Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: This is the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. This is the alumni edition.
Listen to the exciting story of the american community schools of Athens. Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future.
Here's John Papadakis.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: As we're wrapping up the third season of the Outcast, we're happy to host Alex Stelaya, an ACS Athens alum class of 2012, who visited the school recently and sat in the studio to talk about his school days and where life has taken him since.
It's no coincidence that this episode airs this Friday, commencement day for the class of 2024, since Alex's insights are as relevant as ever for those entering their college years and will be taking stock of ACS Athens life on their way forward. As the discussion with Alex Talea unfolds, it's evident that one of the coolest things for Alex was getting exposed to totally new tech like coding and computer science when he was a kid. That really sparked his curiosity from an early age, which the school definitely encouraged through lots of hands on individual and group projects. Alex has all kinds of memories from his time at ACS Athens, everything from being a presenter in the first ever TED ed event in the school to discussing heavy topics like the financial crisis in Greece through the economics lens. In class, he credits that well rounded education for shaping how he looks at problems from all angles. It was a mind shift when he got to college, though, having to adapt to a more individualized way of learning compared to all the team based collaboration and personal attention he experienced in the ACS Athens academy. During that adjustment, Alex felt like his ACS Athens background gave him a leg up by making him comfortable with tackling different subjects and quickly getting up to speed with new situations. He's big on pushing to get digital skills like AI embedded into coursework, since that tech is revamping just about every industry out there. His main concern is being careful that historical biases don't get baked into how we design AI systems. Looking ahead, Alex Talea sees big potential for AI to supercharge employees across all kinds of fields, but also the need to totally rethink job training to keep up with the changes. His advice to current students keep that sense of curiosity on the max, be ready to embrace new cultures and mindsets when you get to college, and definitely take advantage of any internships or experiential gigs you can get your hands on. As for summing up his overall aces, Athens experience in just three words listen in. It's not what you'd expect.
Alex, welcome. Thank you for being with us. This is a return after a few years, not too many.
So why don't you give us a wrap up of your experience up to and including acs and your graduation. What have you been doing? You know, what's your, what's your main thing in life?
[00:03:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm absolutely happy to be here and excited to be back in beautiful Greece after a long time. So yeah, 1312 years ago, I think I graduated. So 2012. Time passes very fast.
Since graduation I went to Georgia Tech where I studied computer science. I did that for four years and I went to San Francisco where I worked for a startup as an engineer for about two years, moved over to Microsoft in Seattle, and then for the last almost five years I've been working at Meta, big tech, smaller tech, but all tech since then. And that's where my passion in tech started back in the ACS Athens days with a lot of the work I was doing for side projects with websites for teachers and in TeDx Youth day and internships with Prezi.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: So, oh my goodness, you were always around tech.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: And to tell you the truth, I remember you were the one who introduced me to Prezi at the time where PowerPoint was the king. And then you came one day and you say, have you seen this? I'm like, what is that? So it was quite a new experience. But the most important thing for me at least and for everybody who's in technology is that when you see new things, you need to have a new pair of eyes. And you were in technology, you always had new eyes when things came up. New things. So why don't you, before you left acs, what was your experience here?
What were your days at ACS? And, you know, we'll talk about your favorite teachers, you know.
[00:05:14] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, my experience at ACS, I think I did a lot of everything. So I was active in the tennis community, so I played.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: You still play?
[00:05:25] Speaker C: I still play, yes, I played singles, won for most of the years with Igor who was still around. So that was really fun. And coach Chris, so great experience on the tennis team, played all four years.
Did cross country too, which now I don't really like running, but looking back I was like, what was I thinking? But that was really fun with, you know, Mister Nelson and all that. So that was a fun experience on the team, learning a very mental sport, I would say that was very different from tennis.
And then I did a lot of sciences and math.
There was no IB computer science, so you know, now I hear there is one. So lucky students, I guess. But, yeah, in my time, there wasn't an IB.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Computer science, computer science, AI, robotics. I mean, these are things that came up after you left.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: Yeah, when I was walking by up here, I saw the 3d printer and I was like, oh, this is nice. These kids have a much better tech experience than back in the day. But actually, I think that was a unique part of it. Like, I think not having as much access to maybe, you know, classes or, you know, these things made me more curious. And I think by going to the states after that, it created a sense of more passion, more interest, and maybe I would have had if I had some of those supports back in high school. So, yeah, did a little bit of that.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Is it safe to say that technology and tech classes were your favorite or science classes? What was the highlight of your day?
