The Campus Ambassadorship was a great experience. What I got: pay for five hours a week, all the training in Sun technologies that I desired, a chance to work on my presentation skills, an invitation at the end of the program to join Sun in a full-time capacity, and perhaps the most unexpected: a huge appreciation for everything Sun is doing. I'm a huge fan of Java and have been for some time, but 6 months ago I knew nearly nothing about Solaris and ZFS. I have come out as a fan appreciation of these technologies, and I realize that this is just the beginning. The amount of open source that Sun has available is simply mind-boggling. And the fact that much of Sun open source is practically enterprise-grade&mdashwell, not much more can be said! All there is to do is to go, grab it, use it, learn from it, and appreciate it. Sun is literally putting millions of dollars into your hands for free. By the way—as I'm writing this, I'm not on Sun's payroll, so I have nothing to gain by preaching praise for Sun. But I, and you, have much to gain by exploring the work that Sun's engineers have poured blood, sweat, and tears into.
As some of you might know, aside from being a Sun Campus Ambassador, I was also completing my Masters of Science in Computer Science at USC, held a Software Engineering position at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was the Executive Director of Project:Possibility. I must admit that I am writing this post a bit hastily, as I am currently working full time on Phoenix operations. I developed a piece of software called the "Image Products Release Website" (IPRW) which manages the release of digital media for the Phoenix mission—and it will also be used for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and hopefully many other missions at JPL.
This may be the last post I make to this blog, so I'd like to end with saying: Thank you, Sun Microsystems, for this great experience. Thank you to Ramesh Govindan, current Chair of the Computer Science Department at USC, for informing me and recommending me for this position, and thank you to the entire USC community for your support and interest this past semester. This program, and my role, would be pointless and fruitless if the communities at Sun and USC felt this was an important, worthwhile, and interesting initiative, so I acknowledge you all for your support and involvement this past five months.
If you would like to keep in touch with me, please look out for updated information at christopherleung.com, soon to be my new home on the web.
I leave you with a picture of myself with some of the USC Java User Group leaders in front of Tommy Trojan in the heart of USC Campus. Go Trojans!
