It’s my third year at Cal State L.A. (I’ll be graduating at the end of this year though..) and I feel that there is so much of the Microsoft dominance on campus. Why not offering something new? I had known about the Google Ambassador program at the beginning of last year, but I didn’t have the chance to apply because the application was closed by the time I knew about the program. It says on the application page that I have to wait for the next school year to apply. I’ve always been the fans of Google. People around me have known me to talk so much about Google’s cultures, philosophies, products, etc.

So, while I was waiting.. I looked around on what things that I could do on campus to offer something different, and to let people know that there’s more than the Microsoft products..!! So I decided to contribute to the Fedora Project by becoming the Los Angeles Fedora Ambassador for a while. When I was a Fedora Ambassador, I did the Fedora 9 release party for Los Angeles area, and it turned out to be really successful! In fact, we were the winner for the release party competition! ;)

I also remembered when I’ve been told to apply for becoming the Microsoft Student Partner at Cal State L.A.. I think that it had been the tradition where the ACM President is generally become the one who is also the Microsoft Student Partner, and I was holding the President position for the ACM Student Chapter at Cal State L.A.

I discussed my plans with the Computer Science Department Chair, Dr. Pamula, who is also my adviser, that I’ve been always thinking if we’re able to offer more than the Microsoft products because I see that our campus seems to be very Microsoft-ish.. I also told him about my plan on applying for the Google Campus Ambassador, and he supports me.

In summer 2008, I had several job offers, and I decided to join the Google Summer of Code 2008 with the Moodle project. It was amazing experience! I also had the chance to visit Google office at Santa Monica with other Student Developers in the Google Summer of Code program. It was fun! We also had the chance to present the project that we were working on, exchange ideas, and got to know the work culture at Google. Afterward, I kept on checking the Google’s website for the Google Campus Ambassador application.. And finally, it’s opened! So I applied..

After waiting for the couple of weeks, I just received an email notification from one of the employee at Google that I’ve been selected as the 2008 – 2009 Google Campus Ambassador for Cal State L.A..!!

I’ve tons of ideas, and I’m really excited about this. By the way, I’m the first Google Campus Ambassador at Cal State L.A. :D

As a Google Ambassador, I will be working closely with the Google University Programs teams, host and organize campus events for recruiting and/or product-focused initiatives, helping Google to better understand the campus’ culture, making friends, expert on Google’s products, promoting Google’s products, spread “Google it”, and “Don’t be evil”.