[00:06:46] Speaker C: Actually, I think this is something very interesting you mentioned, I think, from acs, I really like group classes and group learning and project based learning. And I didn't really realize until much later because I actually didn't really love the theoretical nature of classes at Georgia Tech. For a lot of my computer science classes, I really enjoyed the group ones, the interactive ones. So those were much more purposeful for me, and I learned a lot more. So that was something I think I learned because a lot of learning here was group based and interactive.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Did you find that in college life?
[00:07:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, later on, classes became much more interactive. But I think the first two years, I was like, this is very. I like to be hands on. I like to build websites. I like to make apps. I like to do stuff. So that was something I guess I started doing here a lot where I would just get hands on, you know, some teacher, some friend would have a problem, they would need a technology solution. I would be like, oh, I'll make that.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: Like, I'll be hands on. But, you know, in school, it's a lot more theoretical, which, I mean, it's rightfully so. There's no right or wrong, but I think I like more the interactive components, and that's where I think I learned best. So that, that was interesting. Learning through the years.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: How about your transition from ACS to college? I mean, you mentioned that from group learning, you went to theoretical learning and then back to group learning. I mean, how do you see yourself starting from ACS with the skills that you got, the whole mentality of classwork, moving to college, which was, was it expected, what you found, or was it something that you like, what am I doing here?
[00:08:14] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a very interesting question. I think the biggest takeaway I had was, I think, ACS Tommy, like, multifaceted approaches and ways of thinking and looking at things. I mean, I had such a diverse class, and everyone was doing different things. We had classmates that were, you know, more business minded, more economics minded, more mathematical, more creative, more artists. So going to engineering school at Georgia Tech, you know, that was a very stark contrast where, like, I feel like I had more perspective from Greece and from Athens, where I had some classmates that were looking more for artistic stuff and some were looking for engineering. But at Georgia Tech, everyone was pretty much singly minded on, like, I want to be an engineer. This is, like, the. So I think that really helped in bringing diverse perspectives of, like, what other fields they are. And, like, you know, not everyone was, as maybe, ambitious, put it bluntly, like, here, which I think was a good thing, right. Because it gave me a different view, and it was much more enjoy, you know, like, enjoying life, I think also came much more from Greece. And being here versus, like, you know, mental health was something really hard for a lot of kids in, like, Georgia tech. And, you know, I had a few classmates that, like, very much struggled, and teachers were very much, like, didn't really care about the students. They cared more about, like, making it hard. And I had an experience once. We had, like, a visiting professor in a classes, like, second year, I think. And it was a, like, business computing class. I think we're doing, like, some accounting principles. And the first class was. The first exam was, like, easy. We all did, you know, relatively well, I think it was, like, a 90 class average. The second one, the professor, he was visiting. He was a visiting professor. You know, he came from. From more. From an eastern educational perspective. He was like, yeah, I want to make the next exam a bit more difficult. And we're like, okay, probably going to make it a bit more difficult. The class average was a 55%.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Geez.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: And then he proceeds after that exam to read the names of the students and the grades. They got more like a public shaming mindset. And, oh, my gosh. I mean, there were people that, like, started crying. They left the room. It was, like, a big deal. But, like, you know, things like that is, like, very, very different from every, like, how. How the way of life was in.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Greece, where, like, you know, so it was purposeful. They wanted to actually shame ground you.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: But did they normalize at the end or.
