Category Archives: Editorials, Columns, & Opinions

“This Winter Break…”

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Article by Jacob Wilkowsky (Q19)

After a long semester capped off by grueling finals, winter break provided some much needed relief to QUEST students ready to let loose. With five weeks to burn, some QUESTers enjoyed the comfort of their couch while others crossed continents. Below are some blurbs from QUEST students describing what they did over break.

Aditya Sridhar – Cohort 19: “I spent the majority of my winter break working for Baltimore Gas and Electric.  My project over the winter was to come up with better ways of displaying the maintenance data over the past 10 years.  Since the company is going through a merger in the next couple of months, my work over the winter/summer should be helpful for business leaders to make decisions about changes in company structure and processes.  I also discovered an interesting Game Theory course in iTunes University taught by a professor at Yale and completed about a third of that course.  The rest of the time, I was either spending it with my family, or hanging out with friends.  Overall, it was a busy winter, but I had a lot of fun!”

Marc Kramer- Cohort 17: “This winter break, I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer in Israel for the Jewish National Fund. We primarily focused on gentrifying the Negev (or desert area) of Israel and making it both more sustainable and livable. About 2/3 of Israel is desert and since Israel is a country about the size of New Jersey, it is important to try to utilize all the land possible. In doing so, we helped to create gardens and drip irrigation systems for farms and picked fruit and painted houses for the less wealthy. It was really rewarding to see the profound impact a small group of college age kids could have while working together toward a common cause. We helped to turn a barren useless area of land in the desert into a livable community with thriving vegetation. Afterwards, I extended my trip and traveled to various parts of Israel such as Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, and Ashdod. It was a really rewarding trip.”

Marc volunteers on his winter break in Israel

Tom Sless- Cohort 19: “I spent my break at home in Baltimore. I worked for a few weeks in Columbia Mall selling calendars. Ask me what the date is!”

Dave Rosen- Cohort 18: “I went home to New Jersey for my break. It was nice to be with my family and see friends. I also spent time in a nursing home near my house volunteering. It was a really rewarding experience and I had a lot of fun.”

Sara Bleistein- Cohort 19: “Over the break, I was pretty busy traveling. I spent a total of 5 days at home in Damascus and the rest of the time abroad. While I was home, I hung out with friends and family and got prepared for my travels. At the end of December, I went to Aruba for a family vacation with my parents, brothers, and grandparents. After coming home for a few days, I left again to spend a day in Los Angeles, California with one of my cousins during my layover on my way toAustralia. I spent two weeks in Australia on a short-term study abroad program through the business school, and it was the most amazing place I have ever been in my life. I was able to play with koalas and kangaroos, climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef.”

Mark Leybengrub- Cohort 19: “Over break, I vacationed in Florida with my family. There, I relaxed on the beach, went fishing, and ate a lot of good food. When I came back to Baltimore, I had my wisdom teeth taken out. Wasn’t the most fun experience, but I ate a lot of ice cream.”

Jacob Wilkowsky- Cohort 19: “Over winter break, I mainly relaxed at home and hung out with friends. I also worked for my uncle walking dogs. I walked a lot of cute pooches.”

Aaron Rubenstein- Cohort 19: “This winter break, I enjoyed the first couple weeks by traveling and relaxing.  The highlight was probably New Years in NYC; that was a blast!  For the last few weeks of break, I was privileged to help Dr. Sean Humbert in the Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory in UMD. There, I performed research on the kinematics and control of flapping insect wings, (i.e. we want to figure out how bugs control where they fly!).  I used state of the art film equipment to define important parts of the insect in 3D space and a computer program that analyzed the motion of the wings.  The ultimate goal of the research is to mimic and replicate an insect’s flight control pattern on a micro air vehicle (a.k.a. a small, flying robot bug). It was a very exciting break!”

Spring Break Trip to Panama with Global Brigades

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Article by Alex Bansleben (Q18)

I know what you’re thinking. Even though we still have finals to study for and papers to write, it’s about the time of the year when you’re beginning to wonder, how can I have the best spring break possible? You have one week off of school, and you want to go somewhere warm and have the time of your life. Well, stop your worrying! I’m going to tell you how you can have the best spring break trip (and one that your parents will actually approve of)!

