5 Areas of Your Life that Personal Analytics can Improve

The era of data is among us. The common term thrown around is big data for big corporations. However, I believe that small data has abundant potential applications for individuals. I refer to small data in the sense that it can be opened in a spreadsheet. It is not the size of the data set that matters, but the quality.

Our society has gathered tremendous amounts of data on individuals and there are numerous ways small data can improve your life. I use the term "personal analytics" to refer to utilizing data to harness individual insight. There are five separate domains in which personal analytics can be applied for enhance well-being.

1. Health and Fitness

People have already begun to use data to maximize the results they see versus the number of hours spent in the gym. However, utilizing personal analytics to improve health and fitness is still in its infancy. Imagine overlaying your workout history with a graph of your weight. You could visually see which workouts have more of a profound impact on weight loss.

Furthermore, personal analytics can be used to maximize each individual workout. For instance, imagine yourself documenting how much weight you are bench pressing and squatting. You reach the insight that you bench 20% more on Thursdays than on Mondays. Similarly, you realize that you squat 25% more on Mondays as opposed to Thursday. Then, you ask yourself, why you continue to bench on Mondays and squat on Thursdays as opposed to the opposite? This is one example out of a plethora of how analytics and data collection could enhance your health and fitness.

Soon, we will be able to measure other activities, such as sleep quality, calorie inbound and outbound, and even alcohol intake.

2. Work Productivity

Next, work productivity can be enhanced with the use of personal analytics. A simple correlation between output and input needs to be measured, documented, and analyzed. For instance, suppose you could rank the productivity on a Likert scale from 1-10 on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Then, if you could combine this knowledge with the duration you spent in meetings or sending email over the same duration. You would then begin to see extremely profound results in terms of discerning the ideal amount of hours to spend in meetings or emailing on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

3. Social Life

Personal analytics to reassess your social life can have the largest implications, especially in our era of social media. Text messages, phone calls, social media, and an associated emotion with each can open the doors to improving your social life in a variety of directions. Envision what the world would be like if you could determine which friendships increase your self confidence and build you up and which "friendships" slowly deteriorate and demolish your outlook on life. You can re-shift which people you are giving your energy to in order to spend time around people that make you feel better. I will be looking forward to see how people apply personal analytics to measure and evaluate their social life in the near future.

4. Personal Finances

Using analytics and data for personal finances is an obvious one. Would it not be fantastic if you could save more money by eliminating frivolous purchases and increase spending in investments that will pay off in the future? The real power will come from combining analytics in the personal finance domain with any of the other domains listed. You could analyze how your personal spending on gym memberships affects your health, spending on your small business affects your bottom line, or even how spending on other people affects your relationship with them. Lets face it, there are people who you enjoy spotting a few extra bucks because you know they will return the favor and other people that you know just use and abuse your bank account.

5. Recreational Activities (esp. Sports)

Again, this is another obvious one, thanks to ESPN. Sports networks have decades of data and they have become immensely efficient over the past few years with conveying the insights to the public in near real-time. However, the subject of this post is personal analytics. How would you reevaluate your performance in your sport of choice if you had the same capabilities as ESPN. You could use this ability to determine where, on what day of the week, with which teammates, and under which circumstances you play best. The only hindrance is a methodology for capturing this data without hiring an entire team of sports analysts.

3 Reasons Why Engineering Schools Should Teach Selling

In general, engineering schools get the reputation of teaching incredibly bright students to solve extremely complex problems. Most people who have interviewed engineers right out of school know that the majority of these students are not exactly the most charismatic individuals out there. However, I propose a change in the generic engineering curriculum to include at least one course in the art of selling for three main reasons.

Note that for the remainder of this post, I refer to recent college graduates in engineering as simply 'engineers' and I know that all engineers are not the same, but I am talking about the majority of these 'engineers'.

First, selling is pervasive in all aspects of life. These engineers will soon be applying for jobs after graduation. Their sheer intellect is usually not enough alone to convince the interviewer for the job due to the fact that engineers have trouble articulating their thoughts. The engineer must sell him or her self to the employer. Furthermore, any time the engineer has a grand idea, he or she must also persuade others to believe in their idea. This persuasion is directly related to one's selling ability.

Second, an engineer can create the best product, but if they can not convince others to buy it, the product quality becomes irrelevant. In today's society, people buy things not because they need it, but because they want it, which is inherently different. Engineers are taught to create products with incredible sophistication and a plethora of features. However, this is not exactly correct. Engineers must create products that consumers want in their daily lives. The only way engineers can figure out what people actually want to spend their money on requires selling, communication, and feedback from the customer. All of which is not taught in engineering curriculum.