[00:10:26] Speaker C: No, they made up for it because that was, like, you know, we had, like, the dean got involved and stuff like that. But I mean, it's just such different mindsets of learning that, you know, I think at acs I learned one way, but then going to, like, the US system and college systems are very different ways.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Well, this is a common experience because here, I mean, as you probably remember, you know, they are trying to help you understand what effort you need to do, actually, what kind of things you need to develop in your personality, in your learning style to make it in college. Now, every college is different, and especially when we have visits from colleges here, that's one of the questions that we're trying to ask all of them. What kind of student are you expecting to be successful in your college? And everybody's talking about, you know, eager to learn and, you know, be resilient and be mindful and this. But when you go to the actual meat of the situation, you know, sometimes it's a little bit different. So coming back to acs, before you left, would you consider something very specific that helped you develop this mindset? Is it a class? Is it a teacher? Is it an activity? You mentioned the TEDx, which was, I think, the first one that we did at that time, and everybody was like, what are you trying to accomplish here? Well, you are one example of what we were trying to accomplish. People inspire people to go towards the area that they're interested in. So what is your feedback?
[00:11:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess class and experience, I think. I mean, I really enjoyed, like, economics. I think that was a very interesting time because, you know, I graduated in 2012 and that was the heart of the financial crisis here. So I think that was one of the problems.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Were you conscious about this at the time?
[00:12:12] Speaker C: A little bit. And I'll tell you my naive way, how I was conscious about it was, you know, to walk the same streets I'd walk with friends. You know, sophomore year, you know, junior year, senior year. By the end of when I got to senior year, there were so many more of those for rent signs on the buildings. And that was my naive way of like, wow, like, things are really.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Hitting the fan.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: So thankfully, yeah, I wasn't, like, directly impacted. And my dad actually, I mean, he left Greece at the same time. I guess I went to the US. So it did impact him to some extent. But I think that was an interesting takeaway of, you know, I didn't really have a direct view, but learning, learning through class, through some, you know, some of the micro macro models that we were learning.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: So did you, do you remember in class talking about.
[00:12:58] Speaker C: Oh, yes, yes. We had heavy discussions. I remember a lot of my greek classmates were very vocal about it. A lot of my non greek classmates were maybe a little bit less vocal, but that was very interesting because it was like applied. Right. So I think just being in Greece, economics. Right. Economics, exactly like you see it. Right. And you can talk about like, you know, what does it mean for.
And I actually just saw Miss Drogueres. Yes. The other day when I was here. And, yeah, we were talking about economies of scale and, you know, there's different examples, but we were seeing a lot of that applied from the learning. And I think that made it really, really fun to see. Yeah.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Other than economics, any other.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: I enjoyed physics a lot. So we had doctor Christakos. He was a great, great teacher. And I think that was a fun small group. We had like a small group.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Did you see him again?
[00:13:43] Speaker C: It is him again, yes.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: With a different do.
[00:13:45] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
Spanish actually was one I really enjoyed. It actually helps me a lot now in the United States, you know, when like Atlanta, there's a big, you know, hispanic population in Atlanta, and being able to speak Spanish has been a blessing. So that's another one I didn't really realize until much, much, much later on that'd be helpful. So I think, yeah, it's just a great package overall that, you know, gets us prepared. I think there's a lot of great classes and I think the students were very, I think I was telling you yesterday in passing, or the other one, I was here. The alumni network of ACS two is very exciting, too, because you ran it. You run into them in the weirdest and less expected spots. Like, you know, sometimes Atlanta run into old alumni where I don't expect were in San Francisco. Now, I was there. I ran into a few. So I think, you know, the students are very diverse and very interesting as well. So you have sort of, I had a good upbringing here where it was like, you know, I got to experience a lot and see what I liked and what I didn't like. Right. Meanwhile, if I went to a more, maybe like a more straightforward school, it would have been a bit more like everyone's going to be a politician. Everyone's going to be a, you know, economist, everyone's going to be an engineer. Well, here, like, I was one of the odd ones for being more like into computer science. But I think that worked well because I realized what I wanted to do earlier on, then maybe a lot of people would go to college and do that later. So that was I was thankful for that experience, I guess, to be able to realize that quickly. Here.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: So going to the latest experience, after you left ACS and you went to college and you graduated, you saw a landscape in technology and a landscape in computer science that has been changing by the quarter, not even by the year.
