My adventures in programming began in the Fall of 2011 when I took Nancy McCracken’s IST 256: Application Programming for Information Systems course. I was almost instantaneously hooked. I had taken only a handful of School of Information Studies courses at that point and had yet to find a concentration area that truly clicked. I liked networks, but I didn’t love them. I liked systems administration, but I still longed for the feeling that I had built something on my own—without Active Directory’s help. I began to believe that programming could be my niche after finishing my first project and not only enjoying it, but wanting more.

As the semester went on, I continued to love the feeling that I had created something, but I began to grow frustrated with the programming language in which the class was taught. Java is a wonderful, robust and sometimes trying programming language. I had no experience with a different language, but I couldn’t help but feel that there must be an easier way. I spent too many nights wondering ‘what on earth is a buffered reader?’

Java was soon replaced in my heart with a new programming language.

Fast forward to this past Spring semester and I had accepted a position as the Teaching Assistant for the iSchool’s Java Applications Programming course as well as an intern role this Summer at Rounded Co. in the Syracuse Tech Garden. I went to a few orientation sessions at Rounded Co. and was introduced to the language that would change everything for me: Ruby.

I began learning under Brian Weinreich’s instruction and he recommended sites that would be useful in my endeavors. Thanks to TryRuby.org and Rails for Zombies, I quickly gained traction and learned to do things in Ruby in 5 lines of code that used to take me 15, maybe 20 lines of code in Java. I was completely blown away at how much simpler Ruby’s syntax was than Java’s.

Well then, why aren’t all classes taught in Ruby?

Although I will admit that I haven’t touched Java since I wrapped up my responsibilities as a TA, I am not here to tell you to skip out on Java or C in favor of ‘easier’, startup-worshipped languages such as Ruby or Python. Unless you’re looking to learn a language based strictly on how cool the name sounds. In that case, go with Python every time.

However, if that’s not the case, I would suggest not overlooking Java or C. They’re complex languages, and they cover a large number of features that are present in other languages. I think that I appreciate – and am so enamored with – Ruby because I came to it already knowing the basics. Not only that, but I appreciated the simplicity and cleanliness of the Ruby syntax. I believe that any first programming language is going to be a hard one. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to learn mine in a college environment where I had someone making sure that I wasn’t falling behind—and most importantly—that I was doing the work.

I tend to be an independent learner. This is a trait I think is shared widely throughout the tech community. But, no matter how little structure you feel you need to learn, I would still recommend learning your first programming language in a university, community college, or otherwise ‘in-person’ environment if you can. Being able to raise your hand and ask why your code won’t run is infinitely easier than searching through countless forums online. Additionally, colleges tend to teach languages like C and Java. They may be more difficult, but you’ll benefit in the long run from learning the basics with them. Not only because many job opportunities will look highly upon you knowing them, but because they will make it easier to broaden your horizons once you decide to move on to your second language, or your third, or your fourth….

Now that you’ve heard about my experiences as an amateur programmer, I’d love to hear about yours. Did you have success with a different approach? Reply in the comments, email me at SRuddy@syr.edu or tweet at @samiiruddy, I’d like to continue the conversation!

“Should your startup bootstrap or seek out venture funding?” As a new addition to the entrepreneurial community at the iSchool, it did not take me long to realize how often this question is discussed among student entrepreneurs and their mentors. It makes sense given that the approach entrepreneurs take to finance their companies is one of the most critical decisions they will make throughout the course of their startups’ existence.

As with most complex questions, there are no definitive right or wrong answers. However, there appears to be one universal truth when it comes to addressing financing: it all depends upon the type of business involved. With that said, this post seeks to articulate additional considerations a startup should likely examine.