Lastly, engineers must utilize communication and social interaction throughout their job, personal life, and relationships. Engineers become great problem solvers, but they lack the necessary communication skills to ask the right questions. No matter how affluent an engineer is, they becomes irrelevant when they spend their time answering a question that customers do not care about. The only way that an engineer can uncover the correct question to answer is through means of communication and social interaction with their customer. Engineering schools do not train their students to seek the right answer, but rather utilize as many convoluted formulas as possible on their tests.

How to Increase Personal Performance: Activities of Fortune

I, along with every other human being on this planet, want to reach my own individual potential. In order to understand how to increase performance, one must dive under the skin and into the human brain. In a recent TED talk that I watched, Dr. Alan Wilkins described what lies at the abyss of the human psyche. 

The human system is composed in these layers, in order from external down to internal.

Therefore, we can see that performance is at the top and has five underlying factors. At the bottom, lies physiology. Physiology is raw data coming into the body. Some examples include the light waves from your computer entering your eyes and the carbohydrates from the food you just ate entering your body as nutrients. 

Per the title of this blog, I claim that there is a straightforward method to changing the physiological stimuli which enter your body. Danial Priestly describes one of the key factors to becoming a key person of influence is to create your own luck by putting yourself in lucky positions. For instance, watching TED videos instead of mind numbing television is one way to begin towards increasing your luck. In order to create your own luck, you must immerse yourself in lucky situations, which I call "activities of fortune".

Once you surround yourself with activities of fortune, the positive physiological data will slowly start improving your emotions, all the way up the pyramid to change your behavior and increase your performance. People say that most of life (90%) is what happens to you, but I beg to differ. If you engulf yourself with activities of fortune, such as reading instead of listening to news or teaching others instead of shopping, you will enhance the physiological input entering your body.

However, there is one caveat. You must love the new situations that you place yourself in. If you simply watch a TED video because this blog suggests it, you will not take anything away from the video. You must enjoy the video itself, which will cause your eyes to pick up on the subtle signals which will change your life by improving your performance down the road.

On a side note, this concept can be expanded to sports, such that, you need to not think about the basketball shot or golf putt, but rather appeal to the physiology data in personal practice before the competition even begins. For instance, imagine playing a sport. If you love the sport, you live the sport. If you live the sport, you play several hours a day, watch the professionals on TV, and talk about this sport with friends. While you think you are merely enjoying yourself, you are in fact placing yourself in activities of fortune, which will in turn increase the positive physiological effects entering your body, resulting in an increase in your performance.

3 Sizes Fit All in the Future of 3D Printing

The future of 3D printing is right around the corner. My last post discussed the rapid adoption rate of technology in today's world. Now, I analyze what how the future of 3D printing will look as these devices become ubiquitous in a relatively short amount of time.

First, the small.

Formlabs 3D Printer

The majority of Americans will have their own 3D printer in their home office. This printer will be on the cheap end to appease consumers who aim to print small tools, jewelry, replacement parts, small toys, and works of imagination. Right now, the consumer can pick up a 3D printer for less than $500. The Formlabs printer above is much more expensive, but the average price of consumer 3D printers will be a few hundred dollars, if that. This will enable the average person to express themselves through works of art and build objects together with their social network. A simple click of the button will allow people to download their friends cool unique object, only so that they can one up their friend with a minor improvement, creating an on-going cycle.

Second, the medium.

Stratasys Mojo 

However, people will want to print larger and more complex objects without having to pay the exponentially larger fees for these printers, as they plan to only use this detailed printer a couple of times per year. Enter, the next generation of 3D print shops. In this world, a user may own a 3D printer, but it may not satisfy the requirements needed to print their next work of genius. So, this person creates the digital file at their home, emails the file to a local 3D print shop, and goes to pick it up in a few hours. The user has that specific object in their hands that same day. This would occur on a mid-grade printer, similar to the Stratasys Mojo, depicted above. In fact, Staples is already beginning to offer this service. Essentially, people who desire a custom object with detailed design requirements will use this service.

Third, the large.

Stratasys Objet1000

Lastly, we look at one more use case. Suppose that a user wants an extremely detailed object or one that is grande in scale in such a way that only a $100,000 commercial printer can build this object. For instance, the Objet1000 above would be an analogous example to the size and power of a commercial printer. However, the user does not necessarily need the object that present day. Introducing, cloud 3D printing as a service. The user designs their object on their computer, as they did in the previous case. Now, they send the design to a cloud printing service, such as Sculpteo. The physical location of this business may be in a nearby large metropolis, or across the country. Regardless, the object comes back to the user after a few days has passed from printing this custom object. The user pays for the service of the printer, along with shipping and handling, and all parties are satisfied. Happily ever after.

