Andrew L. Kostin's Blog

This year the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering Class of 2009 planted a tree on Earth Day! Check out my video from the event!

Labels: AITE

The Stamford Advocate took the article about me offline (as they do with all of their articles after about a month or so.) Since many people have been requesting it I thought I'd put a copy on my blog.

Student means business at his own lecture series
By
Donna Porstner
Staff Writer
Stamford Advocate
Article Published:
Saturday, April 5, 2008

STAMFORD - Andrew Kostin starts his days
at the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering. But by midafternoon,
he's working for one of world's largest investment banks.

The high
school senior, who recently began his second internship with UBS Investment Bank
in downtown Stamford, started a lecture series to teach his peers about the
company - and what it's like to enter the rat race.

The 17-year-old
decided to bring what he was learning in the workplace back to school after
getting peppered with questions from curious classmates.

"They
would say, 'What types of servers do you use, and what's your BCM plan?' " he
said, explaining the tech-savvy teens wanted to know what business continuity
plans the firm has in place to disperse information during power outages and
other emergencies.

Kostin couldn't answer all their questions, so
he decided to bring in the experts who could. He invited UBS executives to speak
on topics ranging from balancing stock portfolios and equities to diversity in
the workplace.

He modeled the talks after a lecture series he
participated in last summer for UBS interns. About 50 students have attended
each session.

"It gives our students an idea what's going on with
the economy, what's going on in the business world, and gives them ideas for
career paths," AITE Principal Paul Gross said.

Kostin receives high
school credit for coordinating the lectures and working at UBS after school.
While several AITE students are doing independent studies, he's is the only one
to launch a lecture series, Gross said.

"This is a really special
event, where the student - with no motivation other than his idea - decided to
put this together," Gross said. "He just saw a great opportunity to give back to
his school in a very unique way, and we are very proud of
him."

Kostin, whom the principal describes as "quite smart, quite
aggressive and quite focused," is president of the school's Stock Market Club
and a student council representative for the senior class. He also serves as a
student ambassador, giving prospective students and their parents tours of the
campus.
"He's got a work ethic, and he's got a vision that's not typical of
most seniors," Gross said.

Brian Bishop, a UBS executive director,
said Kostin was the only high school intern invited to stay on during the school
year, largely because of his expertise in building internal Web
sites.

"I think it was Andrew's technical skills that led us to
keep him on for the full year," Bishop said.
AITE is an interdistrict magnet
school that integrates technology into college-preparatory classes. The school,
which had 183 students when it opened at Rippowam Middle School in 2000, has
nearly 500 pupils today. It moved into a state-of-the art, $45 million building
in September.

Like Kostin, about a third of the students come from
outside Stamford. Students must apply and are chosen by
lottery.

"Andrew is just one of the shining examples of what
students from outside of our district have brought to our district," Gross
said.

Kostin, who lives in Darien, attended Cushing Academy, a
boarding school in Ashburnham, Mass., for his freshman year, before transferring
to AITE two years ago. At the time, he was interested in a career in technology,
said his mother, Susan Kostin. Her son's interest shifted to the business world
after participating in the UBS internship and job-shadowing programs that took
him into local businesses such as Pitney Bowes and the Marriott hotel downtown,
she said.

Andrew Kostin's father was a managing partner with
PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Stamford who taught tax law at the University of
Pennsylvania's law school and Wharton School of Business. During Andrew Kostin's
sophomore year, he attended one of the last classes his father taught before he
died.
"Clearly, that was an influence," Susan Kostin said.

He
plans to study business in college, although he has not decided which school he
will attend in the fall: the University of New Haven or Fairleigh Dickinson
University in New Jersey.

Asked whether some of his lectures are
too grown-up for high school students, Kostin admitted the first presentation,
on the topic of risk, went over the heads of some teens in the audience. But he
said it has been a good learning experience to work with the guest speakers to
develop a program suitable for his age group.

"I took the feedback
I got from the students, and what I saw myself, and I said, 'Why don't you less
PowerPoint presentations and just talk about what you did in college?” he
said.

Kostin hopes that by giving his peers some insight into the
business world, they will be inspired to seek out careers in the financial
services industry.

"Through the speaker series, I am saying you can
get there in life, and this how you get there," he said.

