Student Blog

I don’t think we’ve blogged about this before, based on my skim through the entries, so here goes!

Despite how small Olin is, it seems everyone frequently runs into other students, alumni, parents, and other tangentially related people all over. We’ve taken to calling this the “Olin Challenge” meaning you fail when you see someone. I’m never surprised when I fail in the Boston area, but we’ve definitely had it happen outside of the country before, and generally all over.

Being in San Francisco, there aren’t TOO many Oliners out here (the Olinglers at Google, and a few more) and my paths don’t usually cross theirs. It’s a possibility for me to fail, but far less likely than it would be back on the East Coast.

When I was driving to work on Friday, I [basically] failed the Olin challenge. I found a car with an “Olin 06″ license plate, and an Olin sticker. Turns out that an Olin 06er that I haven’t met works at Apple, and commutes the same way I do. I really like coincidences like this at Olin, because now if I really wanted to, I could email him and see if he wants to have lunch. When I hang out with my Michigan friends, they get excited when someone is from U of M, but the clearly can’t take the time to get to know EVERY UMich student. It makes the Olin challenge a bit more fun than other happy coincidences.

The other fun part is when I wear Olin clothes and people ask me about the school, and are planning to apply and have questions. I like meeting prospective students- so here’s an open invite! If you’re in the Bay area and planning to apply to Olin and want to talk to a current student, feel free to leave a comment and we’ll figure out a time.

– Ellen

*UPDATE* I’m going to be meeting the Olin 06er for lunch sometime soon! Success!

Just so you know, we’ll be phasing in some new bloggers this summer! Ellen (a returning blogger), has already posted, but keep an eye out for George (2010), Mike (2010), Tess (2011), Tiama (2011), and Andrea (2011). We’ll be adding some freshmen bloggers in the fall, and Maia, Shannon, and I will be continuing on as well.

For now, our current bloggers will keep posting, but we’d like to thank Angela, Bennett, Brad, Chris, Colin, and Roland for their work this past year!
-Jessi

PS: Congrats on graduating, Angela and Bennett- keep us posted!

In the midst of shoving almost everything I own into two 25 gallon containers, I finally figured out Olin. When it comes to nostalgia, I’m about as reflective as a lead brick. I wasn’t looking back at two awesome semesters when I made my discovery (though they were awesome, difficult, but awesome), I was looking at the giant pile of papers on my desk. Papers that were not going to fit in my storage tubs no matter the amount of shoving, jumping, or duct tape applied. Not too far down in the pile was a journal article on education that solidified my understanding of this college. (more…)

It’s been hard to admit this in some circles, but I am currently unemployed. Not that I didn’t try- I applied to a lot of jobs. A lot. A few turned me down nicely- they wanted grad students. A few seemed interested but then things just didn’t go anywhere. One or two outright ignored me.

I can’t say it wasn’t difficult. I basically avoided all this the previous two summers by just working for the same small email company. The last time I had opened myself up to such potential failure was probably when I applied to college, but that ended with eight fat envelopes (and one polite waitlist envelope). I didn’t have the same hand of cards I did then; at Olin I am decidedly an average student, nowhere close to the wondergirl I was in high school.

It made it somewhat easier knowing that others were having difficulties. Some places just weren’t hiring interns, and even the smallest companies were exploding with applicants. But one-by-one they seemed to get a perfect job offer. A suitemate working a CERN. A lab partner picking out his new paid-for-by-Microsoft bike. It was hard.

Somehow I didn’t give up, even if I felt like it. I don’t have a solid plan yet, but I have potential plans. A large corporation (unnamed for now) reserved a few slots specifically for Oliners at the last minute. Despite not being terribly inclined toward software, I sent in a resume and just had my second interview for a designer spot, with the HR talk to come soon. A small wine publication start-up loved me, and while it’s an unpaid position, I could get wine and event tickets for revamping their website. A little poking around found an intro to Industrial Design class at RISD that I could take at the same time- possibly in preparation for a Master’s down the road.

