On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines in the next month.

**W. R. Grace
Interviewing on 3/6
Deadline to Apply:  2/22
Position:  Manufacturing Leadership Program

**Mueller Associates, Inc.
Interviewing on 3/6
Deadline to Apply:  2/20
Position:  Mechanical Engineer

**U.S. Census Bureau
Interviewing on 3/8
Deadline to Apply:  2/22
Position:  IT Specialist

**ARINC
Interviewing on 3/14
Deadline to Apply:  2/28
Position:  Junior Software Engineer

**Stanley Black & Decker
Interviewing on 3/27
Deadline to Apply:  3/13
Position:  SLP Operations Associate

** Northwestern Mutual Financial Network
Interviewing on 2/14/13 

** Insight Global
Interviewing on 2/14/13
Position:  Recruiter/Account Manager

** Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Interviewing on 2/19/13
Position:  Research Study Assistant

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings! 

9256300 - Account Representative - Advance
9256234 - Customer Service Analyst - McCormick
9256297 - WorkFirst - Employment Consultant - Humanim
9256325 - Information Security Compliance Auditor - Tenable Network Security

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9256153 - GeoDome & Exhibits Technician - Paragon Technology Group, Inc.
9256252 - Graphic Designer - Dever Designs
9256316 - Public Relations/Graphic Design - SPIN
9256175 - S.T.E.M Assistant - Harford County YMCA

The below is an excerpt from Dave Newport's Department of Change blog.

Dave Newport
Director of the Environmental Center
University of Colorado-Boulder

The transition from an exploitive business plan for the planet to a sustainable one has gone through a few iterations—and we are definitely not there yet—but we keep trying.

In the 1950s public health concerns on the heels of the Donora, PA et al air pollution incidents aroused enough angst to pass the first federal laws protective of air quality. The 1960s were marked by Rachel Carson-induced endangered species protections. The 1970s spawned “past sins” Superfund legislation to begin cleaning up/preventing the Love Canals of the world. In the 1980s we fixed the ozone hole. And in the 1990s, “sustainability” began creeping into our lexicon.

Along the way we chased trends and words like Kyoto, Agenda 21, Corporate Social Responsibility, Triple Bottom Line, Eco Efficiency, Socially Responsible Investing, Biomimicry, Industrial Ecology, Renewable Portfolio Standards, Transition, Permaculture, Adaptation, etcetera… and lately: Resilience.

The history lesson is meant to remind us that it is normal to morph our approaches as we get smarter. So the idea of moving past sustainability isn’t radical or anti-environment. On the contrary, we have a need for “new and improved.”

So now what? Is it time for the Next Big Thing? Has “sustainability” run its course? Before we think about that, what has sustainability accomplished?

Well, on campuses at least, there are more courses, majors, schools, colleges and certificates in sustainability than ever; fairly rapid growth because many students want to learn about it. More campuses are offering sustainability curricula. More students are signing up for these classes. This is no small feat and a very hopeful sign.

Likewise, campus carbon emissions are moderating or even going down. Green buildings are going up. Zero waste efforts are also on the rise. Local food programs/campus gardens are taking root. Renewable energy is up. And we are getting better at measuring all these impacts (STARS!). Great environmental improvements.

Yet missing from the list of sustainability’s accomplishments are two important categories: fiscal equity and social justice.

In terms of finance, sustainability programs are still woefully underinvested. More importantly, campuses are still investing in exploitive enterprises. The recent fossil fuel divestment campaign makes this point very clear. While Unity College is leading the divestment effort, they are a lone voice so far. Indeed, the Chronicle last year reported socially responsible investing on campuses was decreasing despite a growth in that industry and demonstrably more favorable returns on investment.

As for social justice, only a little progress targeting sustainability’s benefits towards those in the most need is reported. And while I don’t have any data, I am going to bet that even the rapid expansion of sustainability curriculum nationwide has disproportionately targeted richer, white students. For instance, despite a couple notable exceptions, there has been disappointing growth of sustainability coursework in the HBCUs. There is a reason: sustainability’s unifying theme and beneficial impacts don’t default to the breadth of society—only the privileged classes.

Read the full column here.

by David Hoffman

"Groupon clone" is perhaps the biggest Silicon Valley meme of the decade. News of a company merger illuminates why you should avoid getting anywhere near the clone wars.

Joking about the cancerous decay of daily-deal marketplace companies has become something of a Silicon Valley past-time, so we hardly need to point out just how insipid the online-coupon business has become. But news today may provide a slightly different teaching moment for entrepreneurs: Clones are bad. Really, really bad.

Today, AllThingsD reported that CrowdSavings, a discount marketplace start-up founded in Tampa, Florida, in 2009, will be acquired by Half Off Depot, a coupon start-up founded just a year earlier. The two companies will be rebranded as "nCrowd," and will be headquartered in Atlanta.

What's remarkable (and sort of depressing, really) is that the merger of the two companies ends the culmination of 19 previous acquisitions, a disproportionately massive share of total recent M&A activity in the United States.

But even now that newly-formed nCrowd has become the ultimate matryoshka doll of Groupon rip-offs, the entity will only represent a "fraction of the size of Groupon or LivingSocial."

That's not particularly suprising, but this is: According to the CEO of CrowdSavings, which acquired 15 daily deal companies over the past three years, most acquisitions cost him only "$100,000 to $400,000 apiece." The acquistion of CrowdSavings itself only netted the founders some $6.4 million in cash and stock. Probably not a very good ROI for a 29-person company that raised $1.3 million in debt.

The lesson here for entrepreneurs seeing dollar signs in copycatting the dailly deal market--or, really, any other already-duplicated-to-death space is obvious: Clones suck. They don't just suck because they're "stifling for innovation" and bad for consumer (which, of course, they very often are), but they suck for simpler reasons that should be more obvious--but that we don't always consider in the current buzz-heavy start-up ecosystem.

Start-up clones rarely, if ever, become fast-growing businesses, create sustainable jobs, or help push GDP forward. They are also not to be confused with late entrants into the market, as Google was with Yahoo. They are simply copycats, the result of irrational start-up froth, and they serve little use in our economy.

And, well, that sucks.

From IS Research Assistant Professor Lisa Anthony, PhD:  We have recently made available a reference implementation of our $P recognizer in C#, which you can find on the $P project page. This version augments our original online demo and implementation in JavaScript, both still available as well. When you download the C# .zip file, you receive (1) a DLL of just the recognizer which you can use in your C# applications, (2) a canvas drawing and recognizing demo in C# equivalent to the online JavaScript demo, and (3) a “How To” document explaining how to incorporate these versions in your own projects. Try it out and let us know how it goes!

A reminder: if you implement $P in a new language or in a new way, feel free to let us know and we will link to it from our page as well! Don’t forget to cite us!