As many of you may know, I am currently working on planning a spring break service trip to Panama with fellow QUEST students. The trip is organized through an international service organization called Global Brigades (www.globalbrigades.org). Every year, GB sends more than 6,000 students abroad on week-long service trips related to one of nine different topics, like public health, the environment, medicine, and others. The program most related to the QUEST program is “business”, which makes this trip officially called a “Global Business Brigade”, but students of all majors are welcome to attend. Here at UMD there is already a Global Medical Brigade club, and they have done three trips to Honduras since their inception.

Because the trip is not officially hosted by the University of Maryland or by the QUEST program, we will have the liberty of designing our own itinerary for this trip. Ideally, here is what it could look like: You will get to spend your week of spring break in rural Panama. Along with other QUEST students, your time will be spent helping to empower community members in the town of Torti Abajo. Every day, you will work in groups of 4-5 people to meet with families/individuals and conduct workshops to help them sell their products and improve their financial stability. Doesn’t that sound similar to the systems thinking approach to process improvement we learn in the core QUEST classes? As a participant on this trip, you will be working with a client (490), listening to the voice of the customer (190), and developing a systems-based solution (390) to help people truly in need. Every day includes a lot of down time, and the town is only one hour east of the exciting Panama City.

Unfortunately, I do not have enough space in this article to discuss every detail of the trip. For now, I can tell that you are wondering how much this trip will cost. The cost of the actual Business Brigade is $880, and flights to Panama in March are generally in the range of $600-700, which adds up to an expected total cost of $1500. However, the fundraising we will be doing as a group could lower that cost substantially. As a trip leader with Alternative Breaks, I can tell you that this cost is lower than any of our week-long international trips.

I hope that you will consider this opportunity to spend your next spring break in Panama with fellow QUESTees! Before the end of the semester, there will be at least one more information session, so be on the lookout for an email or Facebook notification. Also feel free to email me at alex.bansleben@gmail.com for any more information. See you in Panama!

Life on a Sheet of Paper

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Article by Chul Kwon (Q18)
Resume Review_ Chul Kwon

“We’ve failed,” I said to myself after the results for last year’s 190H Computer Challenge were released. Despite the fact that my team’s design had a dual-monitor configuration and over-clocked CPU and over-clocked RAMs, my team had placed in second on features and third on performance, ultimately having insufficient scores to win the competition. Furthermore, despite my team’s repeated assurance, the audience deemed our computer very unreliable, as they gave us a failing mark on reliability. My team could not believe our eyes and complained about how irrational the audience behaved. It took me weeks to finally figure out what was wrong with my team’s product. The problem wasn’t in our design, but us. We spent so much of our time on the design and didn’t put enough effort in preparing for our presentation. As a result, we failed to effectively convey our ideas to the judges. This is when I realized that communicating thoughts effectively is equally as important as having great knowledge and skills. This lesson is very applicable in real life.

As a QUEST member, for example, you have worked hard in your life. You have spent a countless number of hours learning and acquiring the skills that push you to be outstanding among your peers and outperform the ever-increasing competition. However, no matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished, your life must be summarized on a sheet of letter-sized paper that you call your resume. Your potential employer will spend no more than 30 seconds reading it to decide your fate. It will be a first impression you’ll be making, so make it count.

On August 31st, 2011, over 10 QUEST alumni visited the Smith School and held a resume review session to help current students with their resume. During two hour-long sessions, one for business majors and the other for engineering/CMNS majors, they gave current students an insight into the resume review process, and offered tips and opinions from the perspectives of interviewers and senior employees. Here’s a list of some of the tips given at the resume review:
• Always use action verbs.
• Don’t write a “laundry list” resume. Write only what is relevant to the position for which you are applying; it should also implicitly tell the employer how it matters to his company.
• Never use pronoun “we”. The employer is only interested in what you did.
• The most important information should go to the top portion of your resume; push less important information to the bottom of your resume.
• Write in the reader’s language. In other words, write in a way that the reader can understand.
• Know every detail on your resume. You should be able to answer with confidence when your interviewer asks you for more details on specific items on your resume.

