Stevens Admissions: Ellyn's Blog

Student Elevator Pitch Competition

What is an elevator pitch?

"An elevator pitch is a short presentation made by an entrepreneur raising money for a venture. The term describes a pitch that?s short enough that it could be given during an elevator ride when the entrepreneur has the only chance to talk with a potential investor. Just as in the real Olympics, the investor judges hold up their scores and give points ranging from one to ten in the categories of quality of presentation and business fundability."

 

Yesterday I represented the SmartPedals team and pitched our system to a panel of judges and potential investors.  I practiced my 2 minute pitch more times that I want to admit in order to prepare for my turn at the microphone in front of a large audience of people.

There was a number of great competitors including my sister who gave the pitch for her team!  Truthbetold, I was tempted to make a joke about it when I went up to the podium but decided against it :-p

Anyways, all of the work paid off.  When I got up there, my pitch was engrained in my brain and just came out!  I was fortunate enough to get one of the highest scores on the quality of my pitch!  Unfortunately, like I said, the quality of the competition was high and we did not take home the top honors, but our idea fared very well.

More information about the competition can be found here
http://www.stevens.edu/entrepreneurship/research-day/elevator_pitch.html

Senior Design Expo

Yesterday was one of the big days!

It was what my senior design team has been working towards since the beginning of the year... the Senior Design Expo.  It was an opportunity for my group and all of the other senior design teams to showcase their projects to campus and anyone who came.

It was an awesome event and went well!  Here are some pictures of my team's table!

Location, Location, Location

Location: One of the many things I did not take into account when I was looking at schools but ultimately realized is an extremely important factor to consider.

Luckily for me, I think that Stevens has one of the best locations that a student could ask for and here's why!

1) Access into NYC - Getting into the city is as easy as taking a bus or the Path.  Also, from the freshman residence halls, we have a fantastic view of NYC (and in particular, the Empire State Building).  There are so many things to do like going to a museum, seeing a broadway show, going to Central Park, and so many more!

2) Carlo's Bakery - Being a Stevens / Hoboken resident lets us CUT TO THE FRONT OF THE LONG LINE and get priority treatment to order one of their baked goods

3) Sports - We are near Madison Square Garden in NYC, Yankees and Mets Stadiums in NYC, the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, the Red Bulls Stadium, and the Prudential Center in Newark.

4) Home - Stevens is an hour by car and 2.5 hours by public transportation home.  It is the perfect distance to have my freedom at school but can still go home easily and see my family.

 

Bad Leadership Paper

One of my classes this semester is called Seminar in Leadership Studies and it is one of my favorite classes!  The class examines the different types of leaders and their attributes.  It is taught by Dr Maureen Weatherall, the Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for the university.

Yesterday, we had a paper due on bad leadership.  Rather than use a historical figure for the focus of my paper, I decided to go down a non-traditional route for my example.  I used Miranda Priestly, the fictional character from the movie The Devil Wears Prada.  Priestly, played by Meryl Streep in the film, is the Editor in Chief of Runway magazine.  Throughout the course of the movie, there are a number of specific instances and characteristics that showcase Priestly as being a bad leader.  She is callous and hypercritical to her employees and does not foster a supportive work environment.

See below for a clip from the movie showing Priestly in action during the movie.

Half Marathon and a New Car... Successful Weekend!

This weekend was probably one of the most successful weekends I've had in a while!  Throughout the course of the weekend, I ran in a half marathon and bought a new car!

Because my sister and I shared a car in high school, I decided I needed to get my own car for after graduation.  My sister is keeping our '07 Toyota Corolla, and I went on the search for a new car.  After a lot of searching and investigation, I went out with my family on Saturday morning and picked the car... a '11 Honda CRV.  This is one of the many steps I'm taking towards being a "real person" as I like to joke... someone who has to pay for rent, pay for car payments, work, etc!

 

As for the race, it was what I was working towards for months!  It was my first long race and was quite an experience.  It was a learning experience (with regards to pace for a long race like that), but I am so happy that I did it.  My sister and I ran together and kept a solid pace throughout the course.  It was so awesome to participate.  Rutgers is my mom's alma mater AND we saw a lot of other Stevens students and staff running / cheering at the race (it was held at Rutgers in New Brunswick).  Woohoo!

And to top it all off, when I came back to campus it was the President's Reception!  It's a great opportunity for accepted students to see what campus is like (not to mention eat all the great food).  Some of my friends (fellow blogger, Julia, and Abel) gave speeches from a senior's perspective, and I heard they did very well... kudos to them :)

Unrelated to Stevens but cool nonetheless!