Bootstrapping and venture funding defined:

Before diving in, we must first define bootstrapping and venture funding. In the context of this post, bootstrapping refers to the means in which a startup supports itself financially so as to maintain a significant stake of ownership equity in their company. That is to say, the startup seeks to become a self-sustaining business as quickly as possible. In some cases, doing so might require the startup to raise a modest sum of capital through angel money or family, friends and fools (FFFs) in return for a modest sum of equity. Conversely, venture funding implies a startup is willing to accept larger quantities of capital (i.e. venture capital) often in return for larger quantities of ownership equity. There are different stages of venture funding (seed round, series A round, series B round, etc), all of which are done with the interest of generating a return through an eventual “realization event” such as an IPO or sale of the company.

Aligning financial structure with the size of the business opportunity and capital needs:

With an understanding of these definitions, one can see that a startup’s financing structure must be appropriately aligned with the existing business opportunity (i.e. how significant is the opportunity), and also the startup’s capital needs (i.e. the amount of money it will take for the startup to break-even or be successful). This notion is represented visually in the featured image at the top left corner of this post [from Mark Peter Davis' "Get Venture" blog].

Additional financing considerations: 

In addition to aligning financial structure with the size of the business opportunity and capital needs, some of the more granular financing considerations startups are encouraged to take into account include:

• Product/service validation: Is there a need or desire for the product and/or service the startup is offering, and has their target market validated so?

• Control and ownership: How important is control of the company to the founding team? What level of control and ownership are necessary for the team to successfully implement their strategic vision?

• Time requirements: Can the founding team afford to invest a significant amount of time in raising capital? How will this impact the amount of time available to carry out other tasks critical to business operations?

• Economies of scale: How important is it for the startup to scale rapidly? Is their product first to market? Must they consume as much market real estate as quickly as possible, before competition has a chance to escalate?

• Network and talent recruitment: Does the startup require networking and talent recruitment opportunities that institutional investors might be able to help with? Are they critical to the future success of the business?

• Liquidity preferences: In the case of a “realization event” (i.e. IPO or sale of the company), to what extent does the founding team wish to minimize liquidity preferences?

These are just a few of the many considerations entrepreneurs are encouraged to evaluate when contemplating financing options. As mentioned before, such considerations are entirely dependent upon the business itself. Founders are encouraged to know their businesses, comprehend the contexts of their businesses and markets, and ultimately understand the implications their visions and strategies will have upon their financing options.

What other important financing considerations am I leaving out? Let me know in the comments below — thanks!

If you’ve walked around Hinds Hall recently, you may have noticed an exciting addition: a brand new wayfinding sign system. The new signs were designed by Damian Rakowsky, a graduate student pursuing his MFA in Collaborative Design at the School of Visual and Performing Arts.

This project is hardly Damian’s first foray into wayfinding design. He has previously worked on projects for clients like Mariott Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Azamara Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruise Lines, and Royal Caribbean International (RCI). He was part of a team that created the wayfinding signage for RCI’s Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas ships.

I had the opportunity to talk with Damian about his work and the inspiration behind the signs.

Info Space: How did you become involved with this project?

Damian Rakowsky: It was a class assigment for the IST 600: Information Design class with Jaime Snyder at the iSchool. It was an accumulation of three other projects we did that involved identifying, analyzing, and intervening into information systems “in the wild,” or out in the world. I had done a previous intervention on a sign system at Carousel Mall, but then I decided to intervene at the iSchool for our final project.

Info Space: How did you prepare for the design process?

DR: I worked on this for approximately four weeks. I did all the graphics and wrote a paper in a four-week period. There were three other papers that I wrote in support of this topic. It took me approximately 45 to 50 hours to do all the drawings.

I got a really good response to the initial designs from the management and the dean and some of the other people that work with the building. I worked with them to get the graphic foundation that the iSchool uses, the graphic criteria packages, and colors, and fonts. I just ran with it using my background in environmental graphic design, which is signage and wayfinding design.

Info Space: What inspired the design?

DR: I wanted a very graphically strong and dynamic floor plan. In the building itself, it can be tough to find certain things, like the bathrooms, especially because there is only one specifically male or female bathroom on each floor. So I decided to accentuate the architecture of the building and do a dynamic floor plan so things could be really obvious.