My final piece of advice to current QUEST students is to suggest that you use this opportunity to revisit your resume and try to identify if there is any room for improvement. If you want to get some constructive feedback on how your resume compares against others, take advantage of the career services offered through the Smith School and the University of Maryland before your next interview.

Thoughts from a QUEST Mentor

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Mentors and TAs at QUEST Camp 2011

Mentors and TAs at QUEST Camp 2011

Interview conducted by Sophia Wu

Angela Wu (Q18), mentor, reflects on her experiences in her new role and what she hopes to convey to the students of Cohort 19.

1. Please introduce yourself and tell us how you became a mentor for Cohort 19.
I’m a Junior in Fire Protection Engineering, and I’m in Cohort 18. I became a mentor this semester because: a) 190H was the most refreshing class I’ve taken at UMD thus far, and b) my mentors were fabulous and inspired me to follow in their footsteps. Shoutout to Aaron Wertman and Michele Fried!

2. As a mentor, what is your role in the 190H experience?
After watching my team work together at QUEST Camp, I sensed that they already had the ability and drive to succeed in 190H. I noticed so much potential in the new cohort that I wasn’t sure what my role was as a mentor. After a couple weeks, I think I’ve figured it out. Being a mentor means that I am there to push my team along as they begin to grasp the ideas of teams, innovation, and design. As Nicole and Melanie have said, for mentors, process is greater than content. While we do not get to give input into which monitor their computers should have for the computer design challenge, we do facilitate the team dynamic and answer any questions so that they are on the right track to making their projects the best they could possibly be.

3. What are some challenges you face being a mentor?
One major challenge I have being a mentor is that I always have to resist the urge to tell my team exactly what works and what doesn’t. I wanted to tell them how to make their computer extraordinary but I wasn’t allowed to. But guess what? They ended up making it extraordinary anyway. This is because every new cohort that takes 190H comes up with these brand new innovative ideas that weren’t ever thought of in previous years. We have such creative students in QUEST, so if mentors just told Cohort 19 what to do, what fun would that be?

4. Tell us, how was it to go to QUEST Camp for the second time?
So much fun. It was even better the second time because I didn’t have to do anything except play! But in all seriousness, it was very entertaining to watch how differently Cohort 19 tackled their pilot products and raft designs in comparison to the how my cohort had. High ropes was popular, as it was last year, but as usual, a few people couldn’t get past their fears to try it out.

5. What’s one thing you wish someone told you when you were in 190H?
Shop for your suit early, if you don’t have one already. You’ll need it for your final presentation, but it takes forever to find one that fits. Forever.

Summer Recap: Student Internships and Travels

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Internships/Jobs:

Elizabeth Blankenhorn – Cohort 18:
This summer, I interned at a start-up nanotechnology company, XiGo Nanotools, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. XiGo created the Acorn Area, an instrument that uses proton shifts due to changing magnetic fields (NMR spectroscopy) to measure the surface area of nanoparticles. The Acorn Area is revolutionary in this generation of nanotechnology instruments, as it is not only an accurate method to measure a particle’s surface area, but also an efficient one. While old methods can take up to an hour per sample, the Acorn Area can produce results within three to ten minutes. In fact, Instrument Business Outlook has nominated XiGo’s technology for the 2011 industrial design award for laboratory instruments.

XiGo sells the instruments to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and private companies around the world. XiGo also invites potential buyers to send samples to the lab in Bethlehem to be measured on our instrument. It was my job this summer to make surface area measurements of those samples to be sent back to the companies in report format. XiGo uses this opportunity to showcase the instrument’s accuracy to the customer and close sales. I also had the opportunity to assist in demonstrations for investor funding as well as in sales pitches to companies such as L’Oreal.

Chul Kwon – Cohort 18:
My summer has been going great so far. I have been working as an intern at Northrop Grumman Corporation. My team currently is working on a new ambitious information management platform that can process petabytes (1 petabyte = 1,000 terabyte = 1m gigabytes) of data at a very fast rate. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to speak freely about it, but I’m very happy that I got this golden opportunity to work on such leading edge technology that could potentially revolutionize the industry.