Here at ACS, we're trying as much as possible to follow the trends, especially how do you bring technology down to earth in k twelve education? AI is the big buzzword right now, although it's been around for decades. You know, we suddenly see the large language models, you know, be embedded in everything that we do. I mean, you go to any social media, there is an AI assistant next to it, and we're trying to figure out how to communicate the need to our students, to our faculty, to our parents, the need to be AI literate technology, digital literate. So from your standpoint, I mean, maybe you can explain to us a little bit more in detail of what you are doing at this point. You said you work with Meta, you've been working with all technology related companies. How do you see the landscape forming for now? And I don't know if you dare make a prediction.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. I think that's the right approach. First of all, like, I think literacy is exactly how I would put it. Like, these technologies are still very new, and there's going to be a lot of, you know, as I saw with Google and some of the Gemini stuff, they launched with images and trying to introduce sort of diversity into their image generation backfired tremendously for them.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: So now we have movie generation.
[00:17:04] Speaker C: Exactly. We have movie generation, too. But I mean, there's a big risk, right? Like these models are trained on historical data which might propagate biases moving forward. So there's a lot of cons. There's a lot of pros as well, I would say. I think that's an excellent job that, like, you know, acs can do moving forward is like, do this literacy with students, parents, faculty, whatever, and really show, you know, there's a risk reward to using these tools. And all them have pros, all of them have cons. And I think that's going to be, I think, the future in the next maybe five years or so, like medium term, where I think the best graduates, you know, people joining the industry will be able to use these tools effectively, but also carefully. Right. And I think that's a very hard balance to strike. I don't think there's a golden solution for it. But these tools are, I see them as almost like a personal assistant, but for all of us, right? Like, it brings that layer of, you can do a lot more with your time and prepare content, review content, find new ways, find new frameworks, find new processes in a very, very simple way. But you also have to be able to analyze that and like, cross reference some of them just to make sure you're not like propagating an existing bias or you're not taking a shortcut or you're not doing a safety violation, things like that, depending on your workload. So I think the next five years or so, I think, is gonna be a lot of this automation efficiency. So it's gonna make everyone more efficient to some extent. I think for some fields it's gonna be transformative, unfortunately. And fortunately, I think it depends how you look at it, right? For example, for example, I mean, even like entry level software engineers, right? Like, I think there's so much tooling out there that a lot of the, like, at least my view is like a lot of these bigger tech companies and starting off, especially in the United States, are rethinking their strategy for like maybe looking at how is the new grad gonna be most effective? Because in the past, you know, new grads would just join the industry. They work on like simpler tasks, simpler projects. But now a lot of these can be like heavily templated and heavily tested and heavily, you know, automated, using the use of AI and getting, you know, really good code generation.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: So the coder, whoever is making the code, what is going to be the utility of this person if the AI is able right now to create code for simple applications?
[00:19:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I think connecting the dots, I think right now, that's why I think the big application of like, on all these tools, right? Like, if you're an economist, if you're a, you know, social media person, you can use these tools already. And I don't think that, I think a lot of people confuse it too. I don't think it's going to replace your job. I think we still very much need humans in all these applications today. I think it's going to be, the future is going to be about connecting these tools and frameworks together to, I think the whole automated AI complete AI takeover is very, very far away. Personally, general intelligence and all that stuff, I think is a ways out. I think the immediate future is going to be how do I use the best tools, carefully, responsibly, to do the job I want to do? And then being aware of any pros and cons of these approaches. So I think it's going to just make us all more efficient. But yeah, I think it's just kind of how all these ways of technology, early adopters, et cetera, go. I think AI has a lot of this, especially these large language models have a lot of potential and especially for education. I think that's something I actually don't know. And I'm curious to learn maybe a bit more from you if you have any of these use cases, like how students are using these, because that's if I was a senior or junior right now and having to do my ib, like, I would be probably heavily looking at these tools for inspiration or for ways to do it. It does remove the critical thinking component from it, but I think the critical thinking could be applied in the sense of what tools do I use and for what, and how do I get my unique essence through this paper, even using these tools? Or how do I differentiate myself? Because if everyone uses it, we're all going to be very similar in output. So I think that's something like, you know, schools and institutions can do really well. Moving forward is like leveraging, embracing these tools, having the risk reward of them, but then also showing individuals how to apply a personal angle and make yourself differentiate. At that point, if everyone's just using it, then there's very little, right?
