Stevens Admissions: Ellyn's Blog

I Ate A Donut & I do nut cheat

The Stevens Honor Board just ran this very successful event called "I ATE A DONUT & I do nut cheat" which consisted of giving out donuts and coffee to students in the library who pledged to maintain and keep the Stevens Honor System in mind especially during Finals.

What is the honor system you may ask... well, it is one of the foundations of the institution.  All students sign the honor code before coming to Stevens and put it on all submissions.  The point of the code as stated by the website:

"The Honor System at Stevens was developed to fulfill two objectives. It insures that work submitted by students can be trusted as their own and was performed in an atmosphere of honesty and fair play. A secondary function of the Honor System is to promote, both on the campus and in the individual student, a sense of honor in preparation for the professional world.

In order for this Honor System to be effective, the continued support and cooperation of the student body, faculty, and administration is needed. In addition, the Honor System's governing body, the Honor Board, serves to ensure that the integrity of the system is upheld."

 

More information can be found at http://www.stevens.edu/honor

 

Below is a picture of the remnants of the food...

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!

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.

Student Elevator Pitch Competition (Preliminaries)

As I'm sure you are aware, Stevens is an extremely innovative and entrepreneurial school.  Stevens curriculum fosters students to become aware of these topics and sets the students up for success in the real-world.  As a result, the Office of Academic Entrepreneurship sponsors a competition for senior students every year.  Every Senior Design team is invited to participate in this competition if their project has the potential to turn into a business.

My senior design project, BicycleMapper, has the potential to be a very successful business, so we submitted an Executive Summary in hopes of getting selected for this competition.  Luckily for us, we were picked to participate!  This past Wednesday we had a preliminary competition where we gave an Elevator Pitch to a panel of experts (2 minute maximum) to tell them why our idea will be successful, why they should invest in it, and why it will make them money.  I am my group's speaking representative for this competition, so I was the one trying to persuade the panel.  This preliminary competition / feedback session was extremely helpful for my group and we got meaningful feedback which we will incorporate into our final elevator pitch during the competition on April 29th.

By the way, did I mention that there are prizes given to the top 3 teams in the competition!  More information about the competition and the Office of Academic Entrepeneurship can be found at http://www.stevens.edu/entrepreneurship/research-day/elevator_pitch.html

Just to give you a little information about my senior design project (I can't divulge all of the information), my group has developed a low-cost bicycle sharing system unlike anything currently on the market by retrofitting existing bikes and bike racks with our custom lock.

A Busy Few Days... Succeeding in Business Dinner, MATLAB Seminar, & Women's Basketball Game

Hello readers.  As the title of the blog alludes, it's been a busy few days... normally seniors coast during their last semester, but I instead took my "lighter" courseload to pursue more active roles in the organizations I'm involved in... the specifics (events I'm planning) will be talked about in later posts and I don't want to spoil it!  But stayed tuned to hear about it!

 

In other news, I have attended three cool events the past few days...

  The first event was a Succeeding in Business Dinner hosted by Women's Programming
& the Office of Career Development.  A successful Vice-President from Morgan Stanley came to campus for a session to give her do's and don't related to business.  Her "nuggets of wisdom" as she liked to call it gave all of the women in attendance a better view on the "soft" skills that women need to be successful in business.  I found the event to be extremely informative and the speaker really kept all of our attentions.  She was so personable and so honest!  It was a real treat to get to hear her speak (and eat some food from Vito's for dinner!)

Friday morning I went to a MATLAB Seminar.  MATLAB is a computing software sold by Mathworks.  It is one of the programs that comes pre-loaded on our laptops that we get as freshmen.  I've used it in a number of my undergraduate and graduate classes and have found it to be an extremely useful tool.  The only challenge I have dealt with it is the fact that I had no experience with it before college.  Learning the syntax and all of the powerful and useful features is a task in itself!  At this seminar, the instructor gave us some examples of cool problems that can be solved using the software.  I'm extremely happy I woke up on a Friday morning in order to go to it, because I know that it will be a program that I will use for years to come!

  Another event I went to was on Friday afternoon.  The women's basketball team had won their conference  and advanced to the NCAA tournament!  I am already a big advocate of school sports and like to go to as many games as I can, but I  really made sure I went to this game because some of the girls on the team are in my sorority.  I know that  they supported me and my team during our season, so I wanted to do the same for them.  Also, being in their place as a student-athlete, it meant the world to me to have my friends come to my games and support me.
The game was at William Paterson, so Stevens sent a bus to take students to the game.  A lot of students came out to support the team and really rep up Stevens at the game... we had quite a cheering section!  Although our team didn't come out victorious in the game, it was a real pleasure to watch our women play in the NCAAs and  see the team (and in particular, the seniors) give everything they had.

