Michel Martin, host of NPR’s Tell Me More, visited UMBC on April 29 to meet with faculty researchers from a variety of disciplines, speaking to the program’s focus on “conversations Americans are having now—about themselves, their families, their neighborhoods and the world.” Joining Martin were Alicia Montgomery and Amita Parashar, supervising and associate editors of Tell Me More.
Martin, Montgomery and Parashar met with Anne Brodsky, associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Tyson King-Meadows, public policy and Africana studies; Jason Loviglio, media and communications studies; George Derek Musgrove, history; Penny Rheingans, Center for Women in Technology; Jason Schiffman, psychology; Joan Shin, education; and Cynthia Woodcock, The Hilltop Institute.
The faculty members shared their current research and how they became interested in their fields of study. They also joined Martin in a lively discussion about why and how academic researchers communicate with general audiences, helping the public explore and debate issues of the day.
]]>Starting at 11am on May 1, 2014, DoIT began a cleanup process on our non-Gmail based email servers, named Cryus. There was an error in this process and it inadvertently removed the mail of approximately 230 people using the CYRUS email system. Of this number, approximately 110 are UMBC faculty and staff whose username starts with "a" or "b". We are restoring the email of all 230 people from our backups last night and expect to have all email restored by midnight tonight.
Since we are restoring from file backup, the the restore will not have any new email received between 10pm on 4/30 and 1:30pm on 5/1. In addition, restoring from backup results in two known issues:
DoIT staff have sent a myUMBC alert to those users impacted letting them know of the situation. DoIT staff will work through the evening to correct this mistake and we apologize for the impact this has created during the semester and deeply regret the inconvenience resulting from this mistake. DoIT has taken all necessary steps to assure it will never happen again.
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Mike Trpcic
Mike Trpcic enjoys the perks many only daydream of while staring at their cubicle walls. He shows up to work when he wants and wears jeans and T-shirts while focusing on his code.
A relaxed dress code and schedule aren’t all. He gets unlimited vacation, catered lunches every day, a company credit card, bi-weekly massages, weekly yoga classes, a subsidized gym membership, free weekly happy hours, and unlimited drinks and snacks.
Sounds like heaven, but that is Trpcic’s life at Weebly.com, a do-it-yourself website company.
Trpcic, 25, of San Francisco, is a front-end software engineer and coding is a lifelong passion, as well as his career.
He wasn’t born a programmer though — close, but, no, he had to start somewhere. Trpcic started delving into programming when he was 12.
“Most of my knowledge I’ve learned on my own through personal projects or work experience,” Trpcic says.
Free trial on Treehouse: Do you want to learn more about web development and design? Click here to try a free 14-day trial on Treehouse.
He also learned through play and discovered his love for coding by playing a MUD, known as a multiuser dungeon game.
MUDs are the text-based precursors to current massive multiplayer online games, or MMOs, like World of Warcraft. In a MUD, players connect and type commands to move around, collect items, and fight each other.
“The MUD I had been playing was looking for volunteer coders to add new features to the game, and I had the overwhelming desire to be able to contribute,” Trpcic says. “I’ve always been an intellectual creative, able to think of good ideas, but with little artistic skill to bring them to life. Programming let me do that with math, science, and problem-solving.”
Trpcic says those were the early days of online gaming, and MUDs weren’t widely popular. He only discovered it through a friend. Online, he made more friends in a tight-knit community of gamers. When they asked for volunteers to design features for the game, Trpcic signed up but didn’t know much about coding. So he asked around.
“I heard back from a user who had already learned to program, and was willing to help,” Trpcic says. “He spent hours answering my early questions, guiding me to the right resources, and taking a look at the code I wrote to give me pointers. He was a huge help in my early days of programming, and I can say without a doubt that I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”
He started to build his skill set by taking every programming course offered at his high school and a few computer hardware courses, and eventually going to college. He never graduated, though, and instead started coding full-time. Eventually, Weebly.com recruited him for an “amazing opportunity” and he hasn’t looked back. He’s been there 10 months.
“When I said I was recruited for an amazing opportunity, I wasn’t kidding,” Trpcic says. “We work very autonomously, having our work planned at the beginning of a two-week sprint. We’ll work for two weeks, then review the feature and make changes from there.”
He says that overall the job environment is relaxed, and as long as he gets his work done in a timely manner, it stays that way.
There are quite a few people frantically searching for the freedom Trpcic enjoys. He says anyone can learn coding, and he says it’s a rewarding career.
