CS 1944: Computer Science First Year Seminar
Spring 2016
Details on Deliverables
An "elevator speech" is a short introduction of yourself that you give to someone
(e.g., a prospective employer at a career fair) when you only have 30-60 seconds to
make an impression. See this handout from
VT Career Services for some tips.
A common thing to include in your elevator speech is a brief answer to the question "what are you interested in?"
This can
be a difficult question, especially if you are just getting started in CS. The best answer is one
that reflects both your own (genuine) interests and the possible opportunities at a particular company.
But just to get started, and in case you don't know much about a particular company, it's a good
idea to think about this question ahead of time, even if only in a general sense.
If you don't know where to start, here are
some examples from our CS Ambassadors.
This is a group project involving groups of about 4, assigned by the instructor.
The goal is to learn about a recent cool topic related to computing and computer
science, and to share what you learn with the rest of the class. A "cool topic" might
be a new technology or tool, an emerging trend or application, or
an exciting new use of computers or computation.
Your topic should not be something too familiar ("Java") or too broad ("Computer Security",
"The Cloud").
Instead, find something that you are interested in and you think others in the
class might benefit from hearing about.
Topics must be approved by Dr. Ribbens by March 31.
Your topic should be something for which you can produce the following:
- A 3-5 minute presentation/demo that you will give to your classmates as they
wander around our Cool Topics Fair on April 26.
- A one-page handout (2-sided is allowed), summarizing what you want people to
know about your topic. These need to be available at the Cool Topics Fair.
And one member of your group should upload a copy to the
class Scholar site.
The table below lists upcoming company presentions or information sessions. More will be
added as the semester unfolds, but the majority of company presentations are during the
first half of the semester. We will attempt to keep this list
up-to-date. However, it is likely that you will hear about other relevant presentations
through email or posted flyers. Some are hosted by the CS Department, some by student
groups, some by Career Services. Any of these is fine.
Email announcements are more authoritative regarding time and place.
For each presentation you attend, write one paragraph
summarizing what you heard, i.e., something about the company, what was emphasized,
what you learned that was interesting about the company or careers at that company, etc.
Upload your paragraph to the
class Scholar site.
Date/Time |
Location |
Company |
2/18, 5:00-8:00 pm |
Holden 110 |
WillowTree |
2/21, 3:30-4:30 pm |
Goodwin 145 |
Accenture |
2/23, 6:00-7:30 pm |
Smith Career Center |
Lockheed Martin |
4/27, 10:00am-2:00 pm |
McBryde 106 |
Northrop Grumman |
The table below lists upcoming technical talks and seminars (more will be
added as the semester unfolds).
Email announcements are more authoritative regarding time and place.
For each talk, write a summary paragraph of the presentation, including something you
learned and any helpful critiques you can suggest to improve the presentation.
Upload your response to the
class Scholar site.
Date/Time |
Location |
Speaker/Topic |
1/29, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Karen DePauw (VT Grad School), "Expectations for Graduate Study: Inclusive, Affirming, and Ethical" |
2/5, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Frank Tip (Samsung Research), TBA |
2/17, 6:30 p.m. |
Surge 117A |
TBA (Capital One) |
2/19, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Na Meng (CS@VT), "Automating Program Transformations based on Examples of Systematic Edits" |
2/22, 7:00 p.m. |
McBryde 216 |
TBA (NetApp) |
2/26, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Alexey Onufriev (CS@VT), "Computational Thinking" |
2/29, 4:00 p.m. |
Goodwin 190 |
Paul Avery (UFlorida), "Petascale Distributed Computing Challenges in High Energy Physics" |
3/18, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Benjamin Jantzen (Philosophy@VT), "Discerning Dynamical Structure" |
3/23, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Frederick Eberhardt (Caltech), "Macro Causes with Micro Dynamics" |
4/1, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Zhenkai Liang (National Univ of Singapore), "Automatic Generation of Data-Oriented Exploits" |
4/8, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Mary Shaw (CMU), "Progress Toward an Engineering Discipline of Software"
4/19, 7:00 p.m. |
Surge 118B |
TBA (Amazon), "AWS Tech Talk" |
4/22, 11:15 a.m. |
Torg 2150 |
Xian-He Sun (IIT), "Memory Sluice Gate Theory: Have we found a solution for memory wall?" |
CS 1944,
C. J. Ribbens,
01/18/2016