Unlike most students, I attend Drexel; So that means I was in classes all summer long with a full load. That finally ended last Wednesday, so I get a week to relax. After all of my friends have returned back to college for another year, I get home to have fun. It also means that instead of having to deal with classes, I get to spend the next six months working at Razorfish Health (one of Digitas Health’s many sister companies) as part of their UX team, and performing research and creating websites for pharmaceutical companies. I can’t wait to get started, because I know it’s going to be a blast, and I get to work with many of my old coworkers.

As for the rest of  this summer, it wasn’t all bad. One of my highlights of my summer had to be a three-day weekend in Washington D.C. with all my friends and a visit to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to see what my twin brother had been working on at his summer internship. (Which I still need to post pictures from the trip to my Flickr)

As much as I complain about having to deal with the woes of Drexel’s summer term, I’m still glad that I choose to attend Drexel and get the amazing opportunities that I have had when I am on co-op. It has made a huge impact on what I want to do for a career and at the same time reassured me that I’m on the right track.

That and the fact that I’m still too busy to update this blog regularly. At least I’m still constantly tweeting on my Twitter!

Related posts:

1. Summers Over… Back to Work I Go

For the Fall-Winter 2010 co-op term, I was lucky enough to get a co-op job through Drexel as an Associate Interaction Designer at Digitas Health, a Publicis Groupe company. It was great experience, and honestly; I wish I was still at co-op rather than sitting in class.

As an Interaction Designer, I got to create both sitemaps and wireframes for upcoming pharmaceutical websites. I even created a few simple mobile websites. DH was a great place to get an internship and expand my portfolio and working knowledge of User Experience work. I hope that I can go back in six months when my next (and final) co-op cycle arrives.

User Experience has always been an area that I have enjoyed, mainly because it falls into the intersection of technology and design. I can also use some of the skills that I have learned doing print production (i.e The Triangle) and web design. Since when creating wireframes or other diagrams, you need to have them presented cleanly on a print document, but it still represents a website.

I would also like to thank all of my co-workers in the UX department for welcoming me to the team, and mentoring me along the process. The co-op would not have been as much fun with out all of you!

Related posts:

1. Co-Op is Over, Back to Class I Go
2. Summers over, and I’m excited.

Wow, what a year it has been.

I can’t believe that I’m now a 3rd year “pre-junior” at Drexel, I’m now Managing Editor and an Editorial Board Member of Drexel’s independent student newspaper, The Triangle, and starting my second co-op internship at a digital marketing agency in Center City Philadelphia.

Let’s jump back to my last blog post, where I was on assignment for The Triangle at the opening of the Philadelphia Apple Store in September. I probably should have written a few blog posts between then and now, but the gist of my life is this (after the jump):

• Headed to Atlantic City with the Drexel University Photography Club and took a ton of pictures. (Check out flickr)
• Forced my twin brother to come down to Philly for the Red Bull Flugtag, and got a ton of pictures of idiots jumping into the Delaware River. (flickr)
• Started working at Digitas Health, a digital marketing agency that specializes in the pharmaceutical industry, as an associate interaction designer intern/co-op.
• Went down to the Schuylkill River Banks for the Light Drift event, and also got a lot of pictures from the trails of the river bank. (Light Drift needs to be uploaded, pics along the river bank here.)
• Finally got a smartphone to help me keep up with my digital life while on the go.
• Headed up to Boylston, MA for Halloween with my extended family for pumpkin carving and apple picking. (Check out the flickr pics)
• I also visited a bonsai tree farm near Boylston and got a lot of great pictures. (Still need to be uploaded flickr)
• Went to New York City for a photo walk though Central Park with the Drexel Photo Club. (Which I still need to upload on flickr)
• Spent Thanksgiving in Gloucester, MA via a quick flight up to Boston (and got back-scattered on my way home)
• Got the last issue of The Triangle for the term out complete with a Cellphone Holiday Gift Guide (See the blog post)
• Went back home to North Jersey for my Mom’s extra-large retirement party; she worked at Kraft Foods for 42 years (and managed to forget my camera for the party).
• Went back home (again) to go see the Trans Siberian Orchestra with my friends. The concert was awesome, and I really wish I could have brought my camera into the venue.
• Finally got back to North Jersey for longer than a weekend, just in time for the holidays. I even got to work from home for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so I didn’t have to run back to Philly for three days.

