Meet Holden Smith, the April Undergraduate of the Month! Holden is double majoring in GIS and Computer Science!

Where are you from?

I'm from Ellicott City, Maryland!

What are your interests within your program(s)?

Within my program, I'm interested in Software Engineering/ Design and Databases.

What previous jobs, internships, and volunteer experience have you had?

I interned over the summer as a software engineer at Viasat, working on a software project with another intern. Last semester I interned for UMD Facilities Management, as part of the Campus GIS program.

Where are you/have you been interning?

I'm still interning for the UMD Facilities Management, as a part of the Campus GIS program.

What are your internship responsibilities?

I worked on multiple tasks for improving the UMD Campus Webmap (maps.umd.edu). I also worked on the internal Facilities Management Snow Management system.

What project(s) are you working on or contributing to?

I updated the UI for the Snow Management system, removed old links, and implemented a dynamic weather forecast using the Yahoo Weather API. For the Campus Webmap, I updated the URLs including the new URLs for sharing specific maps. I also worked on an updated layer for the Campus Webcams, which involved creating a new base layer in ArcGIS, defining new properties for the Webcams in ArcGIS, and exporting the layer to be used in the web version of ArcGIS that is running the Campus Map.

How is the internship experience relevant to your studies in Geographical Sciences?

The tasks I was given at my internship with Facilities Management required me to use my knowledge of ArcMap which I had learned in GEOG373. It also taught me some new things about using ArcMap, which have been useful this semester as I have started taking GEOG473.

What are your career goals after your graduate?

I will be working at Viasat - the company I interned with over the summer - after I graduate this semester. I hope to work for them for a few years, and eventually I am interested in returning to college to work on a Masters - likely here at UMD. I may start taking courses while working at Viasat.

If you could travel to anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
I took 4 years of German in high school, so I’d like to take a trip to Germany some day. That way I can put those 4 years of learning to use, and experience firsthand the culture that I learned about.

We hope you find time in between working and studying to visit Germany! Viasat is lucky to have you on their staff!

Congratulations, Holden!