I went from having no choices to possibly having two great choices. This is a little overwhelming now, but it’s a significantly better position than I was in before. I have about a week to decide, but in the end I think I’ll have a good summer. I’m just getting all my computer games and wrestling with my dog out of the way now. It might feel late to get things going, but I at least got a lot of relaxation time in.

-Jessi

Last Sunday, I finished my time at Olin. I had the privilege of giving a Greeting on behalf of the Class of 2009 at our Commencement ceremony. I auditioned for the part back in March, and was chosen by the Commencement Steering Committee from a field of maybe 8 seniors hoping to have the community’s ear for 5 minutes. This was the closest thing to an on stage performance I’ve had since last fall: I was jonesing to get up in front of a crowd again. A few sessions of brainstorming, writing and revisions yielded a speech that I believed in and was excited to share with all my classmates, professors, family… and  the entire Olin community. Knowing that the dazzling wit and comedic fortitude of Mark Chang was following me, I took the liberty of hitting some serious notes in my remarks. I had a few requests for the text of the speech, so it is posted here, as close to as-delivered as I can recall. To get a little closer to the real experience, I believe that a video recording of the entire Commencement ceremony will be available for download at Olin’s podcast page. There’s also a short Speaker Highlights video on the Olin homepage.  Check the Commencement website for updates and more info. Enjoy.
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Olin opens doors that I never would have found myself. I’ve loved PowerPoint my entire life- I find presentations to be fun, and people who use lists of bullet points irk me.  Yet, if you would’ve asked me in high school, working at PowerPoint to improve the user experience never would have been on my radar.
Last Fall, I was waiting for some external guests in the Olin parking lot, and one of our staff members dropped by with Edwin Guarin and introduced me.  Through Edwin I ended up applying for a Microsoft “Program Management” internship. This internship is well suited to Oliners (three of us are PM Interns this year).

It isn’t about coding, or managing- it’s developing design specs for product features.  So far in three weeks of my internship I’ve been given freedom to explore the product and react to it (in PowerPoint slide deck form!) and now I’m working on a report. That sounds boring- but it’s compelling- I just can’t give you details!  Later on I’ll be writing the requirements of the feature that I’m researching now, and possibly working on other features too. Our user-oriented design class has definitely come in handy in this job! My office walls are covered in post it notes (can’t show you that, but here’s a photo of my desk)

From my Olin education I’ve been grateful about how comfortably I am working independently and seeking information from various sources within the company. For instance: I was disappointed that the “independent projects” lab was only being launched for interns in the Redmond, Washington headquarters.  I got in touch with the coordinators and now I’m helping launch the version of the project down in the Silicon Valley office.  An Olin lesson: if you’re willing to do the work to get something going, chances are people will let you do it!

I’ll try to tell you more about the internship throughout the summer- any pressing questions? Leave a comment or send me email!

-Ellen

Update: So I’ve received some feedback that people would like more details about the process of working at Microsoft- which I’m more than happy to provide!

1. I’m a “Program Management” intern- which means I spend time writing design specifications and working to make things the best they can be for the end user experience. I don’t spend my time developing code- I spend it researching, writing, and making decision decisions.
2. On a daily basis I usually have a meeting or two to sync up with someone else on my team- or someone I’m working with remotely from Redmond.  Between these meetings I work in my office, and often converse with my office-mate, Justin (Duke) about what he’s working on.
3. Writing a specification means providing enough details about a given feature that a developer would be able to take that document and (hopefully) completely code the feature. There’s always some back and forth, though.  The feature crew is the PM, the Dev, and the Tester.
4. The environment is way more casual than I would have expected: I have tons of freedom in my work, dress is casual, and all the free soft drinks I can drink :) I highly recommend MSFT internships.

School’s over, summer’s upon us and there’s just one thing remaining of this past semester: grades.

Grades. Do they matter? Depends on who you ask. Google thinks so - sort of. To apply to Google, job applicants must have a minimum college GPA of 3.5.

I don’t actually mean to stir up the traditional letter grade controversy. It’s just the background to a crazy idea I had:
What if Olin admissions had a maximum GPA?

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