And as for work, soon I’ll be joining the great folks at LinkedIn.com as a UI designer.

Photographs of our planet are so commonplace to many of us that we don’t even really think about it. Imagery of our planet has always existed in my lifetime. It was only recently that I even thought to realize that in my father’s own lifetime, photographs of our planet from space did not exist. The first photograph of Earth from space was taken by the Explorer 6 satellite in 1959. My dad was 8 years old at the time.

The image above is not the photo taken by Explorer 6

Almost 10 years ago a startup screen which my brother Mike and I had designed was featured in the Japanese magazine Mac People. When I was approached to have the startup screen featured in the magazine and included on their CD, I had requested that they send me a copy of the issue. Long after my exuberance about being in a magazine at age 15 had passed, having assumed they passed on including our work, a package from Japan filled our mailbox.

My 15 minutes of fame has occurred and I suppose I’m at liberty to say, I’m Big In Japan I Was Big In Japan.

At JPMorgan Chase I will be working as a user interface designer and information architect within the Global Credit Risk Management division (that sounds so much more complex in writing). I will be the fourth member of the User Experience group. From what I have gathered from my conversations and meetings with them they are very friendly and chill people–much like how I see myself.

Starting work could not have come at a better time. Most recently I have been missing that stimulation I get when I design and write. While I have enjoyed my time off, getting back into a creative atmosphere will surely be welcomed.

But before I can get back to working I need to move. Having lived in the same apartment for the past three years I, luckily, have avoided the stress of moving. Prior to my current place, my roommates and I moved quite frequently. Each time when we moved we cleaned house by dumping all the junk we’ve accumulated. The unfortunate side of not moving often is the glut of junk I have built up. Therefore, I’m left with the daunting challenge of determining what junk I want to throw away and the junk I want to keep. It is somewhat comical how I have stuff I keep that I only come across when I move.

I expected my arrival at my apartment to be no different than any other time I’ve come home after staying over at Neera’s place. This time around it began just like that–nothing seeming out of the ordinary, Moz (my cat) hanging out in the living room, some stuff moved about due to Kevin moving. It wasn’t until I walked into my bedroom that I was a little tweaked out. Some of my drawers were pulled out–meanwhile I’m thinking, “Man, if you need some stamps or something at least close the drawer.” Then I notice my PowerBook is gone. Still, at this point I have this feeling that maybe someone was using it in the living room or something.

This is the point where if this was a story being told on This American Life the music would stop and there would be a short pause, then I say:

And then I turned around–back door wide open, window screens smashed out, and there are flies everywhere. I’ve really just been robbed.

I looked into my roommates’ rooms to see if anything of theirs had been taken. Kevin’s room has always looked as if a robber came in ransacked the place, with the exception of drawers pulled out. Steve’s room looked pretty much intact except for the aforementioned pulling out of the drawers.

With shock and disbelief firmly setting in I call Kevin, who by the way is about to have a graduation party, to see if he has his laptop. Unfortunately he was a victim of the smash and grab as well.

What They Took

After filing reports with the police it is apparent that we’ll never know who stole our stuff and we probably will never see it again. What is worse is that I keep discovering more stuff that they stole. Provided below is a list of my items that were stolen:

• PowerBook G4
• iPod
• Canon Digital Camera
• An older Mobile Phone (formerly Neera’s)

Things to Take Away from this Experience

Things could have been much worse. For one, they could have stolen a lot more. But what really freaks me out is the possibility of being home when someone invades your property.

While this is a horrible experience for me, it is a wake up call. We’re hyper-vigilant about locking this apartment down, but even that won’t always prevent the worst from happening. What this violation has taught me is that if you rent an apartment you should get renter’s insurance. This was always on the back of my mind–never did it, now I’m paying for it. Back up your data to an external hard drive, dvd, anything that is not physically attached to the computer. Luckily I did this. The financial loss of my property is far less than if I were to lose my data. If anyone else has some tips I would love to hear them.

Writing this article was tough, cause it only makes me more angry thinking about it. But on a funny side note (meaning it could have been worse), a few hours after the whole ordeal, I realized that Moz was covered in dirt. He’s an indoor cat mind you. Apparently he ventured outside for awhile, I guess he doesn’t think my apartment is that bad of a place to live.

A Brief Look Back

Me during my freshman year

In the fall of 2000, when I brought that first cart load into Stetson West, 2005 seemed a great ways off. Much like today, seeing the banner for “Welcome Class of 2010″ seems like a far off time. I look at this picture of me taken for COM1121 (freshman intro class for Co-Op) and am shocked at how young I feel like I look–considering how these past five years seem like such a blur at this point. (For comparison here is a recent photo)

My three years at Harvard as a Co-Op, while great times, are quickly moving further away. It is odd to think that it was a year ago that I left.

The strangest part of graduating is knowing that I will have no real need to come back to campus. This campus has evolved so much and continues to do so that when I do come back to visit I’ll probably barely recognize anything. But hopefully I’ll return for the christening of the Haggerty Usability Lab, a joke my HCI lab friends always made.

What’s Next

Throughout my college career, I was never truly free of obligations. With the Northeastern schedule I was either in classes or on Co-Op year round. Even last summer I took on some freelance work to fill my days. It is a bit exhilarating knowing that I am out of the Northeastern routine. But now, I’m left with the daunting task of discovering my career path.