall of Science and the Highline Park. Our bright STEM participants visited Codeacademy, Eye Beam, and Alley Tech NYC to see how awesome it is to work at startups.

What’s in Store?

With one more week to go, the campers have to finish their STEM mobile apps and their accompanying websites. Each group will then present their work to an esteemed panel of judges. We are excited to see the success of our talented STEM campers!

Spotlight on: Tamika Joseph, Pace Marketing Class of 2005

What does a marketing major have to do with Seidenberg? Not all that much, directly, but indirectly the two are closely related and those who are involved in Seidenberg will eventually bump into the Lubin and Dyson kids down the road. While visiting the offices at Microsoft this past week with the Seidenberg Summer Scholars, I ran into Pace alum Tamika Joseph who is working as an Account Manager for Microsoft. Since Microsoft is so heavily based in computer sciences, I decided to ask her about working along side some of the biggest projects in technology and how she got there from Pace, even though she works in the more business-oriented parts of the company.

Joseph majored in marketing, with a concentration in Advertising and Promotion, and minored in Statistics during her time at Pace. Afterwards, she continued her studies at Fordham to receive her MBA by 2011 in Communications and Finance while minoring in International Business. When I asked about her position at Microsoft, she stated that her favorite part is the culture within the workplace. Even from an outsider’s point of view, touring around the headquarters warrants the same reaction.

Joseph’s position consists of processes that can be challenging, but her determination keeps her on par with the company’s expectations. Naturally, I asked how Pace played a role in her path towards scoring a position at Microsoft, other than offering her a degree; Joseph recounted the bonds she made during her undergraduate career, her success in graduating at the top of her class, and how she landed a full-time opportunity at Disney-ABC upon graduating at only 21 years old. Joseph also mentioned her C+ Programming class, which she passed with ease, and how it was pivotal in directing her toward where she is, today. And lastly, because I always ask for a woman’s advice, Joseph added, “[when] working in a predominantly male field, persistence and determination are key. Never give up!”

Thank you, Tamika, for you enlightening words and may your success encourage Pace students of all focuses to realize how realistic their goals can be.

#SSSE2013: If You’re Wondering When It Will Be the Right Time to Start Programming…

…that time is now. The youngsters are catching up to the Zuckerbergs and Gates’ of their elder generations and they will leave stragglers in their dust. This week, Seidenberg hosted a camp for high-acheiving students who are interested in programming. The goal of the program was to assist these high schoolers in creating their own computing projects from scratch and giving them a chance to work as a team to present their completed project, in this case a mobile app, to a panel of experts and professors in hopes to prepare them for a time when they will professionally create apps on their own. The genre of this year’s mobile apps was our favorite subject, STEM. Each group (4-5 students and 2 mentors) was required to program an app that would aid other individuals of whatever age group they chose to learn about STEM related topics. These included games, questionnaires, flash-card based apps, and new ways to allow people to actively participate in learning about STEM.

The Summer Scholars were kept busy in hackathon sessions, led by our friends Andrew Clutterbuck and Peter Tapio from Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, and a few of our top professors, including Dr. Richard Kline and Dr. Christelle Scharff. Dr. Kline is, as we know, heavily invested in robotics yet also an expert in teaching usability. On top of this, Dr. Scharff added her knowledge of mobile programming to the lectures provided for the scholars. However, the scholars were also given the chance to explore the ins and outs of NYC. They came from all over the USA and many had not seen the city before in their lives. The scholars visited the usual spots: the American Museum of Natural History, Times Square, Seaport, Central Park, and China Town. Along with the tourist hits, students also got exclusive visits to startup companies and larger corporations; these included Codecademy, StreetEasy, AppFigures, Microsoft, and the crowd favorite: Google. The students were able to ask questions about programming and the computing field as it’s been growing and what it will become when this new generation of programmers hits the ground running. Each company was welcoming and informational; the students left each place with a burst of inspiration that they were able to incorporate into their projects.

The final presentations were exceptional; the students proved that they had an excellent foundation for an app as well as a foundation in computing for any other apps they may come up with in their future. Leaving the camp after only a week was a bitter end, but well worth it. Students reached out to each other on their own social media, intending to keep in touch long after the camp has passed. Other comments from the students after the session ended included, “Who’s gonna have Post Trip Depression?” from Californian scholar, Ruiqi Mao, and a from a few others, confirmation that Pace is their choice school (whoop whoop!) after going through this program.

The Women Have Taken Over Seidenberg HQ!

The three-day event, Write/Speak/Code has filled Seidenberg’s HQ with women eager to learn more and improve their skills in writing, speaking, and coding. Each day of the event focuses on one of the topics and after the three days, the participants should have a deepened understanding as well as an augmented skill and comfort level in each category.

Participants work together on projects during the Write/Speak/Code event.

The speakers for the event range from software engineers to presentation experts, data-analysts to user-experience strategists, and philanthropists to freelance developers. Each speaker has offered expert advice especially curated for this audience. The attendees focused on writing on the first day, Thursday, June 20th. Speakers introduced tactics used for writing Op-Ed pieces and forming an audible voice through text.
For Friday’s session on ‘Speak,’ I sat in for a bit, and within 10 minutes I learned some basic techniques that improve public speaking. An organizer of the event as well as a Ruby and Javascript developer, Rebecca Miller- Webster spoke of the importance of hand gestures when speaking to an audience. She demonstrated how holding your words in your hands is effective in getting the message to listeners. If one is speaking on a small topic, hands should carry an imaginary tennis-ball sized object, but if the topic has more weight and importance, the speaker should increase their gestures to the likes of holding a basketball in their hands (as demonstrated by the drawing below). Miller-Webster pointed out that famous speakers, namely President Obama, often execute this exact practice.

The size of your hand gestures should reflect the importance of your topic.

On day three, the women learned important coding techniques that they could then apply to their own projects.

Participants actively engaged with the speakers and one another to increase productivity, efficiency, and creativity not only in their personal initiatives but also within the feminist movement. To have a large group of women supporting each other in their path through the conceivably male-dominated world of computing is hugely effective and it is clear that the event has been a success in that area.

For more of the live feed on twitter, take a look at @writespeakcode.

Hear What Students, Faculty, and Guests Have to Say After a Successful Year in Pace’s NACTEL Program

The video footage of this May’s NACTEL Graduation Luncheon is finally available for all to view. In four parts, tune in to hear what Seidenberg Dean Amar Gupta, students, guests, and faculty all have to say about the program and their personal experiences.

Dean Gupta shares his gratitude with the 2013 NACTEL Graduates.

The following links will take you directly to the videos:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Enjoy!

Dean Gupta interacts with leadership of top-rated IIT to pursue multiple ideas for collaboration

The internationally renowned Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, one of the world’s top universities, has just established an ‘overseas hub’ in New York City, mere blocks away from Pace’s NYC Campus. Their NYC center will facilitate faculty hiring, increase internship opportunities and jobs for students, expand networks between other universities and companies, and contribute in other ways.

The new center at Williams Street was inaugurated by Director of IIT Kanpur, Prof. Indraneel Manna and the Deans Prof. Prabhat Munshi and Prof. Manindra Aggarwal.

Seidenberg’s Dean, Amar Gupta, and other senior representatives of Pace University had multiple meetings with the visiting delegation from IITK this week to discuss various avenues for close collaboration between the two universities. This will provide an additional avenue for students and faculty to exchange ideas and foster innovation in different aspects of computer science and information technology.