"UMBC Suits You" is collecting new and gently used professional clothing as part of Career Crush in April.  Students will have the opportunity to learn about dressing professionally and will then be able to select one free outfit to use in their job search. We are asking staff to donate new and gently used professional clothing at collection bins around campus from February 23rd - March 10th.

Starting February 23rd, Professional Clothing can be dropped off at the following on-campus locations:

• Career Center, Math/Psych 212: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• The Women’s Center, The Commons: 

9 a.m. – 7 p.m. (Mon-Thurs), 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Fri)

• Campus Info Desk: 7:30 a.m. – 12 a.m. (Mon-Thurs), 

7:30 a.m. – 1 a.m. (Fri), 8 a.m. – 1 a.m. (Sat), 10 a.m. – 11 p.m. (Sun)

• Residential Life Office, Erickson Hall: 8:30 – 4:30 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• CWIT Office (ITE452)  8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• RAC Front Desk: 7:30 a.m. – 9 p.m. (Mon-Fri), 12 p.m. – 6 p.m. (Sat-Sun)

• The Shriver Center, Public Policy Building: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• Alumni House: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

UMBC Alumni and Community Members are encourage to drop off donations at some of our neighborhood locations:

• Alumni House: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• UMBC Training Centers: 8:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• bwtech (Cyber Incubator): 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

•  bwtech (South Campus): 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• Catonsville Chamber of Commerce 10:00 a.m. – 3 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• Baltimore County Public Library- Arbutus 9:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. 

 • Items that will be accepted: dresses, shell tops, button-up shirts and blouses, skirts, blazers, dress pants, garment bags, belts, ties, skirt suits and suits. 

• Items that will NOT be accepted: jewelry, handbags, shoes, and general accessories.

For more information on accepted items, check out the link here.

Clothing donations will be used to benefit UMBC students and will not be considered as gift-in-kind or donation to UMBC. Clothing donations are not eligible for a tax-deductible receipt. Any leftover clothing will be donated to local non-profits, Suited to Succeed and the Franciscan Center’s Attire 4 Hire program.

Special thanks to T. Rowe Price for partnering with us once again on this endeavor.

Any questions or concerns about this project can be addressed to Kate Phelps, Career  Center, kphelps@umbc.edu, 410-455-2216.

***Students be on the look out for more information about UMBC Suits You occurring on April 1 & 2 when you will be able to pick up a professional outfit.***

UMBC Women Who Rock is a blog series I’m working on throughout the 2014-15 academic year. In my role as Women’s Center director, I have some of the best opportunities to become acquainted with some of UMBC’s best and brightest women on campus. I admire the ways they live authentic lives unapologetically that challenge the stereotypes and assumptions that are often assigned to women. By debunking these stereotypes and forcing us to check our assumptions, they allow us to expand our notion of what a woman is and can be.

-Jess

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UMBC Women Who Rock! A Reflection on Encouragement and Accountability

With only three posts in this series, it might seem a little too early to spice things up, but the spirit of this series is really that of personal reflection (in addition to of course, celebrating other women) and I have some reflections to share. So for this post, I’m expanding the concept of the series to not just write about a particular UMBC woman but the experience of working with other UMBC women.  In this case, it’s the experience of writing a chapter for a women in leadership book series called Advancing Women and Leadership: Moving the Needle through Applied Theory Building with Virginia Byrne of Student Life and Crystal Diaz-Espinoza of CWIT. Our chapter called “The Non-Traditional Patchwork of College Women Student Leaders: A Multidisciplinary Reflection on Theory” focuses on ways in which we seek to build bridges at UMBC between marginalized groups of women leaders and the larger campus community in an effort to encourage transformational leadership development. We specifically focus on the experiences of UMBC women adult learners and women students majoring in information technology and engineering.

Now that the first hurdle of submitting our draft is behind us, I’ve had time to reflect on the experience. It was hard! I knew what I wanted to write and had all the confidence in the world until I sat in front of my computer trying to put my thoughts into words. It was like teaching someone to tie their shoe or ride a bike. I’ve been doing the action for so long that taking a step back and breaking it down part-by-part proved to be more difficult than I thought. On top of the challenge of actually writing, we were doing so with a week left before the spring semester begun. I felt behind on my work in the Women’s Center and some of our biggest programming and events were coming up in just a few short weeks. And it was cold and winter is the worst. Long story short, I was a grouchy baby.

