CCNY Students Tweeting Their Summers

Each summer, many City College of New York students leave the classroom behind to immerse themselves in exciting off-campus experiences. This year, a cadre of undergraduates invites you to follow their adventures on Twitter as they launch summer projects in academia, government, and the non-profit sector.

The “Tweeting Your Summer” project begins by following the posts of four exceptional seniors in engineering and computer science. So far they have dipped into local cultural activities, befriended colleagues and fellow scholars, dived into the literature of their fields, discovered new joys, and wrestled with uncooperative equipment.

To check in on the students, search within Twitter with the hash tag code, #ccnysum, or simply follow each student’s tweets by going to the “Tweeting Your Summer” page, clicking “Follow” and signing onto Twitter.

Meet the students and read their tweets:

Alina Sabanska, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering traveled to Boston as a student scholar with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Materials Processing Center. For her summer research internship, she delves into the world of the very small – the nanoscale, in fact. Ms. Sabanska will be using nanoengineering techniques to develop coatings and surfaces that prevent scale formation, a problem familiar to anyone who has scrubbed an encrusted faucet.

She has already met her mechanical nemesis, experienced a breakthrough, seen a Boston Pops dress rehearsal and watched the 4th of July fireworks over the Charles River. She tweets:

• @AlinaSabanska: #ccnysum Still in the lab, last set of measurements... Goniometer I h@te you.

•  AlinaSabanska: #ccnysum Had training on SEM, seeing material structure very closely at X5000 and outside of textbook is empowering. I can change the world.

• @AlinaSabanska: #ccnysum Boston being a city surrounded by many colleges and universities has many random activities and the most delicious food. I love it!

Senior Errol Markland, a computer engineering major, secured a summer fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. In developing a web application for computer security metadata, Mr. Markland has thrown himself into readings, discovered the joys of pair programming, and hit some bumps on the road to mastering Java Persistence Annotators (JPAs). He tweets:

• @mr_markland: #ccnysum Lots of work covered today and now 3 books that I have to check out. Me and Java are getting quite acquainted to each other

• @mr_markland: #ccnysum My battle to get JPAs to function in my favor continues! Also, its time to submit my abstract (and to possible give a talk!)

Isatou Sanneh, a fourth-year computer science student from Republic of the Gambia interns with Greenproofing Inc. in New York. She works with a food pantry program for children and researches the fresh food production by community gardens in the city. Ms. Sanneh tweets of gardening mentors, hydroponics, and inspiration in the food pantry:

• @isatousanneh: According to Mr. Prince, every plant has a face and a back just like humans, and we should grow plants with their faces to the east!#ccnysum

• @isatousanneh: The smiles on the faces of the Food pantry program recipients made me feel good! It's good to give back and help the community! #ccnysum


Mechanical engineering student Jay Sircar tweets from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. For his fellowship, he is using particle transport code to simulate the theoretical radiation dosage a patient would receive while undergoing microbeam radiation therapy (MRT). The code does not always want to cooperate, but he finds opportunities for fun in and out of the lab:

• @JaySircar: #ccnysum Finally figured out how I can do my coding. Unfortunately still haven't figured out how to make it groundbreaking >.<

• @JaySircar: #ccnysum Unexplained memory access segmentation errors ruined my day yesterday >.<

• @JaySircar: Boss's boss (Division Head) taking us out on his sail boat tonight o.O Still have to finish my abstract first though :-/