The world of 3D printing is fast around the corner. I will be looking forward to seeing what other companies adapt or emerge on each scale. The small consumer printer space is rapidly filling up with one Kickstarter project after another. The medium domain has attracted Staples and other new business sprouting up while the large domain has brought in several business that serve this niche. These three areas be an interesting to see how they fill out in just a few years time.

How Long Until You Buy a 3D Printer?

A few technologies have had monumental impact on society. Recently, my generation has seen the wide adoption of computers, cell phones, and the internet. Right around the corner is 3D printing. Before diving down into the evolution of 3D printing, lets analyze the spread of computer consumption. The chart below depicts the rate of adoption of technologies as a percentage of households. 

We see that computers were at 20% in the early 1990s and reached over 60% in just a few years. This is a huge jump, but particularly, lets look at the year 1977. This was the year in which Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak presented their Apple II to the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977. We note that the initial spike in early adopters for computers took place a fifteen years before even 20% of households had a computer in their home. While this gap may seem rather large, we know with future technologies, this gap will shrink.

Next, lets analyze where the 3D printing industry is at in terms of early adopters. First, we note the surge in interest in the New York Maker Faire, a 3D printing faire and networking event. 

• 2010 - Three business attend
• 2011 - Five business attend
• 2012 - Over twenty companies attend the faire

We note that there is a highly analogous correlation between the state of computers in 1977 and that of 3D printers now in terms of consumer interest. However, 3D printers are light years beyond that of 1977 computers. Therefore, we can conclude that there will be MUCH less time than fifteen years before 20% of households own a 3D printer. I would even speculate this duration to be half that of computers, in the neighborhood of five to eight years, before 20% of U.S. households own a 3D printer.

In conclusion, 3D printers will become much more prominent and well known. There are already large companies with expensive printers that are selling cloud 3D printing services. Read my next blog post to find out my prediction of where the 3D printing industry will be in the next five years.

Sales School Mentality

Through the rigorous training program that IBM graciously invests in the 2013 Summit Architect class, we are fortunate to receive IBM's famous Global Sales School training. Being from a technical background, I recall being fairly nervous before entering this prestigious program. However, I knew that the time that I invested would pay off in the future.

Global Sales School

Unfortunately, my overly analytic brain led me astray in the beginning of practice calls. However, I managed to quickly jump back on track and apply the experience that I gained from consulting interviews to sales calls. This problem solving mindset, combined with a passionate desire to help our clients, even if they are role playing clients, creates value and partnerships. It is the essence of being essential. Now that I can leverage my technical background to improve future sales calls, I can direct attention to some important lessons learned and critical mindsets to put in one's frontal lobe.

First, place yourself in the mind of a CEO of a 15 person company. I am CEO of Erik Inc. This simple thought increases one's personal responsibility and sense of ownership. It can definitely help independent individuals perform better with larger groups of people.

Second, never forget about your competition.

• What is your competition doing? 
• Are you doing anything different? 
• When a client has your proposal on their desk along with a competitors, what will make yours stand out?

While it seems obvious to know the competition's strategies, these questions are imperative to ask. If you do not stand out from the crowd, you will be trampled in a stampede.

Third, place yourself under the skin of a client. Again, this simple mentality can help astronomically. For instance, all I have to envision is sitting at my desk and receiving a request for proposal from a potential seller. The last thing I want is to read a 40 page document straight. Even a short executive summary might be too laborious. I want a document with diagrams, that is easy to read, has bullets, structure, and boldface for important phrases. I do not want my eyes to bleed by reading a proposal. As a technician, I am extremely adept at focusing on the details and making sure every last minute aspect of a product is perfect. However, sometime I lose site of the bigger picture. When working with clients, the bigger picture can never be lost.

While these ideas seem simple and intuitive, it is an entirely different story to live your life, both work and play, by these mantras. These three mentalities, among many others learned, are key to success to sales and life.

Cloud: Hiding the Sausage Factory

The infamous sausage factory analogy describes an unpleasant process, which is hidden from the public's view, that yields a widely consumable product, such as a hamburger. The cloud enables consumers to buy what they want without forcing them to build their own sausage factory, per say. However, the depth of the cloud extends much further past this superficial metaphor. 

