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A robotic fleet built to penetrate dark and narrow cave passages, cellular studies into alcohol’s role in hastening neurodegeneration in people with HIV, plants that absorb pernicious pollutants from the air and new methods for eliminating noise from data searches are a few of the research projects that drew students back to campus laboratories this summer.

NJIT welcomed several special guests to campus Aug. 7 for a showcase representing the culmination of the Ras Baraka Coding Institute (BCI) at NJIT, part of the Newark Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). The program offers participants work experience with a summer income while teaching them valuable employment skills. More than 3,000 students take part every year, 40 of whom have spent this summer at the university immersed in either coding or architecture (the latter through NJIT’s Newark Beautification Community Gardens Initiative).

Plants that absorb pernicious pollutants from the air itself? Ujjwala Rai ’19, a chemical engineering major, has spent the summer studying bacteria found in the root systems of plants that can remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs), industrial compounds emitted by ubiquitous products such as paints and fuels, into the atmosphere. To better understand how these bacteria can thrive in a variety of soil-less media, she has worked closely with professors from the College of Architecture and Design (CoAD) and the Department of Chemical Engineering.

A group of 11th graders traveled from their chemistry class at Dwyer Technical Academy in Elizabeth, N.J. to the center of atoms and molecules.

Eager to explore this foreign dimension environed by electron orbits, the voyagers clutched atoms, felt them vibrate and got up close and personal with particles as they morphed into molecules. The students assessed radioactivity trends and learned the difference between solids, gases and liquids — and were back in time for the next class period. 

NJIT, one of the few public polytechnic institutes in the Northeast, is once again included in the latest edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges — a subjective and selective reference tool that systematically reviews over 300 colleges in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. For more than 30 years, millions of students, parents, and guidance counselors have relied on the Fiske Guide to Colleges to present the best and most interesting schools during their college search.

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is bucking an undergraduate admissions trend. While many universities are failing to hit recruitment targets and/or reducing their standards for admission due to sharp regional and national declines in the traditional college-aged population, NJIT has seen noteworthy growth this year in both applications and the average SAT score of those applicants.

Fresh off the heels of graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, Connor Watson ’18 has an internship lined up crunching data for Quantbot Technologies, a New York City-based private investment firm.

Following its 102nd commencement ceremony May 16 at the Prudential Center in Newark, which recognized undergraduate and doctoral students, NJIT continued the festivities at its new Wellness and Events Center (WEC) yesterday and today. There, the university conferred degrees to master’s students from all five academic schools. The occasions marked not only an educational milestone for the graduates, but also the first time commencement was held at the WEC.

Found your own company and be your own boss upon graduation? Unthinkable?

Not any more. 

In this day and age, founding a startup is a viable alternative to working as an employee in an existing company. Especially in the burgeoning tech sector. Especially in the exciting New York region. All you need is a sound business idea, some good technology to support it, a talented team and a small pot of money to get you to that first prototype.

Is it really that easy? Not quite. What does it take?