…all while working 40 hours a week at DH and another 20 at The Triangle. And that catches us up to now.

I’m still quite amazed at how much I managed to fit into just three months. Now I finally have a bit of time to sit back, relax, spend time with my family, and do things like write this blog post (and maybe get the rest of my photos uploaded… eventually)

I hope that you have had a happy holiday season and a happy new year.

See you in 2011!

Related posts:

1. Summers over, and I’m excited.

Woo Hoo! I finally got my act together this year and manged to write a technology article for my university newspaper, The Triangle!

Take a look at my article: “Google Docs contains new features”

Hopefully, I can keep this up and write a few more. Being in print never hurt.

(Even though print is slowly dieing. Kind of. Good thing The Triangle is online too!)

And, yes; I realize that this is probably the most boring and dry article I’ve ever written. My first draft was more fun, but not ready for a newspaper, or in AP style.

Related posts:

1. I Didn’t Write It, But I Did Design It – 2010 Orange Brick Awards
2. I wrote more stuff…
3. Apple Store Philadelphia Anyone?

Looks like my (last) summer vacation is now over. For me it’s been a long summer, that I think I got to take full advantage of. I got to hone my interviewing skills and get a co-op (more about that later),  going down to the Jersey Shore for a week (and having limited internet access), working with clients to help find solutions to their technology problems, doing some demolition work at a commercial food factory,and getting to have a bit of a different college experience up in Worcester, MA for a week.

I want to go in depth about some of these events, but I need more room to do it. So, take a look, after the Jump.

I have to say, this summer vacation was one of the special ones that I have had, since it is probably my last. Because I am on the 5 year / Three Co-op Information Systems program, my schedule looks like this:

Graphic courtesy of Drexel Admissions

So, I get only one “vacation” term and for the rest of the 5 years, I’m either working on co-op or studying. Since I enrolled at Drexel, I knew that I had to make the most of this summer vacation, and I think that I did. I got to spend time with my family down at the Jersey Shore in Lavallette. Of course, the beach and the sun are not exactly my friends, so I spent most of my time covered up with my iPod, or back at our rental house attempting to find internet access and watching videos from my hard drive. Either way, I did get to spend valuable time with my family, and overall, I did enjoy myself and got to relax.

And boy, did I need the relaxation. See my week at the beach was right after my intense week of interviewing for co-op jobs. I had 18 diferent co-op jobs offer me the opportunity to interview for the position, which means that in the end, I had gone on over 20 interviews. My stratigie to get them all done? Put them in a spreadsheet so that I could keep tract of all of them, and get all the Drexel and Center City interviews done before I left Philly for the end of the school year. I had tried to cram all the rest of the interviews I could into one week so that I did not have to come back down to Philly again, but due to scheduling conflicts and more second interview requests, that didn’t workout; so I had to come pack to Philly for two more days. After all of that, I’m pretty sure that I can go into a interview with some level of confidence, I have had plenty of experience with it. It also means that I was lucky enough to find a co-op job during “A-Round”, and I’m excited to be working at SAP at their Newtown Square, PA location as a End User Support Intern. I will be working their until the end of “Winter” term in March.

Looking ahead,  goal of mine is to finally get involved with Drexel’s student newspaper, The Triangle. Hopefully, one I start writing some articles, I’ll post links to them here. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing for The iLife, but having my journalistic eggs in more than one basket can’t hurt.

It’s going to be a crazy ride, and I’ll keep updating here and over at my Twitter account. Expect another lengthy post at the end of the year!

Related posts:

1. Summers over, and I’m excited.