The divisions that compose the cloud can be classified as infrastructure, platform, software, or business processes as a service. This concept is powerful because it empowers the consumer to pick and choose which aspects of an IT system that they want control over and which processes they would rather outsource. Just as consumers do not wish to know the details of how a sausage factory operates and only want the final product, cloud consumes may not wish to know how network and storage hardware function, they just want to choose which operating system to use on top of that hardware. In another case, a consumer might not care which hardware or OS is used, they just want a to build a software application with readily available resources that are offered through the cloud. A third consumer may not care which hardware, OS, or software is used, they just want to leverage a business process, such as SmarterCities, to accomplish a business initiative. The possibilities are endless. 

Source: http://kunalashar.com/blog/the-next-generation-enterprise-business-as-a-service-in-the-cloud/

The chart above (Copyrights go to Kunal Ashar) depicts this cloud idea extremely succinctly. On the left, we see that business process lives on software, which lives on a platform, which lives on infrastructure. However, the real value comes almost exclusively from business processes. This is critical for understanding why cloud can help business ignore traditional IT and jump straight to the top of the pyramid for their business processes.

In conclusion, the end consumer of cloud technology is the ultimate decider of choosing what they want to manage and what they want that "simply works". Consumers do not care to know the elaborate details of the internal operations of a sausage factory. The main dilemma is deciding which component of an IT system (infrastructure, platform, software, business processes) is the sausage factory to the client's business.

Summit Training

Recently, I traveled to Armonk for Summit Program training. I spent a few days meeting my peer IT Architects as well the other Summit attendees which included sales representatives, client representatives, and brand specialists. The training was a phenomenal introduction into the culture at IBM. Understanding where the company came from and what adversities that IBM has overcame turned out to be extremely invigorating. Furthermore, most companies don't zero-in on their financial statements when bringing new hires into the company. However, IBM wanted to focus our attention on what direction the company is attempting to head in. While every single cog within IBM is essential to the entire unit operating seamlessly, we were presented with knowledge of what industries and sectors the future of computing and services resides in.

One interesting part of this experience was taking a tour through the IBM headquarters. It was mesmerizing to see how the company has evolved over the past one hundred years. Viewing some of the first envelope sorters, the first type writers, the personal computer, the system 360 is indescribable. Only pictures of these inventions can delineate how captivating these machines were. Furthermore, the illusive history of IBM will show us where the next hundred years will take the computing world. Not to mention, I had the chance to snap a once in a career photo along the way.

However, I am leaving out one of the best parts of the Summit training program -- the people! The other architects that I am working with are incredible and outstanding people. They all come from technical backgrounds, but are social, fun, and energizing to be around. I know that our architect class will accomplish great feats in the future. We can leverage our backgrounds and experiences to better improve ourselves and push each other to reach new heights.

Not only were the architects motivated individuals, but the atmosphere of combining the technical architects with the sales people of the Summit program was astounding. As architects, we received a glimpse into the minds of successful people that are excellent at inspiring others. The social energy that the sales group brought with them encourages me to not only remain technically competent, but also to enhance my social skills at every opportunity so that I can become a well rounded individual. 

I wore a suit everyday, but I enjoy dressing up. I was glad to be surrounded by other like minded people who are intelligent, technically sound, and personable. I will be looking forward to meeting up with my section of trainees as we head to Raleigh next month for Global Sales School training. It is an exciting time to be an IBMer.

Patent Pondering

"Inventing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". Perhaps one of history's greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, hit the nail on the head when he said his now famous quote. For the majority of my academic studies, the work involved with school merely dealt with completing the task at hand but focused little on creating new ideas to solve the problem through a completely different method. I am a believer in a Utopian society. So, I am continuously thinking of how ordinary activities can be optimized in order to accomplish tasks in the most efficient manner possible. Although I like to think that I have grandeur ideas, I have noticed some difficulties with transforming these abstract ideas into tangible implementations that have the potential to be patented. 

At IBM, the culture strongly encourages employees to generate their own ideas, write up a description of the idea, and then submit the idea to a patent design team. While I have a day job consisting of an abundant of projects to complete by certain deadlines, I do enjoy imagining an ideal world and coming up with new ideas to move us from present day to this ideal world that I envision. Rather than watching TV late in the evening, as the majority of other people tend to enjoy, I prefer sitting down with my thoughts and letting my imagination run wild. While this purely used to be a hobby, I can now submit ideas that I develop on my own time through the IBM patent team. However, the idea engendering process is not as straight forward as I anticipated.

