New Catholic Issues Editor Alex Deriso spent the summer learning that life after college won’t be as sweet.

This summer, I worked at a Hedge Fund in New York City. I was able to learn many of the ins-and-outs of the Wall Street game, which will help me in the future when I plan on embezzling from my company. The Wall Street life is a tough one, filled with 11 hour days, tons of reading, even more yelling, free lunch, crying, but especially, free lunch. We received lunch from many gourmet places, such as Carnegie Deli, Ray’s Pizza, and some organic place that only the chicks ordered from. My internship also helped me with my memory skills. This came in especially handy when I was ordered to go get the real employees breakfast and coffee. Never once did I have to write down an order, and thats something I proudly hang my hat on. Overall, it was a grueling summer, but hopefully, this will pay off in the future, when I get a job at Goldman Sachs, and am promptly fired after 2 weeks for incompetence.

Andy Rota

NOVA's office at the WGBH studios in Brighton

I continued my internship at WGBH with NOVA Online that I had begun last January.  I worked with some amazing people, including David Levin who produces many of the NOVA Podcasts and NOVA Minutes on the radio!  I was able to work on a variety of projects at NOVA with both technical and editorial aspects.  I was involved in research for the Inside NOVA blog, worked a little on the NOVA online feature, Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers, checked over transcripts of episodes for the website, wrote several PHP scripts to analyze and present data from Google Analytics, and wrote some code for a ‘coming soon’ interactive at the NOVA website.  Working at NOVA was an awesome experience and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to be even a small part of the longest-running, highest-rated, and most-watched science television series of all time!

Also this summer, I began a new job working at Charles River Canoe and Kayak as a Skyline and Boston Harbor Kayak Tour Guide!  As some of you know, I absolutely love kayaking!  Working as a guide has been an opportunity to share that love with others.  And the community at Charles River Canoe and Kayak is awesome – I get to meet, learn from, and work with some of the world’s best paddlers.  And what better job than getting out to paddle on the beautiful Boston Harbor or enjoy a spectacular view of Boston’s skyline on the Charles River!

There’s been more too, including continuing research work with Dr. Jin in BC’s Department of Communication, several web development clients, consulting for a few start-up companies, and preparing to apply for grad school!  And, of course, I’ve been developing some soon-to-be-announced features for The Observer website!

Oh and if you’re an incoming freshman at BC and you’re wondering how you might find some pretty sweet internships (i.e., National Review, PBS, GOP, Dana Farber, and more), make great friends, get involved on campus, and contribute to an award winning college newspaper, consider joining The Observer at Boston College!

Dear Class of 2015,

Do you want to continue working on a newspaper like you did in high school?

Are you interested in pursuing journalism as a career?

Are you looking to try something new at Boston College and meet some great people in the process?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” join The Observer at Boston College! We are an independent campus paper that is looking for incoming freshmen who are interested in journalism, writing, politics, photography, web design, layout, and film. This fall, we will have staff positions available in news, opinions, business, Catholic issues, sports, photography, layout, web development, and video!

If you are interested, fill out the form below!

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According to a report in the New York Times, the British government is seeking oral histories taken from individuals in Northern Ireland at the time of the war in the 1990s. While the participants believed that the oral histories they offered would be sealed until their deaths, the British government desires the records in connection to murders and kidnappings they are investigating from 40 years ago.

Read the entire story here.

Ray LaHood is back in the news as the Obama administration announces $2 billion in high speed rail spending. This time, the northeast corridor will get some dough from the “stimulus.” Maybe this will help though, since people actually ride the trains in the northeast corridor.

Dear Observer Staff,

I appreciate greatly the time that your staff took to cover the events of CARE week, including the Nurture through Nature art exhibit and lecture.

However, I did want to point out an important mistake in the reporting on my lecture that week. The author of the article states, “She (McCoy) talked of recent trips to India and Nicaragua where she studied the natural environment and worked with native women to teach them how to sustain the land.”

In fact, the Intersections program to Nicaragua is primarily an experience in which BC faculty and staff go in order to learn from the people whom we meet in Nicaragua. In my own experience, the encounter with the women of FEM taught me a great deal about the empowerment of women, especially with respect to their own connections between sustainability and femininity. My lecture was intended to communicate some ideas I had learned from them, not anything I taught to them.

I point it out especially because there is still a cultural tendency of North Americans to privilege their knowledge over that of Central and South Americans. With respect to the topic of my lecture, the opposite is true: we as Northerners learned much more from them than I imagine that they learned from us. I am grateful to FEM for their hospitality and wisdom.

Warm best,
Prof Marina McCoy
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Boston College
mccoyma@bc.edu

The Observer appreciates letters to the editor.  They can be sent to bcobserver@gmail.com.

The Observer would like to congratulate BC Eagles’ left tackle Anthony Castonzo for being drafted by the Indianapolis Colts, 22nd overall.

The Lord is risen, alleluia!

This is our passover feast,
when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night when first you saved our fathers:
you free the people of Israel from their slavery
and led them dry-shod through the sea.

This is the night when Christians everywhere,
washed clean of sin
and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night when Jesus Christ
broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.

What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

The Observer staff would like to wish you a very blessed and happy Easter!

The commencement speaker chosen to address this year’s seniors at BC is Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. LaHood was a seven-term Republican congressman from Illinois before Obama appointed him to his current post.

I look forward to what LaHood will have to say. Maybe he will advocate building a high-speed rail in between Boston and Springfield; the other rail proposals were so well-received. Or he will tell Toyota drivers not to drive their cars home from graduation. Or he will tout his successful efforts to prevent air traffic controllers from falling asleep on the job…oh, wait.

I have no doubt that LaHood’s words and ideas will captivate the audience as his record of clairvoyance is unmatched.

Many big name companies run into issues when the need for new products arises. Most companies have invested so much in their previous work that they only make minor adjustments to their existing products, and then release these newer versions to the market.

However, mass consumers no longer believe these small changes are enough.  Now that more people are savvy with technology, it is easier for those who are unsatisfied to do something about it. Smaller companies, with less entrenched in past products, have the daring needed to think twenty years into the future. Not only can this innovation come from smaller companies, but it can come from the very consumers that are using the already-existing products.

One example of innovation at work is Tobii Technology. Twelve years ago, John Elvesjö was an engineering student who was testing an infrared sensor. Now, Elvesjö is co-founder of Tobii, and he is about to bring infrared technology to the masses. The group is working to put out mass marketable eye-tracking devices for computers. Soon, anyone will be able to open folders and scroll down pages with your eyes. This is innovation. This technology has existed for years, but Tobii Technology has been the first to make the technology accessible and affordable to the masses. Their dedication, not to their own investment, but to the advancement of technology, enabled them to develop this groundbreaking device.

Sometimes, big companies are great: they provide reliable products, and they are resources that generate supportive data and research that younger, smaller companies cannot. However, when this history of excellence begins to hinder the development of greatness, it is time for these companies to get back to the drawing board.