Using basic digital design principles, I did a rough draft of the floors in that perspective and I showed it to everyone and it was well-received, so I proceeded to continue with that design system. There were a few tweaks, but what you see now is pretty close to the original thought process.

Info Space: Why did you choose to create circular signs instead of rectangular ones?

DR: Usually, circular signs are tough to do because it’s a waste of material when you cut a circle out of a square. But in this case I thought the circle was very appropriate, because it pulls from the circle in the letter “i” in the iSchool. It felt natural with the way the graphics were flowing, and once we put the signs up, it fit well in the space.

Info Space: Did you face any challenges during the design process?

DR: Each floor is pretty much identical in layout. When you step out into the corridor, it can be hard to know where you’re at. I interviewed a lot of current staff and instructors in the building and got a lot of feedback about that. They said that it was difficult to know what floor you’re on. So I moved in that direction with the signage.

There were no signs whatsoever in the stairway, so I decided to place a sign right at the doorway off the staircase with a map to reinforce what floor you’re on and where the bathrooms are located.

Info Space: What’s the next step for the new signs? 

DR: When the signs went up, we sent a mass email to everyone to get their feedback, take some notes, and let the graphics digest for a few weeks. I’m continuing to work with the management to implement these signs permanently. So I’ll be taking the comments and requests we’ve received and making changes.

Those floor plans will probably be used on the website, as well, and the signs will be replaced with more permanent materials over the summer. Also, additional signs will be added if we can get permission from the university. The whole system needs to be approved by the physical plant that manages the university. We want to create signs for the offices and conference rooms, and convert them into circular signs that match the system.

Info Space: What’s up next for you?

DR: My background is in wayfinding design and environmental graphics, so I’m trying to mold my new Master’s in that vein, to work with new technologies and application design and user interface.

This information design course was a really fun class for me, and it was great to get a perspective from the thought process side of the way things work instead of just the visuals.

What are your thoughts on the new wayfinding signage? Leave a comment below with your feedback!

For more information on wayfinding, check out this previous post on Information Space. 

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of information machine science that deals with natural language information. Human language is dauntingly complex for a computer to understand. Think about the following two sentences: “Mary had a little lamb and drove her car to a farm. At the farm she sold it to Old McDonald. “ We know that “it” is most likely referring to the lamb. However this process is very complicated for a computer because many different modes of computing is involved to derive what “it” is using logic. That is what the Center for Natural Language Processing in the Syracuse University iSchool works with, developing systems that derive meaningful information from human language for computers.

How Does the CNLP Do It?

Dr. Howard Turtle, the Director of CNLP, sat down with my and explained how some of their magic works.  The process is broken down into layers. Using a suite of different tricks their software looks at relationships, parts of speech, whether certain words are dollar amounts or names and a whole lot more to understand the relationships and meaning in the text. This is a very technical process. If you are a huge geek like me check out this article from Microsoft research http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/nlp/ .

Do we use any of CNLP’s work in search engines and other services?

CNLP made a big splash in education. Their software assigns categories to lessons plans. This helps teachers that are searching for lessons plans by indexing them for search. As far as their work being used or influencing work in companies like Google is not entirely known. Google is not reluctant to tell the world what it uses in its software. There is a very good chance that we use work derived from the CNLP every day.

Where will NLP be in 10 years?

Imagine talking to your computer and having it talk back fluidly in a conversational manner. Apple’s Siri is a great example of where NLP will be taking us, but it is only a taste. As NLP technology advances and makes it way even further into our daily lives, computers will have a much easier time understanding us. That means that speech recognition and command technologies will be a whole lot more useful. IBM’s Watson is a great example of this technology. It is slowly making its way into all of our consumer technology. Personally, I cannot wait to have the power of IBM Watson in my pocket one day.