Stevens Field Hockey Keeping Up The High Expectations

One of the wonderful things about being a Division III student-athlete is that the institutions focus not only on the athletic performances of its student-athletes but also on the academic success of these individuals as well.  The culture of Stevens as a whole, and particularly of the field hockey team, was always that school was most important with field hockey being a priority right below it.  Our athletics staff does a really great job understanding the rigor of our courseload and understanding that we are going to enter the professional work force; many of us will not pursue our sport after college.  Although our athletics is extremely competitive and top-notch, we have a great balance.

Yesterday marked the seventh straight year that the field hockey teamed earned the NFHCA Academic Team Award for having a team GPA above the minimum 3.0 requirement.  Furthermore, not only has our team gotten this award since its inception seven years ago, but the team got a 3.34 GPA for the fall (3.21 cumulative)!  Particularly because we are in season during the fall, I am so proud and impressed that my teammates and I were able to accomplish this feat (and the same applies for all of the other sports on campus as well).  We were able to perform well academically and athletically, reaching the "Sweet 16" round of the NCAA Tournament.

Field Hockey Receives Academic Team Award from NFHCA is a link to the StevensDucks website highlighting the achievement of the team.  It also mentions that the All-Academic team (individual awards) will be announced next week.  I'll keep you updated!

GO DUCKS!

The Truth About Online Classes

I know what you may be thinking... online classes... there's no way that anyone learns anything from taking a class online... Well, I can tell you that online classes can be a wonderful experience!  While there are obvious negatives to taking a course online (such as not being able to see your teacher or classmates face to face), there are so many positives that can come out of it!  As a matter of fact, some of the online classes I have taken during my time here have been some of my favorite where I really feel like I learned a lot and developed strong ties to my classmates.

Because of the growing popularity of Systems Engineering and the prestige that Stevens holds in that field, Stevens offers classes both online and in person in order to accomodate the wide array of individuals who are interested in this topic (as well as many other topics - check out http://webcampus.stevens.edu/ for more information). Since Systems Engineering and these other fields are so popular, Stevens always offers an array of courses to choose from. 
As a result, I was fortunate enough to be able to take both online and in-person classes towards my Master's degree.  I do not think I would have been able to finish the degree if I had to take all of the classes on campus.

One of the most obvious advantages to online courses is the flexible structure.  Since there may not be devoted "class time" for 3 hours each week, it gives students the ability to read and complete the material at their own pace.  I've taken online courses over the summers when I also had internships, so the ability to do the work on my own time was crucial (time management played a big role in accomplishing that as well!).

Another advantage was learning how to be in teams to complete a task without meeting in person.  This is a challenge that happens frequently in the workforce but is not really an issue undergraduates have to deal with since most students live on campus or commute from a short distance away.

Lastly and most importantly, working with the diverse group of individuals in these classes afforded me an opportunity to expand my horizons after hearing what they had to say.  It is true that the undergraduate Stevens population is extremely diverse, but taking classes online let me be in classes with distinguished professionals currently in the field I am interested in (which is not common in my undergraduate classes).  In our online class discussions, I was able to hear from a broad range of people in different phases of their lives, careers, education, and backgrounds.  It was great to be able to learn from each other, because it truly did enhance the learning experience for both parties.

In one my favorite online classes I've taken, the class was split into groups in order to complete a final team project.  Something that stuck with me is a quote that one of the members of the group always said.  He noted that the following is his philosophy at work and in class: "cooperate & graduate ... we can do more together than we can do individually".

Who Said Senior Year Was Easy!

You will sometimes hear people say that their senior year in college was easy, but let me tell you, that is not the case for me!... and I would venture to say the same for all students at Stevens.

I love Stevens, but I admit that it can have a very challenging courseload.  This week, I've got two finals on my plate, in addition to a Senior Design presentation and paper, and a project in another class.  Compared to other years, I have fewer finals (which is always a good thing) but more projects.  The magnitude of Senior Design in addition to my other classes is what is making this finals period a tough one.  However, my group and I just submitted our final paper and presentation for the semester, so that is a big weight off of our shoulders!  Our paper was over 60 pages with our appendices!  I feel so accomplished!

Although senior year can be stressful, it is absolutely managable.  Furthermore, I really do believe that the challenging curriculum really helps Stevens students prepare for the real world.  If I can do well here, I have confidence that I can handle any challenge my job may throw at me.  Having worked at an internship the past two summers, I can truly say that Stevens students hold our own with other prestigious schools and universities, and I think it has to do with the rigorous engineering curriculum.

The Last Time I'll Be Registering for Classes... at least for now

As my final semester approaches, I am beginning to formulate my FINAL class schedule for next semester.  It will be the last time I'll register for classes... at least for now!  I plan on getting my PhD part-time in the future, but I'll be pursuing a full-time job after graduation.

Anyways, at this point in the semester, all students use a great tool we have at Stevens called the Course Scheduler.  It is on the Academics Website and allows us to see what sections of classes we should be taking next semester.  Since courses are only offered at certain times and there may be conflicts, this is a useful tool for any student.  Registration doesn't begin until next week, so having this tool uploaded now gives students ample time to pick and choose what classes they plan on registering for.

It looks like this:

The link to this website is http://www.stevens.edu/scheduler/#