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A Year in the Life of an MSP

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By Ben Hall, Microsoft Student Partners

This year I was lucky enough to be selected as a Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) representing the University of Hertfordshire.

Throughout the year Microsoft holds various exclusive MSP events, each at a different one of their offices, to provide support for planned activities and to deliver technical training. I have attended presentations on a range of tools and technologies including: Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 System, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), XNA, and AJAX. These small workshop style sessions were a great environment to learn in and to ask questions. It’s not all work at these events though, the social and entertainment evenings have been excellent, especially the night at the Namco Station in London.

We also had the chance to attend other technical events including; Designertopia, the Windows Vista Launch Event, WebDD and the excellent DeveloperDay. These gave me opportunities to talk to members of the development community and Microsoft employees in a relaxed atmosphere. 

With the knowledge I gained from these events I can now communicate and technical passion in a range of ways.  For example;

  • I keep a personal blog and I strongly recommend any future MSPs to the same. 
  • I have also been invited to contribute to a number of technical discussions with various people in my Computer Science department.
  • My input contributed to the university’s future plans for MSDN Academic Alliance and how to utilise SharePoint within the department.
  • I have advised students on the best ways to use Microsoft software and how they can access the software via MSDN AA
  • I have encouraged our lecturers to adopt the latest Microsoft tools and technologies by providing comparisons with competitive products and by helping to create .NET lecture materials.

In my free time I have used the software I was given to create various applications. Doing this gave me deeper understanding of the technology but it was also a lot of fun! My projects include a Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget, a mash-up ASP.NET application utilising the new AJAX framework and Virtual Earth, and various proof of concepts around WPF and WPF/E. As a result I entered the Imagine Cup competition with two friends from my course. Our WPF based application won us a place in the UK finals and we got to present it to a panel of judges and then to an audience of over 100 people. We came third. Attending the final was a great experience and I felt that my Student Partner training helped me significantly.

As I am currently in my final year, I need to go out into the big wide world soon so I needed a job. I applied for two graduate positions within Microsoft, one based in the UK and one based in Denmark. I was invited for interviews at both campuses, with Microsoft flying me out to Denmark, putting me up in a hotel and giving me a series of interviews at their Development Centre. While I wasn’t offered a position, it was a great experience.

These are the highlights of my year so far but I still have much more to experience as a MSP.  I am planning a campus launch of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 System where I will demonstrate all of the great new features to students and lecturers. Microsoft has provided me with various prizes and promotional materials for the event.  I will also attend the final MSP event in Cambridge.

All MSP activities are rewarded with points and the people with the highest points have a chance of winning a trip to Tech-Ed in November. I hope to be one of them! 

If there was one thing wrong with the year it was that – I never got to go to Redmond…But this was my experience and everyone’s is different. What will yours be like? Apply today at https://www.microsoft.com/uk/academia/students/student-partners/default.mspx  - the deadline is 26th May 2007, so don’t miss out.