NLP and Social Media

While the CNLP does not formally have any ongoing research with social media, some of their affiliates do. Dr. Turtle thinks that they may someday move in that direction. One of the biggest problems we have today is information overload. We have data being collected from our phones, Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds, Google searches, etc. All of that data is meaningful, but large chunks are stored in unstructured ways which computers hate. NLP will most certainty be used to help analyze this data. With organizations like the Library of Congress cataloging tweets from every day we may one day be able to go back and understand what people were talking about, and where. NLP helps us process and understand large amounts of data for purposes like this.

To learn more about Natural Language Processing, visit CNLP.org.

It’s the product that’s been rumored for years and has finally been released. Google Drive is here, and with it, Google’s entry into the cloud storage market.

Features

It’s cloud storage. You upload stuff to the cloud. You then access that stuff from anywhere. Yeah.

If that doesn’t sound too mind blowing, it’s probably because you’ve seen it all before. Cloud storage has been around for a while, usually with a very simple premise: store your files on the cloud. Google’s take on this simple premise works just as well. Building simple and intuitive products is really something that Google excels at anyway.

Here are some highlighted Google Drive features

• 5GB of storage for free, with paid storage starting at $2.49 for 25GB
• An optional desktop application, giving you drag and drop access to your drive through a virtual Google Drive folder on your computer
• Advanced file search, with image recognition and the ability to search text within scanned documents
• Automatic folder syncing with Google Drive on the Web and mobile
• Sharing and collaborating on files with other users
• Open up 30+ types of files in the browser, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, mp3s, and more

Google Docs 2.0

When you begin using Google Drive, you’ll notice that your Google Docs have been migrated to the new system. In fact, once you “upgrade”, going to docs.google.com will permanently redirect you to your new Google Drive.

You still get to keep all the features that Google Docs offered, such as creating and sharing documents, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. That’s because Google Drive is really more like an upgrade of Google Docs. Docs was pretty much a cloud storage solution in the first place, but more specifically for document files. The Drive upgrade lets it store pretty much everything else as well. All your photos, music, and documents all in one place, otherwise known as the tag line of cloud storage.

Should You Drop Dropbox?

Google Drive is being toted as the Dropbox killer by some (and not a Dropbox killer by others, claiming it goes after enterprise customers rather than the consumer market like Dropbox does). Dropbox is definitely the heavyweight in the market, with 45 million users. But is Google really offering something so vastly different?

Since they both do cloud storage, the most easily recognizable differences are the price points, and the Google integration.

Google Drive provides users with more free storage off the bat. 5GB simply beats 2GB. Dropbox does offer a referral program that adds 500MB free storage to your account (up to 18GB) for each referral, while Google gives you 5GB, with no referrals necessary. And for $2.49 a month, Google Drive bumps you up to 25GB. Here’s an article on how the paid accounts stack up. At sign up, 2GB is still less than 5GB in absolute terms.

Dropbox is available on more platforms right now, with iOS, Linux, and Blackberry support. Google Drive is quickly catching up though and this will soon be a moot point.

Google Drive does get to integrate with other Google services and technologies. It integrates with Google Images so that when you type “Brooklyn Bridge” for example, it will be able to find the photo you took of the bridge, no image title required, using its advanced search algorithms. It has search filters. It can recognize the text from a scanned document using OCR. And of course, it integrates with Google Docs to edit documents. I mean, it was Google Docs until recently.

So What to Use?

The whole Google Drive vs Dropbox debate reminds me a lot of the Google + vs Facebook debate. You have two services with very similar functionality, and all of your friends are already using the previous service. I think I have a similar solution: Be curious and go play with the new service. If you wind up liking it, then congratulations, you’re an active user. If you don’t like the newer service, then you still have the older service you know and love.

Will Google Drive kill Dropbox though? Who knows. Dropbox has been an innovative start up that’s survived imitators in the past. On the other hand,  5GB is enough for most people and Google users seeking to keep all their data in one place might just want to stick with Google. It already has all their other data anyway, so why not.

Did you try Google Drive and love it? Do you already have more than 5GB storage on Dropbox through its referral program and not switching, or are you even using SkyDrive, or iCloud for your cloud storage? Let us know in the comments!