I look back over the past week of writing sessions and writing and recognize they weren’t some of my proudest moments. I kept looking for ways to convince myself that I wasn’t smart enough to write this paper and that I possibly didn’t have anything worth including in a real-life book. I kept hoping that maybe Crystal or Virginia felt the same way and we could quit this whole thing.

Shine Theory fail.

Through my love of podcasts, I’ve recently been exposed to this concept of Shine Theory. Explained by Ann Friedman in her article over at The Cut, she explores the idea that powerful women make the best of friends. She writes, “Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn’t make you look worse by comparison. It makes you better.” I can get on board with that, but what I really take away from Shine Theory is how Anne’s best friend, Amina, sums it up:  “I don’t shine if you don’t shine.”

Thank goodness Virginia and Crystal were willing and able to share their shine with me. As Friedman continues in her article, “True confidence is infectious.” While I know we all had our doubts, my writing partners wouldn’t let me quit. Time and time again, they’d share accolades and encouragement with me and with each other. This is great. You’ve got this. Yes, keep going. We’re going to finish this.

And, you know what? The more I heard it, the more I believed it. As our paper came together, I gained more confidence. The words came out easier and I was able to be a better teammate in the process.  I also think our chapter is pretty darn awesome and I’m really glad I didn’t give up. Thank you Virginia and Crystal!

When I hear people talk about Shine Theory, I hear it presented from the perspective of “you, good person… go find other great people to help you shine,” which I think is important and enriching for one’s personal and professional lives. We all need people to learn from and share encouragement. But, I want to hold myself accountable as well. I want to be a person that just isn’t doing the taking of the shine but is giving of the shine. This experience reminds how easy it can be to make something just about you. I wasn’t the only one who was busy and working through other deadlines or feeling challenged by the task at hand. Where could I have provided more support and encouragement to my writing partners? What steps do I need to take next time to get my shine on earlier? These are questions I’m going to keep in mind as I move into a busy spring semester and will be confronted with opportunities to shine for others and be motivated by the shine of UMBC Women Who Rock.

Shine on UMBC…. Shine on.

Who are the UMBC women in your life that inspire you to think outside your expectations and assumptions? What are the counter narrative stories they’re sharing with us allowing UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be? Comment below and maybe you’ll just find them featured in a future UMBC Women Who Rock post.

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Check out other UMBC Women Who Rock:

Amanda Knapp (featured August 2014)
Susan Dumont (featured October 2014)
Jahia Knobloch (featured January 2015)

Special Collections has a new music collection available for you to come and explore! Whether you’re a musician-in-training or simply a lover of the classics, you now have access to an impressive collection of noted concert violinist and conductor Robert Gerle’s personal, marked scores. At UMBC, Gerle is perhaps best known for beginning the orchestral program here and remaining its conductor for nearly two decades. In addition to conducting the UMBC Orchestra, Gerle also taught at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and the Mannes College of Music in New York.

In 1972, when the first concert was planned, UMBC’s music major was actually in jeopardy of being removed from the school by the Maryland Council on Higher Education. The council cited that there were other, similar programs offered by nearby University of Maryland institutions and therefore did not need to be repeated. Despite this threat, the UMBC Orchestra’s inaugural concert remained slated to take place on December 11, 1972. To read all of the details, be sure to check out the Retriever article in our Digital Collections (hint: take a look at pages 1 and 5)! Scores from several of the pieces played at this concert can be found in the collection, including Richard Wagner’s “Overture to Die Meistersinger,” Wagner’s only comic opera.

Robert Gerle was born in 1924 to Jewish Hungarian parents. According to a New York Times article [1] published in 1958, during World War II Gerle and 26 other Hungarian Jews were caught and arrested by a group of Soviet soldiers while they were hiding in the crawl space above a music professor’s house. The Soviet soldiers suspected them of being snipers. As Gerle was brought before the firing squad, the officer in charge noticed his violin case and demanded that he play a work by Tschaikovsky. A student of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and the Hungarian National Conservatory of Music, Gerle’s technique impressed the officer. He was convinced that Gerle was a musician, not a soldier. Gerle’s technique, which would be coined as “flawless” later in his career, supposedly saved not only his life, but the lives of the 26 other individuals with him.

