On October 22, ten juniors and seniors who are interested in technology and engineering had the unique opportunity to visit Google headquarters in New York City. Located in one of the largest buildings in the city, a full city block, Google has one of the coolest offices around. From the minute you walk in, you are wowed by lights and décor, a multi-screen wall that displays a live feed of worldwide Google searches and scooters and food at every turn. Each area has its own unique theme including old NYC subway cars, private library study spaces and Lego. The Lego area even has it's own lego play space for creative thinking. And, that is the motivation behind the design - to inspire engineers to think outside the box and be constantly innovating.
Students were invited to visit and receive a tour by Micah Lemonik. Micah is a graduate of North Shore Hebrew Academy, a resident of Great Neck and an entrepreneur. After graduating from Columbia University, Micah started a small company developing software. Four years later, Google acquired the company for the product now known as Google Docs (or Google Drive). Ten years later, Micah is now a senior staff software engineer managing over 250 staff engineers in New York.
Highlights from the tour provided by Micah included the Google Earth display, a 270 degree panel of screens with a trackball that lets you navigate throughout the earth, atmosphere and oceans; the lego play space; the ladder connecting two floors (for employees only); the "mini"-kitchens that provide snacks and beverages every few feet (Kosher too); the game area with foosball, air hockey and other recreational items; the whiteboards with notes everywhere and various themed spaces. After the tour, Micah gave the students an overview of what he does at Google, how he got started and some advice about careers in engineering. Finally, we convened over pizza in the Google cafeteria. It was a fantastic trip that was enjoyed by all.
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