[00:21:12] Speaker B: So in your field, I mean, where do you see challenges? Where do you see empowerment?
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's for me. And some of the work I do at Meta is, I think, how do we help people connect better and with less barriers? I think a lot of this is like, I work on comments right now. So a lot of the work I work on is comments, likes, reactions on Facebook. And you can imagine, right, like sometimes you might have like a writer's block, you might not know how to reply to your friend appropriately for a post. I might have some, you know, I just recently lost my job. You might want to have different ways of expression that, you know, you're more creative and you can use maybe AI to generate more of that content for you, which you might be more limited by options today that exist with stickers or gifts. So there's a lot of work, and you mentioned the assistance as well. There's a lot of work in the assistance space as well, to help get you information and plan trips, plan your day, plan posts, find your content, find your interest. So I think it's a really interesting world and especially a lot of these companies will introduce genai and AI to people for the first time. So that's a unique opportunity to educate, but also to, you know, showcase what these technologies can do in a. In a respectful and hopefully not detrimental fashion because it can be go the whole way around. You know, we've seen the voice switching videos and of politicians and stuff and. Yeah, I saw one the other day. You know, I'm originally from Romania. I was like, Biden speaking Romanian, and I was like, this looks really real and it could be very dangerous if this gets applied to the mass markets without proper education. So it's a very dangerous, slippery slope. I think there's positives, but I think there's also a lot of negatives that we.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Did you notice it because of your descent from Romania or was it. I mean, someone else might not pay attention, right?
[00:22:59] Speaker C: No, the accent, I was like, speaking Roman, I was like, is that Biden? And I was like, because they had the axe. His accent in Romania, it was pretty impressively done.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: So, yeah, the deepfakes are going to a different level, man. Well, you know what, you just mentioned the comments and everything and the reaction. So I have to ask you, and you don't feel obliged to, you know, to answer if you don't want that, why Facebook turned down the thumbs down icon?
[00:23:24] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I can't talk about that. But, yeah, I mean, it's ways of expression, right? So I think, you know.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I know there is a lot of discussion about the littlest things when it comes to interaction with people, and I just wanted to see your take. Yeah, that's ok.
I didn't expect you to answer.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: Yeah, of course.
I think that's the whole social nature and working with such a large user base and people makes it really exciting. And I think that's honestly a big part of what ACS had, too. It was a very social school, I would say we had a lot of things going on. I wasn't probably the most extroverted person in high school, but there's just so much happening that it was like.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: I wouldn't agree to that, but that's okay.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: Yeah, that was something I carried from Greece and being here for eight years. Overall, it's a very sort of like social, hospitality based country and, yeah, I think that's something actually helps me in my work because, you know, everything in these roles around, like, people, people problems and solving for others. So it's almost like a hospitality service we're providing for a lot of the work we do and that's also a great way of like, you know, product managers and people that work with people problems to really focus on the user and make them feel safe at home, you know, listen to, et cetera.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Create a community, in a sense.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Exactly. The sense of community.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: Exactly. I want you to take a different hat now, and I would like to put the hat of the mentor.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: So we have students here who are thinking of going to the states to go to study in a good school. They want to come to, let's say, georgia Tech, or they want to go to another big american university. What kind of mentality should they have? Forget about the skills. They need to be good students. They need to score high in the, in the tests and everything. But what kind of mentality? Someone who's not an american, who's not, has not lived in the states, should have to be successful when they go abroad for college.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I think mentality wise, I think just being flexible at the beginning. Right. Giving it a chance. I think everyone kind of goes into a new experience, new environment. It's gonna be things you like, things you don't like. So just giving a dollar do chance, I think, is probably the most important thing. Like, when you go there, maybe you'll learn a lot about yourself. You learn a lot about what you like to do, what you don't like to do. So I think just not putting too much pressure on yourself is very important. I think you'll have a much better time if you just go there with as much of an open mindset as possible and try. Try new things. I think go out of your comfort zone a little bit. I mean, I think it's the perfect time. Early on, you might go to these places and you might not really know. Like, I remember I went to my first baseball game and I was my phone texting a friend, and I asked my other friend next to me, I was like, when is warm up over? And they're like, no, it's like the bottom of the third inning. And I was like, oh, right, like, it's also cultural. Yeah, exactly.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: It's also there.