A couple months ago, Google released their new Account Activity feature, which shows you just how much time you spend on the company’s variety of platforms and services. From Google’s perspective, this is a great way for users to insure that nobody is accessing your account without your knowledge. From the perspective of some users, though, this could be a wake-up call that Google is slowly but surely taking up a larger chunk of our time as each day passes. Personally, I can’t even name all the Google services I use: Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Blogger, Reader, Chrome, Translate, and yes, I still use Google+. (I’m probably forgetting a handful, it’s easy to forget just how many brands fall under Google’s umbrella.)

If you’ve signed up for Account Activity, you might be looking to cut back. With the recent Forbes article claiming that Facebook and Google might be dead in the next five years, there’s no better time than now to curb your addiction. Here are three services that you can use instead of their Google counterparts:

Google Groups vs. Trello

As a grad student, I have a lot of group projects. Most of my teams have defaulted to using Google Groups for collaboration, but I’ve found its functionality quite frustrating at times. The main purpose of Google Groups is group discussion, but beyond that, its capabilities are quite limited.

Quit Google Groups and join Trello! 

I recently started a new job that I work by remote (meaning from home, Starbucks, or anywhere I have an internet connection). My boss has me using Trello to manage tasks and facilitate discussions. I’m still relatively new to the service, but I’m already finding it much more user-friendly than Google Groups. Not only does it allow us to communicate without clogging our individual inboxes, but she can track the progress I’m making on any work she’s assigned me. To learn more, check them out on Twitter @Trello.

Google Alerts vs. Newsle

Google Alerts are a service that emails you whenever new content appears about a set of keywords that you select. These alerts can be helpful to track what people are saying about you, and they can keep you informed on topics that you are interested in.

Quit Google Alerts and join Newsle!

Newsle is a new service that lets you know when the people you care about make the news. You can set up alerts for yourself, your friends, or your favorite public figures. So instead of Google Alerts where you are following topics, Newsle allows you to follow people in the news. With their newest feature, you can follow your favorite journalists who actually make the news. And to keep up on the latest stories, follow @Newsle on Twitter.

Google Docs vs. Evernote

I’m a big fan of Google Docs, but recently it’s been moving towards a cloud storage system similar to Dropbox, now called Google Drive. As someone who can get a little flustered when my favorite apps/platforms change on me, I’ve been shying away from Google Docs.

Quit Google Docs (Drive?) and join Evernote!

The main reason I prefer Evernote to Google Docs is that I can use it offline. I’ve been living in London for the past seven months, which meant I spent a lot of time on the underground, desperately waiting for my internet to return. Instead of just sitting there, I’d usually pull out my iPad and work on some homework on Evernote. I could then access the documents I had written offline from any device, as well as online – take that, Google docs! Evernote is great for students, as well as professionals: Take a look at this post for BrazenCareerist about 8 ways to use Evernote to rock your career. For more information, follow them on Twitter @evernote.

What other Google alternatives do you use?

Disclaimer: I currently work for a company of which Newsle is a client.

I think that paper needs to fade itself out of the picture, but that is a long way from now. Since starting college, I would take notes in various word processing programs like Google Docs, Open Office, MS Word, Libre Office, etc. Sometimes though, you just need to draw a line to correlate two ideas or details; maybe you learn better with visuals and drawing a quick diagram will help you understand a process or concept. This is not done easily in a word processing application. Your formatting gets all out of whack and suddenly your notes are almost unusable.

A couple of weeks ago I came across this fun little app called Paper. With a spartan interface, simple business model, and elegance there was a lot to like about it. The ad in itself was interesting in the way that it showed the ease of use. I don’t think that most people are going to travel around and draw everything that they see, but you can understand the point of the app.

Functional

This application can be used for various purposes; notes, diagrams, layouts, mind mapping, etc. Even though the video does show the user drawing with a stylus (who uses those anymore?) you can complete most any task within the app using your fingertip. I forewarn you, my handwriting is sloppy at times. This example here was written with my fingertip while this one was written with a stylus. The stylus doesn’t make all that much of a difference which is great. Most of your notes can be drawn on the screen with only your finger.

