Mar
22
Steve Jobs advises the 2005 graduates at Stanford
March 22, 2023 | Leave a Comment
As the 2005 graduates of Stanford look into the rest of their lives, the creator of Apple Computer Company Steve Jobs advised the class in his commencement speech to not be afraid to make mistakes.
The famous entrepreneur is no stranger to making mistakes himself at 50 years old as he had several examples. He was adopted shortly after his birth by his parents Paul and Clara Jobs, who had no college degrees despite what his mom had intended for him. His parents promised he would go to college, and he did end up going.
Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon for six months before dropping out due to the financial burden on his parents. Although he stayed on campus as a drop in for 18 months, he still never graduated as his biological mother had desired. But mistake or not, as he said in his speech, it was because of him dropping out and taking classes he actually wanted to take that he discovered typography, which became a major feature in his creation of his innovative computer.
“You have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future,” Jobs said. “You have to trust in something; your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart. Even when it leads you off the well worn path, that will make all the difference.”
That decision to not finish college was a dot that connected later on in his life, as he and co creator Steve Wozniack ended up having a multi billion dollar company. When Jobs and “Woz”, as he called him in the speech, first met working together in an HP factory over the summer, they couldn’t have even dreamed of their success in 1975 with an idea that simply originated in a garage out of an interest in computers and technology.
For Jobs though, that success was stalled when he got fired from his own company by John Sculley, who had worked for Pepsi-Cola as a marketing vice president previously. Sculley was hired by Jobs in 1983 as the chief executive officer of the company, and when he and Jobs had some creative differences two years later, Jobs didn’t have majority stocks in the company anymore and was forced out.
This was another mistake that hit Jobs hard as he said in the speech. He felt as though he had left the future generation of entrepreneurs down. His firing led to him approaching Dave Packard, famous for the creation of the Hewlett-Packard Company, a manufacturer of computers, computer printers, and analytic and measuring equipment as well as Bob Noyce who invented the integrated circuit or microchip.
Jobs felt as though he was lost when he approached the computer pioneers to apologize. After some reflection, Jobs realized he still held a love and passion for computers, and slowly began to feel inspired again. There was something refreshing about “the lightness of being a beginner” for him. He later came up with NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialized in computers for higher-education and business markets.
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith,” Jobs said. “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
The loss he experienced was yet again a mistake that led to fortune through his perseverance towards more. Not only did he create a new innovation that later bought him back into Apple, but he also ended up meeting his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, in his step away from the path. In the end, he was able to find love and renew love all from a big loss.
Jobs also said in the speech that life faces people with hard choices. The way he was able to make them was through the mentality that “if you live each day as if it was your last, most certainly you will be right”. He said that in life everyone has something to be embarrassed or scared about, but that it fades with death.
The computer legend himself had a facing with death in 2003. He was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer which ended up being curable through surgery. He said that was the closest he’s been to death, but surviving showed him exactly what that quote he heard and lived by meant. With that lesson he had yet another life lesson for the graduates.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs said. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Jobs ended with one sentence for the graduates to take away that he had seen in the last issue of the Whole Earth Catalog in the mid 1970s. He referred to mistakes one last time, saying, “Stay young, stay foolish.”
Mar
13
Gymnastics awaiting NCGA qualifiers
March 13, 2023 | Leave a Comment
The UW-Whitewater women’s gymnastics team competed in the WIAC conference meet which was also the NCGA West Regional on Saturday Mar. 12. The meet took place in Oshkosh and unfortunately the team did not qualify overall to go to the championship at fourth place.
“We started on bars and then we went to beam, floor and then vault,” Junior Sarah Knetzke, bars and floor, said. “We had a little bit of a rough start on bars, but afterwards, we went to beam and I think we got one of our highest scores of the season. So we’re really excited about that. It was really a lot of fun because we’re really confident in those last two events. That made it a really fun meet, but we thought we were going to be able to make it but we ended up being just not close enough.”