[00:26:15] Speaker C: So, yeah, I mean, there's things, you know, you learn and you'll. But I think it's a. It's an exciting time. I'm not too familiar with the UK systems versus the, you know, the us ones, but I think a lot of the us schools typically much larger. And I think the first two years also is going to be more generic. So a lot of the classes I did the first two years were pretty much what we edited in school here I was happy to have some IB credits and skip some classes. So definitely don't, you know, sleep on those IB exams and definitely get the credits because it saves you so much time and headache later on. But yeah, I think, you know, try and make friends and you know, I think it's easy to try and stick to what you knew back home, but I think, you know, unless you know for sure you're gonna come back to come back home or come back to Greece, then I think it's worth trying to meet friends from.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Be social.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Exactly. All different. You know, it's a very different diversity from Greece. Right. So you meet friends from all over.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: The world, but it's also a very different environment from a uk university or a dutch university. The american universities, as far as I know, because that's where I'm coming from, it's all about having a community experience and a college experience and, you know, having friends doing stuff with them. Not that you don't have friends in other universities, but I think the culture of the american university is a little bit different.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: So for let's, let's specialize it a little bit more. Students that want to go towards an engineering degree and knowing that you don't know what you don't know at this point you're going to college to learn what. Yeah, what is the point? Especially when we go into the discussion of AI, you know, you can put and create code and do all kinds of things through AI. Why study engineering? What is the mindset you're trying to achieve?
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. I think solving problems, if you like solving problems, you have a more logical based approach. I think those are sort of like precursors to entering that field and going at career. I think internships actually are like what to look out for. To your earlier point, I think looking for internships is, I think one of the things that helped me most because I learned what I'd like to do and most importantly what I don't like to do because you get that unique experience. I think with the us systems and I think Canada has a good internship program too. With some us companies where you learn, you know, you go hands on because school is more theoretical in a lot of these institutions. Right. So you're going to have more of a theoretical based curriculum. But then when you go to the industry, it's kind of different in a lot of spaces and fields. So I think that's where you'll get to learn is like, do I like a smaller company? Do I like a bigger company. Do I like this location? Do I really need the sunlight? That was me, for example. I was like, Seattle was too rainy and too overcast for me even though I lived there four years. I was, you know.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Where are you based now?
[00:28:57] Speaker C: In Atlanta. So now I'm based in Atlanta.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: It's a little sunnier.
[00:29:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a little sunnier. Much warmer. But yeah, definitely sunny. And San Francisco too is very, you know, very beautiful.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: And good oranges down there.
[00:29:07] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Peaches. Peaches.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Peaches. Not oranges.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Yeah, close. The Florida has that.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah, next door.
[00:29:14] Speaker C: Exactly. So I think those internships are really important. I think that's one thing that the us system, I think does really well. So I think, yeah, open mind, you know, try different experiences. You know, a lot of american students don't have a set major yet, so I think that's also fine if you like, decide to try something else. And that community aspect is very important to, like, a lot of my closest friends and even my wife, you know, I met, you know, in college early on, so we saw like a very core group of friends that goes into even ten plus years later, you know, it's still a good network to have and I think that's one of the most important part. Like networking and having a good network in the US is very important and just like anywhere else, but you never know who you'll work with before. So, you know, don't burn the bridge with your boss, don't burn the bridge with your friends and, you know, try and keep in touch as much as possible because, you know, I think that's going to be the best way for, you know, them to help you, you to help them and have a bit of a network, talk about experiences and then, you know, grow from there as well.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: So teleworking hybrid or in office work.
[00:30:13] Speaker C: What do I like best or what's best for.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: You can say both.