It can also be used to fabricate layouts. That is a rough layout of how my online portfolio will look once it is completed this summer. Paper can be used for notes, too. Being able to draw in your notes and keep digital copies is typically more convenient than carrying several notebooks around. Simple to do lists are quick as well. Any drawing within the application can be emailed, posted to Facebook, Tweeted, or posted to Tumblr for simple sharing. I would like to see some Dropbox support in the future, though.

If you noticed that you have made a mistake somewhere while writing your notes and erasing it would be difficult, then you can use the rewind feature. Simply rotate two fingers counter-clockwise and it will backtrack your edits. I will admit that I am seemingly inept at doing this and usually end up backing out of the notebook, but I’m getting better at it the more I use it.

Fun

The app is just plain fun. Just as the ad shows, it can be used as a sketchbook. The sketch pencil is very useful and functions like the real thing. Now, I’m no DaVinci, but these quick little doodles came out well enough. The ad shows the guy drawing all sorts of neat sketches and pictures and it feels as simple as it looks.

Have you used the Paper app? Tell us what you think in the comments below!

CSS3 is probably one of the coolest things to hit the web design scene since, I don’t know, HTML5. And here’s why: CSS3 has a lot of new features that simply take web site styling to the next level.

With CSS3, web browsers natively produce a lot of the styling effects that were once only achievable through creative HTML hacks and images editing programs like Photoshop. What’s great about CSS3 is that it’s good at reducing the amount of image files and code you have to place on your site as part of your design. This means reduced server requests and load times for your website. That precious bandwidth…

Also, when you want to edit the design on your website, changing a few lines of CSS is much, much easier and less time consuming than having to opening up Photoshop and edit old graphics. You might even have to recreate graphics from scratch to fit a new design. On the other hand, resizing an element, changing the border radius, changing colors and gradients, these are all things that take a few seconds to change in CSS.

Finally, using CSS3 just makes it easier to achieve most of the design aspects on a website. You can accomplish a lot with a little code, leaving you more time to listen to music and hang out with friends.

Here are my top 5 favorite CSS3 features, along with a quick code implementation that you could stick in any HTML page:

Box Shadows

You’ll usually find this effect used subtly to surround item containers on a webpage. Back in the day, the shadow had to be a separate image slice (or a few different images). With CSS3, you can now easily create a shadow around an element with some code, and be able to change the position, color, and blur of that shadow.

Rounded Corners

This is already very popular on the web. Honestly, rounded corners just look more user friendly than square boxes. Best part now is, you can apply this effect to HTML elements with CSS3. That’s good because you’ll find rounded corners almost everywhere. Twitter for example, takes the “Round ALL the corners!” approach.

Text Shadows

You can add a shadow to HTML text that can then be highlighted, copied and pasted just like normal text. The old way involved typing the words you wanted in Photoshop, applying a drop shadow, and saving those words as an image file. But why use images when you can use just text? You can change the shadow angle, the shadow blur, and the shadow color in CSS. You can also check out this CSS3 generator to see how it works.

Opacity

This property makes can make elements more see-through. You could go about setting the opacity of an image in an image editor, and then save it as a .png or .gif file with transparency enabled. Or you could just write one line of code in CSS. It’s up to you. The transparency value ranges from 0 (completely see-through) to 1 (completely solid).

Background Gradients

Gradients created right in the browser as soon as you load the page? Cool! It’s  another really popular effect that was accomplished by using images (plus some CSS actually) and can now be done solely with CSS3. Notice that this code will only work on specific Firefox, Chrome, and Safari browsers. This feature is not as widely supported on all browsers and you have to write separate lines of code for different browsers. The old way of doing gradients involved generating a thin gradient image and repeating it across the page. If you want to stick with the old way, you can use this gradient generator. If you want to try the new CSS3 way, try this resource. It generates a lot of that compatability code for you.

