The 30 second elevator pitch…I’m working on it
New beginnings…
To me, the start of the summer always brings forth the aura of a fresh new beginning. This year, the feeling was accentuated by the fact that I am back in school and recently finished my second semester (it was a little rough, but I’m still breathing). Obviously, as a 24 year old grad student, I do not have the freedom to spend hours at the beach or wake up whenever I want like high school or college summers. Nonetheless, I am excited for what this summer will bring.
As most of you know (for the 3 ppl who fall onto my blog) I like to read up on tech news, especially in the NYC startup arena. I recently found myself reading two interesting articles . The first article was about a Japanese company, Rakuten (runs the largest ecommerce site in Japan), investing $50million in the latest round of funding for rapidly growing Pinterest. The other article was sort of a list of prominent women in tech. This article subsequently lead me to another article profiling Heidi Messer, co-founder of Linkshare Corp., one of the largest affiliate marketing companies online.
I am honored to say that I will essentially be working for both of these companies this summer. I will be working on a data migration project for Linkshare, which was brought out by Rakuten in 2005 for $425million. It should be a great opportunity that I’m definitely grateful for. Welcome summer 2012!
I’m getting there. Still doing C++, which to me is much harder and just start Python.
Reflection…
Over the past few days I’ve been able to take a deep breath and reflect upon the previous few months in my life. Although 2011 is not over yet, I used the end of my first semester of grad school and my vacation from work as a milestone. Here are a few things that I’ve been able to reflect on.
I love living in Brooklyn: I’ve grown comfortable living in BK and I definitely plan on staying here long-term. I don’t see myself staying in Park Slope after next summer, but I would love to live in Brooklyn Heights (once I’m financially stable), Prospect Heights, DUMBO, Boerum Hill or Ft. Greene. After living in Philadelphia for 5 years it is definitely refreshing to be back in NYC and not have to live in my parents basement in Long Island.
I enjoy learning programming languages: In undergrad I was introduced to HTML, Flash and CSS as well as design tools like Photoshop and Publisher. That was basically the extent of my web development knowledge, until this year when I completed an intense C++ programming course. As difficult as the course was, there are very few things more satisfying than solving a coding issue on your own. I look forward to learning more languages such as Java, JavaScript, C#, Objective-C, SQL and HTML5.
Baruch’s MBA/MS program is… So far I am really enjoying the MBA/MS program at the Zicklin School of Business. Its hard to really analyze as I was only a part-time student this past semester, but one of the greatest benefits of the program is having classmates who have years of experience working with some of the Best companies in NYC. A majority of my classmates are older and have more work experience than I do, and having that type of network is very beneficial. Next semester I will be attending full-time and look forward to taking advantage of what the program has to offer.
Aspire to be a part of the booming NY Tech Community: Whether it was for work, school or leisure, this year I’ve been able to attend numerous NYC tech events, including many NYTMs, NYEBN events, Usability Professionals meetup, NYCinterns meetup, Internet Week etc. There were so many exciting developments in the NYC Tech community (too many to name, check my previous post) and I am excited to hopefully be a part of this innovation.
That’s all I have for now. Hope you all find some time to reflect before the year ends. Peace
I said I was going to start posting more of my code. Still a novice. Here are two implementations of prime number functions. Nothing too crazy
New York City is a great place for Yelp to continue it’s growth. Looking forward to seeing what’s up next for them.
“Yelp’s new office is the latest proof that New York gets five stars as a home of growing and innovative tech companies,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “But we’re working hard to create jobs not only in the tech sector, but also among the small businesses - from restaurants to hardware stores to auto shops - that Yelp users review.”
-Mayor Bloomberg
(via nycedc)
The timeline is a realtime stream that shows you all of the events, images and posts that are important to you, while hiding the items that it feels are not important. A sort of ‘automatic autobiography’. (via Facebook introduces Timeline: The story of your life - The Next Web)
How to register for Facebook’s new Timeline feature right now http://tnw.to/1AwIx
Young NYC Entrepreneurs
Just saw this list of 20 NYC Startup CEO’s under 25 on Business Insider. If this doesn’t motivate you then idk what will. People need to understand that Mark Zuckerberg is not the only young techie to create a great product that everyone can use. Coincidently, the founder of Tumblr (potential $800 million valuation), David Karp, is only two years older than me.
It’s obvious that young, hungry entrepreneurs are taking over the tech space and I think that should only help drive innovation.
Check it out: http://www.businessinsider.com/15-under-25-in-tech-2011-9