To begin, I am currently working with a team on an idea that has a strong possibility of passing through the rigorous patent process at IBM (I am also an optimist!). But, who wants to stop at one patent when they could develop a dozen more? If only it were simple to think of an idea and write it up during the twilight hours of the evening. Prior to joining IBM, I fabricated a plethora of "patent-able" ideas. What happened? For starters, I was unaware of the precedent work that others have published. Therefore, my ideas were definitely new and useful ideas, but more than likely lacked the punch, in terms of uniqueness qualities, that sent an idea all the way through the patent process.

While exploring the depths of my imagination in hopes of stumbling upon my next eureka moment, I discovered another attribute of the patent process that makes it somewhat difficult for idea thinkers. The potential patent has to exist as a plausible idea at a certain date in the future. Said another way, a potential patent cannot be too near-sighted because the idea may already exist or would require such simple implementation techniques that it would not surpass the minimum novelty requirements of patents. If the idea is too far-sighted, in terms of technological advancements, then the idea may be seen as too far-fetched and too abstract to implement within the realm of present knowledge. Therefore, the ideal patent must exist somewhere in the middle, in such a way that it is novel enough that no one has thought about the problem in the same way and that the patent architecture could be created in the near term future with modern technology.

Now that the difficulty of uniqueness and feasibility has been addressed, one must choose an area to host their idea search process. The ubiquitous nature and power of mobile computing has a garnered my attention. Not only does the vast majority of Earth's population own a phone, but they carry it on them at all times. The data that is generated through a mobile device is astronomical. I am also familiar with mobile computing and my creative side can envision many improvements in the mobile space to help better the world. Therefore, I now know where to look in order to start generating ideas on my own time.

As I embark on a career that reveres patents, I plan to start patenting early. Some of my short term goals include not only sending our current idea through IBM's patent process, but also adding one or two more patents to the list of my accomplishments. One of the main struggles that I currently face is giving my creative side the right size cage to develop, so that new ideas are not too small in terms of uniqueness and not too ambitious without a sense of plausibility. As Edison noted, inventing is 99% perspiration. I will keep pressing on until a worthy idea knocks me upside the head.

First Month of my Career

After joining IBM as a supplemental hire three weeks ago, I am not the same person anymore. I have grown and expanded my knowledge in numerous ways since becoming an IBMer. On my first few days of work, I had nervous and bewildered feelings of entering my new home. However, those feelings quickly evolved into feelings of inspiration and excitement as I wake wake each morning and head into work. The transition from a background of internships, research, and education into the IBM workforce was seamless. Only a week into the job, and I knew I had made the correct career decision and the best decision of my life. Even better than my decision to attend the greatest university of them all, Texas A&M.

To begin, I was quickly staffed on developing a Mobile Banking application with a senior IT Architect, whose identity will be shortened to BH. The sheer potential of this project made my eyes light up with eagerness. The business applications for this project were straightforward. BH was working on a personal mobile application that functioned across platforms, such as iPhone, iPad, desktop, Android, etc. There were a few caveats that differentiated this type of work from others, including a SpeedCash withdrawal option and a premium retail advertisement inclusion. However, I spent my time familiarizing myself with the architecture of the application and how different modules functioned and communicated with one another. At the same time, I began developing portions of this project, such as enhancing the database and writing web service calls to the Next Best Action back end business logic. Although I would only be with BH's team for nine weeks until I transitioned to the Summit Program, I had a reason to look forward to coming to work and continuing my learning adventure.

As I built up my knowledge base around IBM's mobile and banking presence, more meetings commenced under the direction of BH. The associated culture is one of high intelligence, diligent work, and innovation. Rather than merely assigning developmental work to each team member, creativity was encouraged and expected. By the way the senior team members felt and thought about their ideas, I gained the sense that they are open and always interested to hear new ideas. My heart was ecstatically pounding. Even though I was only going to be assigned on this project for a short period of time, I discovered that I could contribute to the direction of the project. As soon as the meeting ended, I rushed back to my desk to jot down my thoughts and ideas. I would need to test them, but I was looking forward to creating my own value within the project itself and then receiving feedback from the team.

Although my tenure at IBM is short at this point in time, I know that this culture is the best place to grow my career. This intuition is built upon my recent experience of attending the DFW Technical Exchange. I had the opportunity to listen to several extremely interesting presentations about industry viewpoints and internal efficiency. I connected in a small atmosphere with profound experts in their respective industry. The conference drenched my internal flame with gasoline. I saw so much potential to generate my own ideas which will hopefully evolve into patents someday as well as collaborate with other IBMers on a wide variety of topics. 

In conclusion, the culture at this phenomenal company has instilled a desire to innovate within. I am excited to begin my journey as an IBMer in order to create as much value as I can for my co-workers and for IBM itself. I am truly looking forward to making the world a better and smarter place.

