MSP stands for Microsoft Student Partner. Before starting my first day, I want to rewind a little bit. I had previously published a post saying that I applied for Microsoft Student Partner. In fact, on February 9th—which was the final day for applications—I both submitted my application and wrote that title. After that, we moved on to the waiting stage of the process. A few days later, an unknown number was calling me again, and I had just woken up from sleep. Not to mention, I don’t usually answer unknown numbers. It’s not my style. 😀 Then, anyway, after waiting a bit, by some miracle, I suddenly answered the phone. While I was expecting it to be another promotional call, the person on the other end told me they were calling from Microsoft. Even though I didn’t quite understand what they said at first due to being half-asleep, I grasped the situation on my second ask. But I hadn’t been told that I was accepted yet. It was just a phone call telling me to check my emails and that the results would be announced soon.
Later, I received an email with a text that went like, “Dear Burak, welcome to the Microsoft Student Partner program! Due to the high volume of applications, it took some time for us to complete the evaluation process, thank you for your understanding. Congratulations on being accepted into the program among hundreds of applicants!”
The email specified what we needed to do and the location and dates for when the first camp, i.e., the Kick-off, would take place. So I went ahead and immediately bought a ticket from Kütahya to Istanbul for the given date. I got my ticket for 1 AM so that I would be at the Microsoft building on Saturday morning. On the night of my departure, just 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave, I got a phone call. Due to snow, there was an accident around Afyon, buses are banned from leaving, blah blah blah. They said, “We are moving your ticket to 7:15 AM,” and I had to say okay.
Afterward, I set off and arrived in Istanbul. I took the metro to Yenikapı, and from there to Gayrettepe, and started searching for the Microsoft Office building with the help of Google Maps. I marked the building’s location on the Map tool. Then I hit the road, tracking myself with GPS. There were two routes: one was slightly longer, and the other was shorter. Naturally, I started following the path from around Zorlu Center. As I continued along the road, while there was still quite a distance left to the Microsoft building according to Google Maps, I suddenly saw a huge Microsoft logo on my right. I was like, “What’s going on?” and despite the huge logo at the door, I asked the security guard at the gate if this was Microsoft just to be sure. By the way, I was only able to make it to the event, which started at 9 AM, around 3 PM. And trying to find Microsoft’s office using Google infrastructure and failing is a whole separate ironic event 😀
Then, as I went inside and all, I tagged along with one of the former MSP friends I ran into at the door, found the event hall, settled into a spot, and started listening to the guest speakers. Actually, it wasn’t just a talk. I started my event experience with Engin Polat’s “Windows Client App Dev” presentation. Then, we continued with Burak Bayburtlu’s presentation on “Windows 10 and Windows Phone”. Finally, we wrapped up our day at the Microsoft Office with Özge Ersu’s presentation. Because of my delay on the first day—I don’t know why, but normally I communicate with people easily—I became completely tight-lipped on the first day of the Kick-off. It was a strange situation for me. Actually, my mindset of “everyone has already met, the latecomer gets left out in the cold” due to arriving late might have caused this.
Next up was feeding ourselves. Microsoft had reserved quite a large area at Etiler Develi for the gala dinner. After eating our meals and sitting around chatting there, we moved on to our hotel, namely the Cevahir. By the way, there were also friends from ING at the gala; I ended up staying among the ING folks instead of the MSPs. Thus, I completely missed out on the chance to meet the MSPs on the first day. Oh well, thanks to this, I got to meet a few people from ING. The hotel was seriously nice. Especially since the roommate who was supposed to stay with me was nowhere to be found, the feeling of wandering around a double room all by myself was uniquely pleasant. In fact, I am writing this post right now in the bed of the hotel room. It would be a whole different story if there were someone next to me to talk to, but anyway.
Postscript: “I wrote this text at the hotel, but due to some edits, I am publishing it in the following days.”
I couldn’t take many photos today due to exhaustion; I’ll try to push my luck more on the second and third days. In short, this is how my first day went, we still have two days left, hopefully. Let’s see what happens, stay tuned.