The internship program at Northrop Grumman is considered one of the best among the Fortune 500 companies. You get a chance to work with veterans in the field, and they treat you as true member of their team, assigning you real work and responsibilities. Plus, although it really depends on which manager you get, managers will give you fairly unlimited support for your work and there’s no restriction on work schedule. You can take literally 4 hours of lunch, as long as you get your work done. I have a coworker who comes to work at around 10am, generally take a one-hour lunch break, and leaves for home around 4pm. His manager doesn’t say anything about it because he really gets his work done and his performance generally exceeds expectations.

It’s a great internship opportunity that every QUEST member should try to have. If you’re a computer science/engineering major, mathematics major, information systems/technology major, or any computer-related engineering major and are interested in applying, please let me know!

Michael Hamilton – Cohort 18:
My internship at SpaceX in Los Angeles, which I talked about in June’s QUESTPress, was amazing. I got to work up close with rockets that were being built in the same building that I worked in. On the weekends, I surfed, sat by the beach, went skydiving, explored Hollywood and hiked in the mountains, just to name a few things. In addition to this, I learned to ask questions early and often. Everyone there was happy to help me out and I accomplished much more than I would have had I tried to be too independent.

Justine Hong – Cohort 19:
This entire summer I worked at Georgetown Cupcake as a store associate. I, personally, am a huge fan of the delicious cupcakes the store sells and was more than excited to work at the store. I learned a lot about what it takes to operate a small family-owned business as well as witness how a small business expands. I met tons of different customers from around the world, had my picture taken hundreds of times with customers and cupcakes, and met the owners of the store! This was an exciting summer since I was able to be a part of such a small business in the heart of DC. The staff and the customers made my work experience thrilling. This was such a rewarding summer. Hopefully I’ll continue to work there throughout the rest of the year.

Travels/Trips:

Nathan Elencweig – Cohort 18:
Earlier this summer I wrote about my trip to Peru with Engineers without Borders. I had an amazing time with EWB, and the final results felt very fulfilling. Since we finished the project ahead of schedule, we were able to visit Machu Picchu, among many other Inca ruins. The scenery was incredible, and at the time, I thought I saw the best South America had to offer. But, I was wrong! After the rest of my Engineering teammates flew home, I grabbed my 40 pound backpack and met my best friend, who was studying abroad in Buenos Aires. We backpacked across Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru for fourweeks.
We went on a seven-day trek in the Bolivian Amazon, and got to see alligators, macaws, capybaras, and, of course, monkeys. With the supervision of a local guide, we went piranha fishing (eating them for dinner was not that great of an experience). Shortly after, we drove the boat 200 meters down-river and jumped in for a swim in the Amazon. I slept in a mosquito net on the jungle floor. One morning, I woke up with a tarantula not too far from where I slept. Due to my extreme fear of spiders, I panicked and came close to crying in my sleeping bag.

Other than the Amazon, some other exciting experiences include biking down 50 km of “Death Road” outside of La Paz, cliff diving outside of Cusco, and riding motorbikes for the first time.

I’ve never been interested in “the extreme” prior to traveling, but I had an incredible time in South America, discovering a new side of myself.

Moses Lahey, Cohort 18:
For the past two months, I’ve had the pleasure of taking part in a study abroad trip in Taipei. Aside from learning Chinese, I’ve been able to learn a bit about the culture through the sites and people I’ve encountered while in Taiwan. Cheap bubble tea and street food and convenient and inexpensive cabs and subways made Taipei seem like a college student’s dreamland – did I mention the drinking age here is 18?

Aside from all that, the people here are extremely friendly, and most are more than willing to help you order food or get directions if you can’t read or speak any Chinese. There are a lot of interesting sites to see and explore like Jiufen and the local night markets, as well as quite a few nice places to chill and relax, all made easier by how cheap everything here is (a trip to the hot springs was less than a dollar for students).

Staying here for the past two months has been an awesome experience – although it definitely messed with my perception of living expenses. I really encourage anyone who is interested to visit Taiwan and to experience the food, people and culture here!