When the war ended, Gerle began to play concert engagements in both New York and London, becoming best known for his performances of Back’s Chaconne for solo violin and Heinrich Biber’s violin sonatas. He and his wife, Marilyn Neely - also a UMBC professor - even won an Emmy for the video presentation of the complete Beethoven violin and piano sonatas.

The Gerle collection was transferred from College Park last year. It contains a wide variety of musical scores and compositions, ranging from full orchestral pieces to solo violin pieces. The collection contains not only classics such as Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but also a host of lesser known treasures to explore. My personal favorite is Vivaldi’s Violin-Konzert, Ops. 3, No. 6. This score, just one of Gerle’s many personal marked scores, is available for you to come in and take a look at. Check out our finding aid for more information!

[1] MEYER BERGER. "About New York." New York Times (1923-Current File), Oct 20, 1958. http://search.proquest.com/docview/114511079?accountid=14577.

This post was written by Special Collections Graduate Assistant Jessi Deane. Thank you, Jessi!

Name: Jonathan Luckin

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Asymmetrik | Title of Your Position: Software Engineer Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Mathematics, Physics

Expected Graduation Year: May 2017

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service-learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

I work with software developers in order to create, update, and test new applications. This requires me to use several programming languages as and a wide variety of existing libraries as well as good engineering principles. Since most of the projects I have worked on have been long term, day to day operations are mostly identifying small sections which need to be developed and then creating and testing those sections. I also assisted in writing a white paper, a paper used to describe a possible application which was then sent to possible clients.

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

I found out about the internship opportunity at one of the career fairs sponsored by UMBC during the school year. I talked with company representatives and submitted a resume with them. Several weeks later, I received an e-mail from the company, expressing interest in my application. After conducting a phone interview, I was asked to complete a programming challenge, demonstrating my coding knowledge. I was then brought in to have several in-person interviews. The day after my interview, I was offered a position as an intern. Careers Center helped a lot. I had my resume looked over and edited before I submitted it. Career Center also told me about the career fair where I found out about the company.

Which of the following resources did you use to find your current experience?

Career Fairs

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I have really enjoyed learning new technologies and methods of development. I have been working with tools and technologies which I was not too familiar with before I started the internship, and it has been very rewarding to learn and apply new knowledge. I also have enjoyed working with such a talented company. My co-workers are very skilled and talented and I am glad for the opportunity to learn from and help them to accomplish tasks.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I have learned how to apply theoretical knowledge in a practical and professional environment. The lifecycle and development of applications cannot easily be taught in the classroom or in a book. I have learned more about application development and engineering principles by working with experienced professionals in the last few months then I have from classes or my own research. I have also had access to programming tools and environments that I was not aware of and would be difficult to access or discover by myself. My mentor helped me set up several of these systems and I have gained a lot of valuable experience. Without this internship, I would not have discovered these programming tools, environments, or methods.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

I would advise students to start looking for internships very early. Internships can be very competitive and positions fill up very quickly. Since the hiring process can take a while, looking for a summer internship is not something to put off into the end of the school year, but something that takes place throughout the entire year. I would also recommend that students take an active role in the hiring process. Students should make sure to keep in regular contact with companies to make sure that their applications are being considered. Without regular contact, the company might assume you are no longer interested and just put your application at the bottom of the pile. I recommend that students make sure to research the companies which they apply. Applying for a position which you are not really interested in or qualify for just wastes everyone's time and effort. Make sure that you know your skill set and have a resume and application which reflects your abilities. Finally, it is important to present one's self in a professional manner. Dressing properly and speaking clearly and politely can go a long way in leaving a positive impression on potential employers.

Please provide a short reflection or quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

My internship with Asymmetrik has given me valuable hands-on experience from working alongside talented and experienced professionals with cutting-edge technologies.

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Want to be the next Intern of the Week? Make sure to fill out this form and stay tuned. New interns are announced every Friday!

Check out just a few of the full-time jobs related to human services recently posted in UMBCworks. Search for the position ID number under "Jobs" to apply.

Youth MEntoring Services Program Manager (9271773)

Concerned Black Men National - Baltimore, Maryland