The only real caveat of CSS3 is the fact that not all features are compatible in all browsers. CSS3 is constantly in development and browsers simply need time to catch up to all the latest features. However, the features mentioned above should work fine across the latest iterations of all the major browsers.

Definitely try to use some CSS3 if you’re making a site. Have fun with it. You’ll get to use all those trendy effects (hopefully sparingly, don’t give your site an overdose) and save yourself a lot of time that you would have spent trying to make the exact same thing in an image editor. Oh wait, did I even talk about CSS3 Animation and Transformation features that can twist and turn HTML as well as save you time writing Javascript? Well, just know that it’s really cool stuff.

What do you think of CSS3? Let us know in the comments below.

To most people, #140Cuse was a day long event filled with more than 40 speakers. To me, #140Cuse was a two-day event composed of numerous new friends, four skipped classes (Sorry, mom!), two unforgettable moments, and one life lesson learned: school can only take you so far. It was ironic, for being the first 140 event to happen on a college campus, but perhaps the most valuable lesson learned on a college campus.

Day One: The Speakers’ Event

Day one started when I went to the speakers’ event. I enjoyed meeting many of the people whom I have idolized and admired from afar on the Twitter stream. It was great to hear their stories, and how some of them got their start at Syracuse University, too. As I wandered the room and introduced myself, the most common question was, “Are you a student, or a speaker?” I was proud to be able to say both. As I explained my story, the conversations turned to what my next step after graduation should be. “I don’t want to give you life advice,” Alexis Ohanian said to me, “unless it works out, then I want all the credit.” After conversations with the remaining speakers and some encouragement from Brad Rosen, the group consensus was to skip graduate school and work on my startup full-time.

Later that night, I was fortunate enough to be one of a handful of students who were able to sit down and have intimate conversation with Alexis (aka unforgettable moment #1). As a student-entrepreneur, it was interesting to finally take the emphasis off of the hyphen (hence the skipping classes) and have the opportunity to talk about what it is like to be an entrepreneur. Beyond the non-life-advice life advice, Alexis also shared some interesting stories about the early days of Reddit, lessons learned, and teaching himself the skills necessary to get Reddit off the ground. He described his journey from being a history major to running a tech company using funny anecdotes and lots of real talk. It inspired my talk about my journey during my panel and challenged me to think about my next steps. As someone who up until a few months ago dedicated their life to getting a great education and making the field of education better, it seems antithetical to follow their advice and drop out of school to go work on a startup, but as I learned through talking with the speakers that night, I still have a lot to learn in and outside of the classroom.

Day Two: The Real Event

Talking about my journey from an education policy student to an online dating site CEO during a panel (unforgettable moment #2).

Day two began in the early (for most college students) morning with hundreds of people filling Schine Underground and even into the overflow room. Over 600 students, staff, faculty, alumni, and guests attended the event on Thursday. Each presenter spoke for 10 minutes about how the real-time web is changing people’s lives, their interactions with one another, and the world.

Rich Tehan, a senior Information Technology and Entrepreneurship dual major, attended the conference for most of the day. He said that the talks complimented his coursework nicely because his IST 443 class “talks about how technology affects people on an individual basis and social issues and politics in the U.S.” and said, “It was good to have practical examples that went hand in hand with the theoretical examples from the class.”

It was interesting to experience the same intersection of studies with real world examples, but what really resonated with me was when speakers like Kim Sivic, Eric Stoller, George Couros, and Isaac Budmen spoke about the effects of the education field on their experiences (and vice versa). It was interesting to hear from so many people about higher education in particular, especially because of the events of the previous night and since whole event was taking place at an institute of higher education.