I've mentioned in some of my earlier posts that I sometimes find myself stuck in a "Stevens Bubble", meaning that I get too caught up with schoolwork and don't pay as much attention as I should to the "real world" and the news... well, that has caught up to me today!

I just found out that in my town, Hillsborough, NJ, there is a family of bald eagles!... AND they have a live feed called EagleCam which lets viewers see the eagles!  The eagle is in Duke Farms, a large estate in Hillsborough owned by the Duke estate (Duke family as in US Tobacco and electric power tycoon AND name of Duke University).  The Duke estate is in the heart of Hillsborough, encompassing 2700 acres and equivalent to about 13% of the town's area.

 

Check out all the information here!
(Below is a live feed to see the eagle family -- as a true engineer and technology person, I find this pretty cool!)

 

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV

Blast from the past!

Hello readers!  I've got some great news!

If you've been following my blog since 2008 (summer of my freshman year), you'll remember I took a one month seminar on Sysems Engineering in addition to doing my research in the Scholars Program.  A few great things resulted from that class... 1) I found out more information about Systems Engineering and ultimately chose that for my Master's Degree, and 2) I met some wonderful people from Norway I would have never otherwise met.

One of the students in the class who I became close with, Thomas, is currently in the US and in Hoboken for the week to take a one-week seminar towards one of his classes.  He is pursuing his Master's Degree in Systems Engineering at one of the universities in Norway (while working full-time), and his school has a partnership with Stevens that lets him take classes through Stevens that count towards his degree.  Thomas and I have spoken on the computer, but we haven't seen each other in years!  It's a blast from the past to be able to catch up with him face to face!  It's amazing how much can happen in three years!

Below is a vintage picture of Thomas and I from Summer 08 when our class went on a sailboat on the Hudson!

I'm Famous (and go Stevens!)

Community Outreach with the US Attorney of New Jersey

Yup, I actually did what the title says!  Today me and a small group of other Stevens students had the privilege to meet with the US Attorney of New Jersey, Paul Fishman.  How awesome is that?!
(to put it in perspective, his boss is the US Attorney General and his boss is President Barack Obama)

Mr Fishman came to Stevens for a campaign to reach out to college students in the state and get our thoughts on a community outreach intiative he has been working on.  The forum opened up by hearing about what he does in his role, asking him questions, and then having an open discussion about how the government (and in particular, the Department of Justice) can make changes to better serve the community.  His initiative deals with trying to make sure that all different groups of people (cultural, religious, socioeconomic, gender, etc) feel like they are being treated equally and represented fairly by the government.  His reason for meeting with a small group of college students was to get the opinions of the younger generation, since we are the next group of rising leaders in the country.

It was a wonderful opportunity to meet with Mr Fishman, and I am extremely thankful I was able to participate in it.

2011 Senior Gift

ALMOST DONE WITH SENIOR YEAR!  CAN'T BELIEVE IT!

Being a senior has a lot of advantages and gives the seniors a lot more opportunity to give back to campus.  Every year, the seniors organize to give back to the school where we have spent the past four or five years through a class gift.  The Senior Gift Campaign gives the graduating class an opportunity to give back, leaving a lasting impression on campus to honor our class. 

I am fortunate enough to be on the Senior Gift Committee.  Since the fall semester, the group has been diligently working with various departments on campus and students in our class to come up with ideas of what we want to do for our senior gift. 

Me and the rest of the committee are asking our classmates, faculty, and families to contribute with their vote and their donations so we can leave a lasting impression on campus.  Students can cast their vote by donating to the project of their choice (we have three options).  The option with the most money by April 28th will be the gift that we will select to be our class gift (all money raised up to that point will go towards the winning idea).  After that time, we will continue to raise money to reach our goal of paying for our gift in full to complete the selected project.

There are three options:
1) A gazebo to be built near the 9th street entrance to campus
2) An interactive campus located at a central campus location that will allow visitors to identify campus buildings and track events
3) A masonry stone or brick walkway that will be located between the S.C. Williams Library and Wittpenn Walk

 

Past Senior Gifts include the monument clock outside of the Wesley J. Howe Center (Classes of 2004 and 2009), benches outside of Castle Point Apartments (Class of 2005), and audio-visual entertainment system in the Schaefer Fitness Center (Class of 2003).

http://www.stevens.edu/sit/development/featured/Donor-News.cfm has more information about the committee and about the gift itself.  Check it out!