I've decided to go ahead and centralize what has been happening in my life to a blog post that details some key events of the previous months. I am doing this because I am now in college at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
Winter (January, February, March) 2016 -
Winter Quarter
My sixth quarter at UCI has come and gone, and it was the most difficult yet, but also the most rewarding. Not only was it the most difficult yet in terms of course load, but also because of starting two companies (more on that to come) and building an entire social networking app from scratch. I'm happy to say that I was on (equivalent of) the Dean's List (assuming the Dean's List is 3.25 GPA and above). Another exciting addition to my school career was getting a job at the Blackstone LaunchPad. The Blackstone LaunchPad is an on-campus resource for UCI students, alumni, and faculty to mentor their entrepreneurial activities. As a student fellow, all of last quarter I was consulting and advising my peers on how to best start and grow their businesses.
Business
As always, my businesses are one of the most important things I'm doing in conjunction with school at almost any given time. Going into this quarter I of course was still managing Protonico Printing, LLC. with my brother, but also had a plan for another e-commerce like Protonico. InstaButtons (logo above) is a company I started with my roommates that sells pinback buttons with varying designs including custom designs to the UCI community, and also sells them online. I started this business during Winter Quarter not only because I had been thinking about it for a while, but also because of my Entrepreneurship class I had been taking. The other business that I had started is another e-commerce business that specializes selling third-party products on Amazon.com using their 'Fulfilled by Amazon' service. Its a great business model because as a business, we can ship all of our products to Amazon, let them pack, and ship the item to the buyer all while we focus more on growing and marketing the business. I'm very excited to get this business off the ground with my businesses partner and have high-expectations for its outcome.
Spring Quarter
I'll be starting Spring Quarter a day after Easter Sunday and am taking the first of my upper-division computer science electives. The classes I'll be taking are:
- Intro to Data Management:
- This is one of the two upper-division classes I'll be taking this quarter. It focuses on efficiently storing data and the study of databases.
- Principles of Operating Systems:
- This class is exactly as it sounds; the study of the underlying principles of operating systems like Windows of Mac OS X.
- Basic Economics I:
- This is one the last four Gen. Ed.'s that I'll be taking. This is a basic econ course that covers macroeconomics.
- Philosophy of Government and Society
- This is the second of the final four Gen. Ed.'s that I'll be taking. I like philosophy so I felt this would be a good fit for a general elective for me.
Playlists -
Happy Easter, - Alec Kriebel