This semester I am doing an independent study with Paul Jones, one of my favorite professors at UNC. I had planned to spend the first chunk of my time studying Google, which is convenient because I was lucky enough to receive an interview for their summer internship program. The first round of interviews were two weeks ago and I am flying to NYC on Thursday for the final round. It has been a unique experience to have my personal academic interests mesh perfectly with what I am doing extracurricularly, and my fingers are crossed for the final round! That being said, I have spent a large sum of time over the past month taking notes on Google and the plethora of products and programs that they have created, and it has caused me to get a bit behind on my independent study blogging. I have designed this page to evolve into a blog that I post on frequently- ideally once every three to four days. I would like my posts to be diverse in both form and subject matter, although most of it for the time being will focus on Google. I am currently finishing up In The Plex by Steven Levy, which has been a fascinating read about the inner workings of Google. I have also been reading a lot about specific Googlers- Marissa Mayer in particular. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as the 20th employee and first female engineer and I believe that she is the quintessential Googler. Does it really matter what a quintessential Googler is? Why would someone care? The core of these questions is one of the things that draws me to the company-- no one cares about what the quintessential Wells Fargo or Microsoft employee is like- so why am I fascinated by what Mayer represents? This question ties back to the essence of Google's brand and the fact that although they have grown into a massive corporation, they have yet to lose [much of] their start-up spunk. Studying symbolic systems and computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence at Stanford, Mayer has an academic background that reeks of Google. But she has much more than intellect. She is quirky, well-spoken and has a wide range of interests beyond the computer screen. I am going to do an entire post about her contributions to the product management team at Google (she gets to make some fascinating decisions about design) later this week. "Passion is gender neutralizing".. What a great perspective. I will have a post up in the next few days about my favorite parts of In The Plex.. Stay tuned!
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Started restructuring this site on 12/24/2011 by adding this page. It will mainly consist of technology ramble and things that you probably won't read.
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