For those just beginning, Trpcic points them to the almost unlimited online resources. But he says the hardest part is figuring out what to do with coding skills.
“A lot of people come to the table asking, ‘Which language do I choose?’ or ‘What projects should a newcomer start?’” Trpcic says. “Focus on what you want to build. Reach for the stars. This is your end goal, so it can be as wild as you want. Maybe it’s the next Facebook, maybe it’s a video game, or maybe it’s a new desktop program to revolutionize accounts management for hotels. Whatever it is, once you know what you want to do, the range of tools you can use is limited so you’re not paralyzed by choice anymore.”
That’s when new programmers should start planning the steps to accomplish their end goal. He recommends also cultivating relationships with experts, who, like him, were once in beginner’s shoes.
Trpcic says people should check out StackOverflow, a question-and-answer site dedicated to programming, as well as r/learnprogramming on Reddit, where they can ask nearly any question.
For newcomers searching for inspiration on which way to lean, Trpcic says mobile and web development have been steadily growing the past several years.
“I expect that trend to continue. In particular, there’s a new trend of using web technologies to build desktop applications,” Trpcic says. “I think in five years, this will be more common, as it’s a good way to get a quick version of your idea out onto the market. The industry is going to continue growing no matter what, barring some sort of cataclysm that destroys all our computers.”
He did say that, more so than other industries, programming requires constant education. Trpcic stresses that developers must constantly keep tabs on trends, new ideas, changes to existing platforms, updated versions, and changes in the way users behave. Given all that, he’s fortunate coding is also his hobby.
“A lot of times this just becomes second nature,” Trpcic says. “I love programming.”
The post Web Job Perks: Unlimited Vacation, Catered Lunch Part of ‘Amazing Opportunity’ for Weebly.com Programmer appeared first on Treehouse Blog.
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For the third consecutive year, UMBC has been named to the Times Higher Education‘s 100 Under 50 list of the world’s best young universities.
This year, UMBC ranked #65, joining such institutions as the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Université Paris-Sud, University of Calgary and University of Warwick.
THE‘s “100 Under 50” highlights colleges and universities established less than 50 years ago that have promising futures. Particular attention was given to institutions with strong research, innovation and an international outlook.
Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education Rankings, said: “The academy’s traditional, ancient elite should be warned – many of the exciting young universities on this forward-looking list do not see their youth as a disadvantage in the global knowledge economy. While they may not have had centuries to accumulate wealth and cannot draw on generations of alumni and rich traditions of scholarship to drive their reputations, they are free from the burdens of history: free to be more agile, lean, flexible and risk-taking, giving them an advantage in a rapidly changing global marketplace; free to offer innovative teaching and focus their research on niche, high-impact areas.”
For the full list, see the World University Rankings website.
]]>The following courses were approved:
ANTH 302 (C SS)
ANTH 326 (C SS)
HIST 322 (C SS)
HIST 323 (C SS)
SOCY 310 (SS)
SOCY 355 (SS)
SOCY 380 (SS)
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US Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez, JD, MPP, gave the keynote address at a special event hosted by The Hilltop Institute on April 29, 2014, at UMBC. The event honored Chuck Milligan, JD, MPH, who recently stepped down from his post as Deputy Secretary for Health Care Financing at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Milligan was Hilltop’s Executive Director from 2004 to 2011 and served the state of Maryland for ten years. Milligan is relocating to New Mexico, where he will be Senior Vice President of Presbyterian Healthcare Services.
The event, consisting of a program titled Striking a Balance in Rebalancing and followed by a reception, was attended by 85 of Milligan’s colleagues, friends, and family. Attendees included such dignitaries as Governor Martin O’Malley; UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski; Secretary Cathy Raggio, Maryland Department of Disabilities; Commissioner Therese Goldsmith, Maryland Insurance Administration; Cindy Mann, Director, Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; John Colmers, Vice President, Health Care Transformation and Strategic Planning, Johns Hopkins University and former Secretary, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; and Ben Steffen, Executive Director, Maryland Health Care Commission.
Perez spoke about how the rights of persons with disabilities to live and receive services in the home and community is a civil rights issue and how the work he has done at the U.S. Departments of Labor and Justice has the same goal as the work Milligan has done in the health field: empowering people. Responses were given by Sara Rosenbaum, JD, Harold and Jane Hirsh, Professor of Health Law and Policy and Founding Chair of the Department of Health Policy, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services; Alan Weil, JD, MPP, Executive Director of the National Academy for State Health Policy; and Milligan himself.