I am an IBMer

They always say listen to your elders. However, I did not take other's people weary words when they warned of the full time recruiting process and the difficulty of applying for jobs in today's market. Upon graduation, I interviewed with numerous firms. Many went well, some could have gone better, but I was feeling empty on the inside because no prospect seemed to be the dream job. 

After several intense months of networking among individuals in the computer science industry, I stumbled upon the Summit Program offered by IBM. I researched the program in much depth and gained a better understanding of the role that IBM was looking to fill, which was an IT Architect in my case. Specifically, the role would exist in the service unit under Sales & Distribution to financial service clients. My condensed summary of the position can be best described as the overlap of programming, financial services, and client interaction in a Venn diagram. This position was ideal for someone with my background. I felt my excitement rise as I read more and more about IBM's IT Architect role. This could be what I was looking for all along.

As I went through the interview process, I realized that I enjoy my conversations with IBM's IT Architects and the Summit Programs managers. My conversations with these key people led me even further to believe that I had discovered the Holy Grail of first year hire programs for myself. I fell in love with IBM and the IT Architect. The interviews progressed smoothly, and I was accepted to the Summit Program! I would be a future IBMer in hopes of creating a Smarter Planet.

Although the interview process was rather intense and challenging, I enjoyed the entire process. I found myself attached to the culture at IBM. It was one that was very business oriented, but also required a dosage of innovation in a perfect recipe. Although the program started on July 10, I had several months before beginning work because I was hired in late January. I was looking forward to starting my career at IBM so much that I wanted to start work as early as possible. IBM handled this process with extreme helpfulness and found a Co-Op position for myself, which began in early May.

At this point, I was still anxious to begin my enticing career as an IT Architect. I decided that the best place to start was ordering Java books, which IBM considers one of their main programming languages. I sifted through these books in my ample spare time. Although I was introduced to programming through C++, Java was close enough to C++ that I had minor difficulties in adjusting to the new language. I began writing sample programs to affiliate myself even further.

As I await my start date at IBM, I plan on continuing to grow my knowledge base as much as possible. Namely, I am blessed to have discovered this dream job. The IT Architect role in the Summit Program could not fit my personality better than any other job out there. I may have struggled through finding my job match up, but the wait was worth it. IBM, here I come!

Business 101

Initially, my interest in business grew its roots in finance, and specifically, the market. I was fascinated with applying engineering methodologies to help predict stock prices and back testing ideas with large data sets. Although most of my interest was garnered from self study and research, I decided that reaching out to the Mays Business school at Texas A&M was the next logical step.

Through Mays, I joined several extracurricular organizations to help expand my knowledge about finance.
First, I joined the selective Aggies on Wall Street (AOWS) organization. Through this course, I learned about financial modeling, I networked within Mays, and then took a trip up to New York with my nineteen other classmates. We visited around twenty firms during our two week stay in New York, including J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, PwC, and several smaller hedge funds. This was an excellent chance for me to see the lifestyles of the investment bankers in the city. Below is a picture of our group of talented individuals posing with the famous NYSE Bull:

2011 Aggies on Wall Street

Next, I was admitted to the prestigious Titans of Finance. Our of the fifteen members of the class, I was one of two engineers that were allowed past the gates of entry. Our diverse class included finance, accounting, real estate, economics, and a few other majors as a part of the whole. We were official members of Titans 12, following our leader and teacher, Britt Harris (http://robinthecoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Britt-Harris-bio.pdf), who is currently CIO of the Texas Teacher Pension fund in Austin with $120 billion in assets under managment. Britt lectured us every other week on the intricacies of macro investing and graciously took our class and significant others out to eat dinner. Britt's vast amount of resources and friendly personality help bring in successful leaders to lecture our class every now and then. Below is a picture of our group with Glenn Hutchins, CEO of Silverlake.

Titans of Finance XII. Glenn Hutchins, CEO of Silverlake. Britt Harris, CIO of Texas Teachers Pension. Jerry Strawser, Dean of Texas A&M Business. Sorin Sorescu, Head of Texas A&M Finance.

The Titans of Investing class taught me much about the financial markets and about life in general. I have so many profound, pleasant, and inspiring memories from this class. Titans is an active part of each graduate of the program to this day and I try to make it back for dinners whenever I am in the College Station area. I hope to give back to the community in my life because of all that I have received.

Finally, I participated in Horizons. The goal of Horizons is to pair current students up with a summer internship in investment banking or management consulting. I decided that investment banking seemed interesting, so I pursued the banking guild. Also, Horizons partners students with mentors in the industry, such as hedge funds, investment banks, private equity, entrepreneurship, etc. Through the help of my mentors and the Horizon program, I received an interview and internship offer from Goldman Sachs in Houston.