The team did turn it around right near the sixth rotation, but it still was not enough to make it as a team, though some individuals are likely to qualify from the team. Those results are expected to come out Monday Mar. 13.
“I think we really rallied on beam because it’s definitely one of our weaker events, but we knew what we had to do to win,” Knetzke said. “And so I think we kind of all came together and just trusted our training and did exactly what we do in practice to make it happen. And it was definitely one of the better beam rotations we’ve had all season, so that was really exciting for us.”
Through all the highs and lows of the season, the team can still hope for an extension of the season through anyone who may qualify. Besides that, the regular season is pretty much done, so Knetzke reflected on the team this year.
“I feel like this whole season we’ve definitely talked about how we’ve had the best atmosphere we’ve ever had on this team,” Knetzke said. “We just had a really tight knit group this year. So there’s a lot of potential and it was a lot of fun because we were really close. We’re all very excited for next year, but it was unfortunate that we couldn’t qualify for one of our seniors. She had to stay at home this weekend due to COVID, which was really hard because her last meet was last weekend and she didn’t know that. That’s what makes it kind of hard on all of us too, knowing that she wasn’t here so that we could qualify.”
Knetzke also said that if enough of the individuals qualify then the team could have a possibility to travel with them. Regardless of the results, both senior Faith Mylin and senior Meg McGinley had some awards at the end which was a high note. Mylin received a fourth place finish to earn all-conference honors and McGinley was also recognized on the All-Sportsmanship Team.
Jan
25
Gymnastics recruits flying in from all over
January 25, 2023 | 1 Comment
When building a sports team, coaches typically build and stick to a certain list of attributes and qualities within their athletes. This type of guide likely varies coach to coach, as no team is the same.
The UW-Whitewater women’s gymnastics team is mainly recruited by assistant coaches Chloe Edgren and Siri Bartlein with some guidance from head coach Jennifer Regan. One of the more unique things about the team is that they actually have gymnasts from 14 different states besides Wisconsin and even one from Canada.
“Our philosophy changed after I was here for a couple of years and decided we needed to go out of state,” Regan said. “Not because there wasn’t the level of the gymnasts that we want here, it’s just that in order to stay competitive within our conference we needed to explore outside of our borders.”
Some of the states the women are from include Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. It may seem strange to some people for gymnasts to come all the way to Wisconsin for D3 gymnastics, but there’s actually only 81 programs for gymnastics across the county, with 6 being in Wisconsin, according to ncsasports.org.
So Regan says she looks to create a second home for the athletes, especially since many of them came from further away.
“It’s all about getting to know the athletes and their families. Because when they drop them off, they know that they’re going to be ours 1000s of miles away, and they want to know that they’re going to be well taken care of and well supported,” Regan said. “So I think having gymnasts from different states brings a combination of things, but definitely it brings people from different areas and different backgrounds, which gets us to figure out how we can all connect and create our own little family here.”
Despite creating a comfortable environment, Regan still says that she wants to challenge her athletes and the coaches all “hold academics very, very highly” in their athletes’ priorities. Her coaching style focuses on pushing her athletes to be the best they can, and not just in gymnastics.
“We’ve won five national championships and we’ve won five conference championships so I think there’s tradition,” Regan said. “They want to win. They want to be successful. They want to continue to improve their gymnastics, I think that’s another big piece is that they’re just not going to stop here. But they’re going to continue to grow.”
Overall Regan says she wants to support her athletes in all the ways she can, especially since she is recruiting people who aren’t necessarily the most familiar with Wisconsin. To her, it’s all about creating opportunities for gymnasts, and keeping them on that track to be successful.
“It’s us as coaches trying to open the doors for other opportunities,” Regan said. “Opportunities to other individuals that they didn’t think they had because maybe their state doesn’t offer that. It’s important to us to be getting this great university known to so many more people, because we don’t have to stay within our borders, and we will continue doing so.”