[00:30:17] Speaker C: Yeah. So I work remote right now, which I think is a sweet spot, but I would recommend for younger, you know, younger folks, new in career, I think in office you still have the most learnings. I think typically smaller companies are the most learning. So if you're optimizing for learning, I would definitely say, you know, in person, smaller companies typically is probably the best way to go regardless of, I guess, field or discipline for work life balance, you know, I think probably remote is better to some extent because you stay on commutes and some of the us cities have pretty long and terrible commutes and expensive ones with tolls and parking and everything. So, I mean, I think it's just what you're optimizing for. But I think early on, I would definitely recommend for, you know, recent graduates that I think in person and trying to be in an office is an exciting.
My brother, for example, he just graduated last year, and he just got his first job in San Francisco. And he's like, yeah, this is my first time going to an office. I was like, seriously? Like, you know, he's like, 22, and he's never had never been to an office. All his internships were remote, and everything had been remote to that point because of college. I was like, that's crazy.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: See how different. It's not a generation gap. It's a year gap. So between different years, you see the experience changes, especially when you go for employment in these sectors. Is he also in technology?
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Yes, he's also in technology now.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. So finally, you're getting ready for a family.
It goes without saying that you're bringing your kids here at ACS. I mean, you just mentioned that, you know, working hybrid or remotely is your thing.
[00:31:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: So I would. The only thing I would ask you at this point is what would you say to your son or daughter, you know, to convince them that this is the best place for them?
[00:32:07] Speaker C: Interesting. Great question. I think the lifestyle is what I would probably focus on more. I think the US is so much, like, work oriented and go, go, go. And the pace of life. I think the working aspects in the United States have pros and cons. Right. But I think that the lifestyle, the difference in how people really enjoy life here, and I think they're very purposeful in what they do and spend time with their loved ones and family. I think that's one thing I would probably say, too, to the, you know, said so kids about this, because I think that's actually something that I learned a lot here, is like, the care that teachers had was like, very one on one and everyone.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: Right?
[00:32:43] Speaker C: You know, you could connect with the teacher, you could connect with the faculty. I mean, it was like, there's so many resources and so many, like, one on one time because it was a smaller school, too. So the more of that, like, family feel.
So I think that's probably the biggest selling point, I would say, is like, you know, I think ACS was just small and relatively close in, and you could sort of just learn a lot more than or a different style in the US where if you go to, like, you know, a private school there, it's very much like parents there, like, I need my son and daughter to go to this school and I have to pay for twelve classes and they want a guarantee. Yeah. I don't know how it is now.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: It could be similar, but I think it's pretty jarring experience for very smart children that are trying their hardest and they're doing really well, but there's just this additional. So much pressure put on them and it's, I mean primarily, I would say, because of parents, but yeah, I think that's something I would say acs. I think it would be a good selling point. It's just like the.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: So three words to close this discussion. Three words that mean acs to you.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: Three words that mean acs to me.
Fun. I would say fun would be one I think I had actually looking back, a lot of fun, especially going to us where it's a lot more. College is fun but different. You know, it's a different experience.
Creative would be another one. I think there's a lot of creativity. I think other students in my year had like, you know, there's people doing all kinds of stuff that I didn't go into engineering track. I didn't really get to experience much of creativity. After ACS Athens, that was probably like the peak creativity. And maybe like intimate would be the third. Like I think it was pretty small and like weird. We kind of knew plus or minus a class. You know, there weren't that many students. And I think that was good in the aspect that like you didn't have to be friends with everyone, but you sort of knew kind of what everyone, you know, was doing or trying to do. And I think that was, you know, even like while I've been here in Greece, like I've been posting on Instagram, like old alums I haven't talked in like twelve plus years have been like, no way, you're here. Like, that's so cool. Like I can still remember, like, I mean, you know, like we still like tap each other and connect from time to time. And I think that was just part of that intimate, small, smaller nature of the school and, you know, we still have, I think, a lot of mutual respect for each other after all.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: So intimate, creative, fun.
[00:35:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Equals acs.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Acs.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: Alex Delea. Thank you so much for stopping by. It's been fun.
[00:35:07] Speaker C: Okay, don't use my words against me now.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: I'm gonna make a poster out of it. Intimate, creative, fun.
[00:35:13] Speaker C: And you use Genai to create an image. Exactly.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: I'll send it to you. Thank you so much.
[00:35:20] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: You are listening to the owlcast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the Allcast on Google Podcast, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the ACS Athens Media studio.