“This summer I am…” – Travel and Other Adventures

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Alex Bansleben – Cohort 18
“First of all, I spent the first 2 weeks in Morocco on a cultural trip sponsored by the Honors College and Resident Life. We stayed in Fes and in the rural south of Morocco and learned tons about the culture and people. After that, I spent 10 days traveling ALONE through Portugal and Spain (Seville, Lisbon, and Barcelona specifically) and even though I was alone, the places I saw and friendships I made will last forever! Currently, I am back with my family in Switzerland and France until I get back to the USA in July. Starting July, I work full-time the entire month for Dr. Lovell as a TA for an ENES100 class, and I will continue working on our Engineers Without Borders project as we begin our bridge design. Lastly, I will be in Nicaragua for the month of August with a service organization called Bridges to Prosperity, and I will be in the country helping them with the beginning/foundation of a new bridge! When I get back from Nicaragua, I head almost immediately to QUESTCamp as a 190 mentor! So my summer is jam-packed, but I have never had so much fun, and it’s only the middle of June!”

Alex explores new fashion trends during his summer travels.

Alex explores new fashion trends during his summer travels.

Nathan Elencweig – Cohort 18
“I’m currently in Peru with Engineers without Borders. We just finished an irrigation channel for a town an hour outside of Cuzco. The villagers were extremely friendly, the scenery was incredible, and the food was amazing. With the help of the village, we managed to finish 10 days ahead of schedule, so now I am relaxing in Cuzco. After, I will fly to Argentina to meet up with my best friend who studied abroad there, and we are going to backpack across South America for 30 days.”

Moses Lahey – Cohort 18
“I will be studying Mandarin in Taipei like a boss and nomming on as much street food as I can find.”

QUESTpedition – Sustainability Challenge

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Article by Varisha Parikh (Q18)

The QUEST program can be defined using many different adjectives, emotions, and experiences.  After participating in my first QUESTpedition, I believe that QUEST is above all innovation and family.

On Friday May 6th, three cohorts of QUEST students gathered in the Tyser Auditorium of Van Munching Hall. The opening presentation, given by Dr. Bailey, detailed the student-driven accomplishments and outreach of the QUEST program. Dr. Bailey’s speech set the tone for this event and it truly felt as though the whole QUEST community had come together.

The theme of this year’s QUESTPedition was sustainability. As a large campus community, it is often a challenge to promote sustainable living. However, we knew that if we took steps towards becoming more sustainable, we could truly make a difference. For the purposes of QUESTpedition, the broad topic of sustainability was divided into six sub-topics – transportation, waste management, energy, dining, water consumption, and curriculum. Student groups were assigned to a particular sub-topic. Their task was to create an innovative idea that was practical yet promoted the core values of sustainability. The crux of this task was to ensure that the idea presented was beneficial to students, administrators, and the environment. I believe this topic was a perfect fit for QUESTpedition because innovation, organization, and implementation are amongst the core values of the QUEST program.

After being given their tasks and materials, student groups began working with enthusiasm and energy that can only be witnessed at a QUEST event. Each team was given one hour to prepare a preliminary presentation. After one hour, teams had five minutes to present to a QUEST faculty member. One team from each sustainability sub-topic was chosen to present to the entire community and a panel that consisted of QUEST faculty and campus administrators. From these chosen groups, one group won $600 to donate to their chosen charity.

Varisha Parikh and Team Sustainable Dining receive their prize at QUESTpedition

Varisha Parikh and Team Sustainable Dining receive their prize at QUESTpedition

After all the presentations had finished and people began to filter out of the auditorium, I remained stunned. I was truly in awe of the brilliant ideas QUEST students were able to come up with in only one hour. These ideas were innovative, and stemmed from collaboration by students from each part of the QUEST community. I believe the event provided campus sustainability administrators with a great list of ideas to research, but, more importantly, it gave the QUEST community proof of how amazing we are. All in all, QUESTpedition 2011 was definitely a success!

Thanks to Cognizant for their support in making this wonderful event possible.

