If you live in the DMV and are interested in learning more about graduate school, plan to take a “road trip” to the GEM GRAD Lab on Saturday, September 28!

From the GEM Website: “GRAD Lab encourages young people of color to consider graduate engineering or science education and applying for the GEM fellowship.” 

Segments of the program:

• “Why Graduate School”
• “How to Prepare for Graduate School”
• “Understanding the GEM Fellowship”, and
• “Voices From the Field: Real Life Research and Internship Experiences”

Program Agenda: http://www.gemfellowship.org/events/grad-lab/391-gl-virginia-agenda-2013

The event is free! Register here:

http://egem.gemfellowship.org/events/ViewEvent.aspx?contextID=10097

Students from any school in the region may register for this free event! Just set up a free eGEM account and register online using the link above.  

UMBC’s Sr. Assistant Dean for Graduate Enrollment, K. Jill Barr, J.D., will be one of the panelists!

UVA GEM GRAD Lab Co-sponsors: UMBC, The University of Virginia, Virginia Tech.

• FREE bus transportation will be provided for students from UMBC.  Reserve bus seats by sending email to promisestaff@gmail.com, with the subject “BUS for GEM GRAD Lab.”  NSBE, SACNAS, AISES, and SHPE Presidents from schools other than UMBC should send a list on behalf of their students. Each email must have the name of the student, school, major, and email address.  
• Students from schools other than UMBC, and students who are not affiliated with a NSBE, SACNAS, AISES, SHPE chapter,  are encouraged to carpool.
• If you’re planning to go, please let us know. Place a comment here on this page, AND send the email to promisestaff@gmail.com (for the bus trip.)
• The bus will leave at 6:00 AM from the front of UMBC’s Administration Building – landmarks: “Administration Drive,” Flag pole, The Retriever Athletic Center (RAC).  The bus will leave UVA around 4:30 PM, with expected arrival back at UMBC at 6: 30 PM.

Driving directions to UVA: http://www.seas.virginia.edu/about/visit.php

The trip from Baltimore to Charlottesville, VA is approximately 3 hours.

If you live in the DMV and are interested in learning more about graduate school, plan to take a “road trip” to the GEM GRAD Lab on Saturday, September 28!

From the GEM Website: “GRAD Lab encourages young people of color to consider graduate engineering or science education and applying for the GEM fellowship.” 

Segments of the program:

• “Why Graduate School”
• “How to Prepare for Graduate School”
• “Understanding the GEM Fellowship”, and
• “Voices From the Field: Real Life Research and Internship Experiences”

Program Agenda: http://www.gemfellowship.org/events/grad-lab/391-gl-virginia-agenda-2013

The event is free! Register here:

http://egem.gemfellowship.org/events/ViewEvent.aspx?contextID=10097

Students from any school in the region may register for this free event! Just set up a free eGEM account and register online using the link above.  

UMBC’s Sr. Assistant Dean for Graduate Enrollment, K. Jill Barr, J.D., will be one of the panelists!

UVA GEM GRAD Lab Co-sponsors: UMBC, The University of Virginia, Virginia Tech.

• FREE bus transportation will be provided for students from UMBC.  Reserve bus seats by sending email to promisestaff@gmail.com, with the subject “BUS for GEM GRAD Lab.”  NSBE, SACNAS, AISES, and SHPE Presidents from schools other than UMBC should send a list on behalf of their students. Each email must have the name of the student, school, major, and email address.  
• Students from schools other than UMBC, and students who are not affiliated with a NSBE, SACNAS, AISES, SHPE chapter,  are encouraged to carpool.
• If you’re planning to go, please let us know. Place a comment here on this page, AND send the email to promisestaff@gmail.com (for the bus trip.)
• The bus will leave at 6:00 AM from the front of UMBC’s Administration Building – landmarks: “Administration Drive,” Flag pole, The Retriever Athletic Center (RAC).  The bus will leave UVA around 4:30 PM, with expected arrival back at UMBC at 6: 30 PM.

Driving directions to UVA: http://www.seas.virginia.edu/about/visit.php

The trip from Baltimore to Charlottesville, VA is approximately 3 hours.

A few things—like chocolate, chick flicks, and clean sheets—are almost guaranteed to boost your mood. But when it comes to achieving true happiness, there are a ton of misconceptions.
 
Shawn Achor, author of the upcoming book Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change, clears up some of the most common myths about finding bliss.

Read more!

At the 2013 UMBC Convocation, held on Tuesday, August 27, President Freeman Hrabowski welcomed incoming students and shared UMBC’s continued national recognition, the importance of the civil rights movement in opening the doors for diversity in education, and what it takes to succeed at UMBC – and in life.

Dr. Hrabowski spoke to a crowd of more than 1,500, sharing his experience growing up during the civil rights movement and how those tumultuous times ultimately led to social and political change that made it possible for many more Americans – of all backgrounds – to attend college and earn degrees.

Dr. Hrabowski also discussed the state of higher education in America, citing the need to increase our numbers of college graduates. “Nearly half of all students who begin college do not graduate. At UMBC, however, we fully expect that you will graduate – and we will do everything we can to support you,” he said.