But as it was clear in Hajj Flemings’ talk, there’s only so far that school can take you. Several students remarked about how hearing the speakers talk about what they really cared about with much sincerity and emotion was more thought-provoking, inspiring, and meaningful than time spent in class. The consistent message throughout the speakers was how important it is to be passionate about what you’re doing, something that is often missing from students because their trapped in assignments and often unenthusiastic lectures. Walking through the rows of students leaving the conference, I overheard plenty of remarks about learning more in one day at #140Cuse than they learned inside of the classroom all semester, and that it was worth missing class or spending time at the conference instead of working on things for class.

In the end, we learned a lot about the real-time web, but what we learned most about was how important passion, compassion, and self-learning are. That $1.40 was the best “tuition” money we ever spent.

Did you attend #140Cuse, or follow along online? Share your takeaways from the conference in the comments below!

Currently, I am a digital archivist at the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center, which is a repository of university archives, rare books and manuscript collections. It’s like working in a really, really big special collections library. There are two main aspects to my work. One might be loosely called ‘digital preservation’, but in the jargon of archives, what I am doing is developing practices for the management and preservation of born-digital archival collections, and attempting to address the particular concerns of archives: authenticity, context, etc. The other significant area of work I am engaged in is mass digitization of archival collections.

What surprises me most is how hard I work! Not that I expected to be lazy in this career, but I definitely expected the library field to be paced slower than my previous work in corporate. Not the case at all. There is so much work to be done when it comes to digital library and archives issues, and usually not enough time or resource to do it. I am never lacking for an interesting project or challenge to work on.

It would be easy to point to the digital libraries curriculum as being central to the preparation I received at SU, but looking back I realize that a broad range of courses helped prepare me in little ways for all the work I am doing now, including the Management course, and the Planning, Marketing and Assessment course.

I know finding work is one concern all library school students share. Dr. Megan Oakleaf told me to start the job search as early as one year before my graduation date, since I was pursuing work in academic libraries. That was probably the best piece of advice anyone gave me. Starting early helped me understand what jobs were out there, where they were, what they were looking for. It helped guide so many of my education choices and gave me ample time to polish my credentials and develop useful contacts.

The piece of advice I wish someone had told me: get as much experience outside the classroom as possible. As much as the coursework can lay the foundation for work in libraries, it’s amazing how much more you learn actually having your feet on the ground in a library. And when you’re one of 50 new graduates applying for an open job, experience is a significant thing that can distinguish you from everyone else. My  advice to library students would probably be to take a broad range of topical courses, enough to make you conversant in a number of different areas, but to focus heavily on getting work experience (through internships, part-time work, volunteer work, whatever) in whatever area you are interested in having a job in later.

The courses I was least excited about when I signed up for them were the ones that have been the most beneficial on the job. I really wasn’t interested in the Management course, and I went into the Library Planning course thinking I’d probably never be in a leadership position that required me to do any planning or project management. In reality, this stuff is relevant every day on the job. The Library Planning course (IST 613, I think) was the best course I took at the iSchool. I give the iSchool a lot of credit for recognizing that preparing library professionals is about more than teaching them MARC, or how to conduct a reference interview.

Certainly not to make money!  I was burnt out and rudderless after eight years of working in corporate IT.

I really enjoy going to conferences. I think there is so much energy and collaboration happening in professional library and archive organizations–I think it’s more evident than in other fields, to be sure. For anyone interested in finding an academic library or archive job, I find that OCLC’s Research Libraries Group has their finger on the pulse of a lot of critical issues and they are connected to all the movers and shakers in the field. I try to follow them as much as possible.

Recently I had a colleague say to me that he had this vision that his job would one day be entirely non-technical, which kind of surprised me. I think library professionals need to engage technology issues with a critical eye, but I find there is still so much resistance to technology (and to progressive trends more generally) in our field, from experienced and new professionals alike. So it’s not surprising to me that we are so far behind on really important issues like digital preservation, like making our holdings available online. One doesn’t need to be a technologist or proficient with coding languages to contribute to the future digital directions of our profession, so I would hope new LIS students wouldn’t dismiss digital issues too quickly, regardless of their professional interests.

Are you an iSchool alum with advice for our current students? Tell us in the comments below!