I worked at Goldman Sachs in their oil and gas investment banking division in the summer of 2012. I learned an incredible amount about the oil and gas industry as well as the definition of hard work. It will remain one of the experiences that I can always draw upon anytime my life enters a turbulent patch. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity that many others dream about.

Computer Engineering Videos

Throughout my tenure at Texas A&M, the Computer Engineering department threw some very hard and intense course work in our face at times. However, there were many exciting opportunities to expand our creativity through self engineered projects. The youtube links below demonstrate some of the more appealing projects that we worked on, which include Computer Wizard, Friendly Fire!, and Automated Turret. 

While watching these videos, keep in mind that all projects were completely thought out and researched by our teams and not an assignment from the professor. The projects were created from absolute scratch with no previous work. The projects were developed in under a month in lieu of other course work. We had received A's on all projects. It was after this when the professor asked us to make videos to show future students. So, the videos were compiled on short time notice before semester breaks. I was the primary software developer on all projects and consulted the hardware side as well. Each project is described in more detail below.

Computer Wizard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlkWMx3IwtU

The concept of this project was to create a computer building system that would assist ordinary people with the knowledge to build a computer from scratch from NewEgg components. Essentially, a computer illiterate person would specify how they intended to use the computer, input how much money they were going to spend, and then were returned a list of compatible computer components as well as an assembly guide for these computer components. Out of a class size of 15 projects, we received 2/3 awards, which consisted of votes from our peers. We received the "Grand Champion" (given to the best overall project) and the "Pablo Picasso" (given to the most innovative group) awards.

Friendly Fire! (Educational Robot Tank Game): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldM_XQXgLNU
This project was a turn based game in which two users would play from their laptops against one another. The players had to answer mechanical physics questions correctly in order to move a robot tank across a battle field. Then, the player was able to launch a projectile at the enemy tank in order to score a point. The purpose of this game is to educate players in physics while enticing them to learn about robotics through the assistance of a fun game.In the video, one cannot see the GUI very well in the video, but it monitors whose turn it is, the score of the game, and the current state that the game is in. The GUI is the master control of the game.

Automated Turret: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAXUkCtobg&feature=youtu.be
During this project, our team created an automated turret system that would track a user defined color on a computer through a Logitech camera, send coordinates to the turret machine, turn the turret, and then resume firing small foam projectiles at the targeted color.
The 1:52 mark shows the main idea behind this project although the camera is angled to the side. In the top left corner, you can see the user click on our team member with a red shirt. You can see a red dot appear on the screen, and the Logitech's internal black and white interpretation of the shirt slightly below. Then you notice how the turret follows our team member with the red shirt on and shoots foam missiles at our team member.

Technical Research

After building up a repertoire of programming skills through my Sophomore year, I decided it was time to get a summer job. I attended the engineering career fair which was superb in pairing employers and students. I had several interviews, was accepted to join each company I interviewed with the exception of one company, but my intuition had a queasy feeling that remained unsettled. I then began to look internally into Texas A&M's own offerings. I stumbled upon a program called the Undergraduate Summer Research Grant (USRG) which appeared intriguing enough. I applied, was accepted, and then instructed to find a mentor to work with over the summer.

After reviewing A&M's faculty profiles online, I matched a professor that had similar interests of computers and mathematics to my own. I walked into Dr. Gabriel Dos Reis's office and then began to tell him of my passions. He gladly accepted me as his summer student and we were underway. I began coding in a program called OpenAxiom, which is essentially a computer algebra system. I was coding in an outdated language called Spad, but it was mathematical in nature and relatively simple to understand. Here is more information on the Open Axiom: http://www.open-axiom.org/.

At the end of the summer, I presented the results of this research. We essentially coded methodologies in OpenAxiom to solve different types of differential equations that were not previously supported. Here is myself giving a poster presentation over our results:

USRG poster presentation while supporting A&M maroon

Following that summer of 2010, Dr. Dos Reis asked me to join one of his other projects. We would be working on his Liz Project: http://liz.axiomatics.org/trac/.

Through working with Dr. Dos Reis, I traveled with him to Paris, France where we worked with Xavier Leeroy at INRIA in rocquencourt. Finally, after a year of hard work, we earned a publication in the 2011 Conference on Intelligent Mathematics. The conference was held in Bertinoro, Forli, Italy. Our research paper was titled "Supporting Structured Generic Programming with Automated Deduction." Our presentation fell under the 'save the best for last' policy in which I presented in front of some of Earth's most intelligent computer mathematicians.