Shifting the conversation to UMBC priorities and expectations, Dr. Hrabowski assured the new students the campus community is dedicated to support as well as challenge them. “Our goal for each of you is that you graduate prepared to lead a meaningful, productive life,” he said. “You are here chiefly to prepare for the rest of your life – and you will have the greatest influence on your own success.”

Read his full Convocation speech »

Any and every designer wants (and should) strive to be as creative as possible. We design to be functional and useful, but we should also design to be aesthetically pleasing. Who wants to make a web site that’s an eyesore? Many wonderfully designed items have the perfect blend of functionality and beauty from phones to athletic shoes.

There’s been a bit of murmuring lately in the design community. How is minimalism affecting website designs? How is flat design influencing how and what we design? I’ve even asked the question of whether or not our designs are too simple. We live in an era where white space is glorified and everything has to fit perfectly on a grid inside a page.

So, what happens when you throw that out the window? What does a website look like that bends and breaks many of the rules we are used to seeing and implementing on a daily basis. Well, today we want to show you 15 sites that are unorthodox and ultra creative. These are some of the things you can do if you step outside the box.

Pitertsev

We’ll start off with one of the most creative and interesting sites I’ve seen in a while. There’s movement, there’s content, there’s color but most of all there’s creativity. This portfolio was put together to obviously get people talking and I absolutely love it. It’s very fun to navigate around. 

End Time

Much like the site above, we’ve got a lot going on. But it’s so interesting to the eye, you really want to figure out what it is. It’s not like it’s too much, but it’s just enough to create an interest that gets you to what exactly they’re selling. They also have paid attention to some really fine details to create a nice user experience.

Served MCR

I find this site most interesting because of the movement it has. We’re beginning to transition into a place where web designs have to be as dynamic as possible without being as heavy as they could be. This is a wonderful way to create an interesting site while also adding a nice pieces of character with the illustrative style.

Wink TTD

At first glance, you’ll probably think this web design is very typical. We’ve seen the close grid layouts that leave no padding and extra room to breathe. We’ve seen these fonts and this type of navigation — or have we? After playing with this site for a bit, I definitely fell in love because they took a very normal concept and added that fire to it. Way to breathe new life into an old concept.

C-Roots

Navigation menus are typically bars that sit horizontally or vertically along an axis of a web site. That’s what’s standard and that’s what’s expected. C-Roots threw that idea in the trash by creating a spider web type of navigation that’s really neat. And when you click on a new page, it’s revealed unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. This is a very simple yet cool look.

185 Plymouth Street

One way to be creative is to do something with your website that no one else is doing. As a person who will be moving to a new apartment very soon, I did the home search and I can guarantee you there wasn’t a site on my list that did anything like this. It’s hip and probably caters to a very specific set of people. Nonetheless, this website is very creative and somewhat mindblowing just to be for a bunch of lofts.

Eone

When you get to this site you probably scroll down and think it’s just another parallax scrolling site. What’s so good about this one? As you scroll down you get a 360 degree look at the product they are selling. I’m not sure how tedious of a process this was to create, but it’s definitely extremely cool. The site runs less like a website, and more like a movie.

The Society Inc

Once again, this site features the style of handrawn and handwritten elements; this is a rare style that’s being phased out in favor of our super clean, minimalist sites that we love and adore. I also love how the navigation is also planted on the site as a map which kind of makes it fun, interesting and a bit more interactive.

Kapitaal

Kapitaal is obviously a screen printing company that’s pretty popular and active. I like this site because of the treatments on the images, the unbalanced layout and the wonderful icons used. The graphical content of this site is amazing and alluring. 

Polecat

While this isn’t really an earth-shattering layout, I have to admit this site is creative in its ways used to embellish the site. From the navigation to the illustrated backgrounds, it’s a very interesting design. 

Chaos

With a name like “Chaos”, you’d probably want to live up to that hype. This site attempts to introduce and explain what the designer is into. As someone who has many hobbies, I know how chaotic it can be to try to explain them all. It seems like here, they didn’t even try to hide that fact and came up with a very creative and interactive way to explain oneself. 

Ponto

This site looks like what some of our desks look like after a hard day’s work. It seems to be messy and there seems to be no real rhyme or reason behind it. And that’s exactly why I love it. It’s a very artistic interpretation of a portfolio site, which probably does a great job of capturing the character of the folks over at Ponto.

Playful 2013

We may use fun shapes and images but very rarely do we create sites with copy that is angled. This site is definitely portraying the thought of being playful as there are pieces here and there that are challenging the way we normally do things. You’ll also want to make sure you take note of the background when you scroll down. Cool.

Curious Space

This site lives up to it’s name by using it’s space very curiously. We are used to things being perfectly laid out on a grid with equal padding all throughout. Not here, there. Everything seems randomly placed on this web design but I really like it! It’s definitely something different for an acquired taste. Some designers may cringe at this one.

Mosne

It’s not too often that you see a site with such a calm color palette doing a pretty exciting thing. It’s usually even-tempered throughout. But Mosne does a great job of adding punch and movement to their site. On top of that, they have a very intuitive navigation which is always a plus.

Conclusion

While we should be finding solutions to common problems as designers, we must not forget that the work should also be aesthetic. In keeping it good-looking, we must also remember to keep it creative, especially to be a standout amongst many similarly put together sites. These unorthodox sites should motivate you to do something new in your web design.

Do you strive to be different? Which of these sites is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

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