As a second-semester freshman photo editor, I was terribly inexperienced and under-qualified. But, with the help of a great staff and photographers, we made it work.

When the Pipe Dream website desperately needed a redesign, then-Editor-in-Chief Nate Fleming handed me the keys and gave me free reign. I was still inexperienced and under-qualified. But, once again, we made it work.

That summer I applied to 25 internships and was rejected from all but one. I’ll always be grateful to the engineers at WePay, a 50-person startup, who took a risk on me and taught me more in a summer than I learned in two years of classes.

Finally, for once in my life, I feel somewhat experienced and qualified to share some advice.

Before I go, I’ll leave you with three tips: join relevant clubs, work on side projects and surround yourself with great people.

Want to be a journalist? Join Pipe Dream. Want to be an EMT? Join Harpur’s Ferry. Got rejected? Take EMT classes, volunteer at another agency and apply again. Don’t let rejection discourage you. A little grit will carry you far.

Work on side projects. Please. Work on side projects. Make sure there’s something to separate you from 3,000 classmates once graduation rolls along. Graduation will creep up on you quicker than you can ever imagine.

Companies want to see what you learn outside the classroom. Want to be a software engineer? Create a startup, fail and repeat. Want to be a social media guru? Find a struggling local business and volunteer to run their social media. Measure the improvements and blog about the process. Do research and read. Always be creating.

Don’t take irrelevant jobs if you don’t need the money. Time spent on side projects will pay off tremendously in the long run.

Skipping grad school? Your GPA is probably less important than you think. The Googles and Facebooks of the world don’t care about your transcript. This is especially true when you compete against students from top universities around the world. Save some time for friends.

Most importantly: Surround yourself with great people. I’ve learned so much from my friends at Pipe Dream. Rob, you were the perfect news editor and taught me everything about journalism. Nate, thanks for all the trust and, as always, thanks for coming in! Jules, you’re insanely talented and deserve all the success.

The people at this University make it great and I’m so incredibly thankful. I won the housing lottery my freshman year and lived in the best suite on the best floor. Floor 1A, you made these four years incredible. The girls in Hughes: You’re all nuts but equally as great. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You all have a chance to do something great. Take this opportunity and run with it.

— Daniel O’Connor is a senior majoring in computer science and the founder of HackBU.

At a Hinman College Council meeting held last Tuesday, Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Rose told attendees that opening a law school is not a viable option for the University at this time.

“There are law schools right now who are not filling up their seats, there are graduates from law schools who aren’t getting jobs, and so the environment right now to found a new law school isn’t a particularly favorable one,” Rose said.

In order to create an accredited law school, the University took steps to gain approval from the New York State Division of the Budget, the SUNY Board of Trustees, the Board of Regents and the governor, as well as the American Bar Association. The University secured $3 million in state funding for the initial design and planning stages of the law school.

Rose indicated that even if all the proper approvals were acquired it would be unlikely that the University would move forward.

“So, whether we get approval or not from the process, that will only begin to move again now to create a law school, or not, and we don’t know the answer to that yet. It’s sort of out of our control,” Rose said at the meeting. “The reality of it is even if we got that approval, we wouldn’t act on it in the predictable future because the environment to found a law school is just not a favorable one.”

Rose said a law school would not currently be a sound investment for the University.

“There’s no timetable for it, but there’s also no urgency for it because if they said ‘yes’ tomorrow, both from a financial point of view and the investment we have to make and the reality of the demand for law school seats, we wouldn’t do anything,” Rose said.

Following the retirement of former President Lois DeFleur and the appointment of Interim President Peter Magrath, the review of proposed plans “just sat,” according to Rose.

In an email to Pipe Dream, University spokeswoman Gail Glover said that the law school plans are not “finished,” however.

Rose, when emailed for comment after the meeting, emphasized that his remarks referred only to the University’s current situation.

“For the sake of reiterating my own comments at the Hinman meeting, I think what I explained was that the environment to create a law school was not currently favorable and that if we secured approval to establish a law school ‘tomorrow,’ we would be unlikely to act on that right now,” Rose wrote in the email.

President Harvey Stenger said in a prepared statement that he will take time to consider whether to move forward with the creation of a law school.

“In my two months as president, I have learned much from our faculty, staff, students, alumni and community leaders about many aspects of our great University, but not enough to make decisions at the scale of a Juris Doctor degree,” Stenger said. “I believe it will take me several more months of collaborative discussions before I have enough information to endorse the creation of programs that will have the transformational impact equivalent to a J.D. program.”

The “Our Plans for a Law School” page on the University’s website is currently down, but the website still includes several posts about the possibility of a law school, including one from Feb. 7, 2008.

“Binghamton University is moving forward with its proposal to establish a law school as the next logical step for the University as it expands educational opportunities for students,” the post began.

Correction: Jan. 27, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Brian Rose as Binghamton University’s vice president for academic affairs. He is actually the vice president for student affairs.