Labels: AITE, Speaker Series, Stamford Advocate, UBS

Gateway will be coming out with a new Tablet PC in time for the back to school rush sporting a finger print reader, an ambient light sensor and both active and passive digitizers. Check out the user guide here!

Labels: Gateway, Tablet PCs

I recently read an engadget article saying Bill Gates is limiting his daughter's internet time. Gates says his daughter has been playing the video game Viva Piñata, purportedly playing for "two to three hours per day." So Mr. Gates felt the need to slapp down a "45-minutes per day" law for non-school related computing tasks on the weekdays, and added just 15 minutes for weekends.

I think this is a little harsh. considering that an hour is just 1/24 of one day. Somehow I'm just not sure how well a rule like this could be enforced as the line between school related work and play can be a gray one. This may not be they way I will make my kids spend their time but who am I or anyone else blogging about this to tell Bill Gates how to take care of his children?

Labels: Bill Gates, Internet, Technology

On Sunday, February 4, 2007 I wrote the following letter to the City of Stamford Board of Education in response to hearing that as part of the Board of Education’s 1.6 million dollar budget decrease, my school, The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering would lose 3.6 teacher positions, along with one educational assistant. I also learned that AITE would lose $25,000 in equipment and supplies, and $12,000 for recruiting and retaining students. I was so outraged after hearing this that I decided to submit this letter to the Stamford Advocate for publishing in their Letter to the Editor section. A shortened version of the letter was published one week later on Sunday, February 11, 2007; this letter can be found here.

Dear City of Stamford Board of Education members,

My name is Andrew L. Kostin and I am a junior at The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering, a public magnet high school in Stamford, CT. It has come to my attention that The City of Stamford Board of Education is involved in determining the budget for next year. I am concerned that our current high quality of education will significantly diminish due to restrictive budgets. From what I understand, The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering’s proposed budget is under review and may be subject to reduction.

I think that The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering should not see a reduction in budget for many reasons. One reason is that at The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering I am given tremendous opportunities that I and many of my fellow pupils take advantage of that are not offered at other high schools. Some of these opportunities include smaller class sizes, a wide array of electives and special events and programs we are able to have such as our internship program/ job shadow field trip program. Last Friday I had the tremendous opportunity to go on one of the many job shadow field trips I have been on. I went to the Holiday Inn in Stamford, CT to spend a day with the Director of Sales and Marketing to learn what it is like to be in corporate sales and if that is something I would be interested in pursuing for a career. This is just one of many job shadow field trips I have been on, last year I went to Thompson Publishing in Stamford and met with there CEO and spent almost an entire day with the Chief Financial Officer of Pitney Bowes just to name a few. Sadly the AITE internship coordinator at our school, Ms. Fran Galasso says that the grant that pays her salary expires this year and she may not be invited back due to budgetary reasons next year. I couldn’t imagine the program being the same with out her.

Another reason I love The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering and the education I get there is because of the excellent course selection options I have. While technology and engineering are the focuses of our school I also have many other elective options at our school including a full music and arts program. Personally my favorite subjects are Business and Finance. I have taken International Business, Corporate Financial Management and E-Commerce at my school. I have reached the end of the course offerings at my school in business and finance outside of accounting and though I can and will continue my business education through our schools Virtual High School program I would like to see expanded offerings in our schools electives, not a decrease due to budgetary reasons.

As hard as it is to believe, I enjoy getting up everyday at about six o’clock in the morning to go to school. I recognize that many of America’s jobs are going overseas to people that have higher educations than many Americans and are willing to work for far less than I am. In my opinion if you, the Board of Education decrease the quality of my education by reducing The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering’s budget you are helping the countries overseas, you are setting me up for failure. You, the Board of Education are only robbing yourself, your future and your fellow Americans by taking someone capable of being the next fortune 100 CEO and saying we are decreasing your school’s funding which may not allow you to continue to take business courses so that the tax payers have a little more green in their pockets.

I hope that through this letter I have been able to persuade you to reconsider any thoughts of decreasing my schools funding. If you have any questions for me I would encourage you to contact me using the information listed below (removed for publication.)

Regards,
Andrew L. Kostin
Junior, The Academy of Information Technology and Engineering