QUEST Senior Superlatives

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Cohort 16 Superlatives (as voted on by members of Q16)

QUEST Clown: Ryan Ganser

QUEST Homeless Lab Person: Lucy Qian

QUEST Most Asian: Chris Coraggio

QUEST “BS-er”: Dmitry

QUEST Couple: Jon Geerts and Rajan Sharma

QUEST Best Presenter: John McGahagan

QUEST Most Improved: Augusto Tono

QUEST Fallen Star: Mitch Kochman

QUEST Quietest Talker: Lily Zhen

QUEST Loudest Talker: Jess Stewart

QUEST Look A Likes: Asians & Brian Daisey and Michael Pertmer & Amanda Schrier and Caitlin Roller

QUEST Best Dancer: Melinda Jih & John McGahagan

QUEST Laptop Abuser: Estefi Medina

QUEST Gossip: Chris Coraggio

Most Likely to Succeed: Vidya Sathyamoorthy

Best QUEST Team Name: APEX

QUEST Queen: Vidya Sathyamoorthy

QUEST King: Chris Coraggio

QUEST King and Queen, Chris Coraggio and Vidya Sathyamoorthy

QUEST King and Queen, Chris Coraggio and Vidya Sathyamoorthy

Cohort 16 – QUEST Memories

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Compiled by Russell Lyons (Q16)

Three years ago, Cohort 16 joined the community and stood together for the first time in the rain at Camp Horizons. Our time in QUEST has been amazing; we have faced challenges and enjoyed great successes. Many of us have become good friends and wouldn’t trade our time with each other for anything. Here are some of our favorite memories:

“QUEST is BEST!”

Doing spirit fingers in the rain at Camp Horizon

Dr. Suarez inspiring us and walking out of 190 class 20 minutes after it started

Cohort 16 happy hours

Post 490 conference entire cohort party

Ski trip in Deep Creek at Don’s Chateau

Surviving the Dominican Republic

Getting all of Cornerstone to chant for Jeff Lue’s Birthday

Swimming in the fountain at three AM

Playing volleyball with Dr. Bailey; still wearing his bow tie of course

Senior sendoff

the benny.

Sweetlife festival

Washington Quad late night picnics and cartwheels

“Finish Him!”-Cohort 16 Battle Cry

One of us put it best:

“To my Cohort 16 loves…while the tears may seem awful right now, be happy in that we cried. It means we lived something worth missing.”

Q16

Looking Back on Three Years of QUEST

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Article by Russell Lyons (Q16)

Q16 Looking Back - Russell

Becoming a part of QUEST was one of the most important things that happened to me during my time at Maryland. I still remember the day I found out I would be joining QUEST: I was sitting at my summer internship, trying to look busy near the end of the day, when I got a call from Rachel Cohen asking if I was interested in joining. I had originally been on the waitlist; I was so excited, I was at a loss for words on the phone.

I think what really set the tone for my QUEST experience was my 190 team. We had a great mentor in Schquita Goodwin and my teammates and I are all still close friends. Arriving at the bus for QUEST camp I didn’t know anyone who was going to be there. I recognized a couple engineers I had classes with freshman year but that was it. QUEST camp really showed me the type of people I would come to meet in QUEST; it rained the whole time there, but everyone still had fun and engaged in the activities, regardless of how silly or challenging they were. The class with Dr. Suarez that fall was always interesting and sometimes nerve-racking, like the time he stormed out of class after giving us a pep talk. He and Rachel moved on to other positions at the university after that fall and, to be honest, I didn’t think QUEST was going to be the same without them. Those doubts quickly passed, thanks to the new faculty who joined the staff.

Junior year was a little different than the first year in QUEST. Not everyone from our cohort would be taking 390 at the same time, but the class was going to be taught by Dr. Suarez, which I was looking forward to. I also signed up for the Lean Six Sigma elective with Dr. Bigio, which turned into being my first real consulting experience, working for Marriott International. I learned a lot that fall. The systems thinking course was a lot different than anything I had been exposed to in my previous 15 years of learning, it was much more focused on what we would remember two or twenty years later rather than the grade we would get in the class. I studied abroad during the spring semester of my junior year and was a little disconnected from the program.

Senior year was definitely my favorite time in QUEST. I was a teaching assistant for 390 and the Six Sigma course, which helped me connect with the faculty more. In 490, I had another great team to work with, and our project was one we felt we made a difference on. The best part of senior year was spending more time outside of class with our cohort. From the happy hours to the 490 conference to the ski trip to spring break, there are a lot of great memories with my friends in QUEST. If I could give one piece of advice to the younger students it would be to focus not on what QUEST can do for you, but how you can use it to help others.