My journey through the business world is just about to begin.

Choosing the Best University

Although many high schoolers look forward to applying to college, the thought seemed overwhelming to me. Since I had the test scores and grades to attend nearly any school in the country, many friends and family urged me to apply to the Ivy schools. However, I knew in my heart that I am a Texan through thick and thin. So, I did what any other indecisive native Texan would do when applying to a university. I sent my application to the University of Texas and Texas A&M University.

Next, my first filter for choosing a major was some type of engineering degree. I had lost too much sweat and devoted too much time to the fields of Calculus and Physics to not study something math or science related. The subsequent question that I had to answer was which field of engineering interested me the most. I knew the future of business lay in the keyboard of computers, so naturally, I decided that Computer Science was the best fit for my background. However, I had to decide which university I would attend. Of course, I made the right choice:

Upon looking more closely at the degree plans that Texas A&M offered, I noticed that there was a plan titled Computer Engineering - Computer Science, which essentially means that I selected a hybrid degree consisting roughly of 75% Computer Science (software) and 25% Electrical Engineering (hardware) courses.

Since the Computer Engineering department had this genius man at its head,

Bjarne Stroustrup

I knew that this school was the right one for me. As I began my academic studies, I realized that the mathematics courses that I was taking weren't enough. So, I decided that it would be a good idea to double major in Applied Mathematics. Furthermore, I came to the realization that I could handle the additional course work of receiving this degree in the form of Honors. This was the beginning of my academic career with a background in Computer Engineering and Honors Applied Mathematics.

Through High School

Hi!, my name is Erik Katzen and this is the story of my career through the computer and business world as an IT Architect.

But first, here is a little background information about myself. I grew up my entire life in the DFW metroplex with my beginnings originating out of Arlington, Texas. I moved to Southlake, Texas at early age with my parents where I attended the grand opening of Durham Elementary school. Precursor to moving into seventh grade, my family moved to Argyle, TX where I eventually graduated from Argyle High School.

Below is a relatively recent picture of myself to help the reader put my words to a face.

My activities in high school included basketball, tennis, and UIL academics. The sport of basketball was my true athletic passion. Through this competition, I learned intense self discipline, how to reap the rewards of long hard hours of work, and to find a niche within a team environment. I lead my Freshman and Junior Varsity teams in scoring during my Freshman and Sophomore years, respectively. At the onset of my Junior year, I made the Varsity team. Through the next two seasons, our team won two district titles with an undefeated record, and advanced to the regional tournament each season. Our record for these two seasons combined to a total of 67-7. I had worked my way up to a starting position my Senior year and discovered my specialty of a defensive expert in shutting down the opponent's highest scorer.

Additionally, I began playing the sport of tennis my Freshman year. I quickly accelerated to the number one singles spot on the team. Despite being new to the sport, I received runner-up honors for our district, and advanced to the regional tournament. The following year, I won district, continued on to runner-up honors in the regional tournament, and advanced to the state tournament in singles as a Sophomore. Although I lost in the quarterfinals, I was proud of my achievement and determined to get back to Austin. My Junior year faced difficulties with maintaining my role on the basketball team, but I still managed to advance to the regional tournament. I lost early due to a lackluster performance, but I know where my tennis future lie. Finally, in my senior year, I decided to switch over to playing mixed doubles. Although the nature of the game changed, my partner and I won district, became runner-up in the regional tournament, and advanced to the state tournament. We won our first two matches which placed us in the state championship. Although we lost to the same team that beat us in the regional tournament and received a State Runner-Up award, it was a great experience, and I am proud of myself and my teammate.

At times, the spring semester proved to be the most difficult. In addition to maintain my grades and playing basketball and tennis, I competed in UIL academics. Since our high school tends to dominate the competition of math and science, I will summarize all of my accolades as tersely as possible. The three math tests include Mathematics, Number Sense, and Calculator. The Mathematics test is the most straightforward with 60 questions to be answered in 40 minutes ranging from Geometry to Calculus. The Number Sense test is an 80 question test that must be completed in ten minutes. However, not scratch work is allow, only the writing of answers as it is a purely mental math test. Lastly, the Calculator test was a combination of number cruncher problems (how fast and accurate can you enter problems) and problem solving questions. In Mathematics, I was on the four man team from my Sophomore year through my Senior year where our team won all three State Championships. I was on the Number Sense team during my Junior and Senior year where we won the State Championship both years. Lastly, I made the Calculator team my Senior year where we achieved a State Runner-Up award.

Subsequently, it was my turn to finally apply to college...