Computer Science Extracurricular Help?

Hello. My dream school is Penn, and my dream career would be to work at Microsoft or Google to work on speech recognition or video recognition artificial intelligence. My passion is computer science. I know that schools like Penn look beyond grades and test scores at EC’s. What are some good EC’s that you guys would suggest for Computer Science. I am a rising senior, but I have already done a lot, but I feel that I can do more. Any and all help is appreciated. Thank you and have a wonderful day!

I’d recommend participating in CS clubs at your school like programming club or robotics club if your school offers them. Also, you could try to get a summer internship at a local tech company, or just do some coding projects in your free time.

Don’t do an EC to try to make your record look good – do it because you enjoy it. Admissions counselors can tell when a candidate is padding the resume. They look for depth (stuff you’ve done for many years, things for which you have a passion) versus breadth. Find a way to take something you have already done to a new level.

A few comments:

  1. Do ECs you find interesting whatever they are. Colleges see through people who try to package themselves.

  2. The top schools want applicants who can figure out on their own what activities excite them, stir their passion etc. Nobody on a blog who has never met you can do this. Look within your school and your community.

  3. I’d recommend that you move off the idea of a dream school and work to create a solid college list that includes reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (find out your parents’ budget and run the net price calculator for each school) and that you would be happy to attend. The people I see who get hurt by the college admission process are the ones who focus on one or two hyper-competitive schools and then don’t get in. Cast a wide net and recognize that (assuming no major hook) Penn is a reach for pretty much everyone.

@mathiscool777 @jrm815 @happy1 I am extremely passionate about computer science, and I have a lot of computer science EC’s. I have a blog, newsletter, app development club, and a game studio that I run. I am a part of my schools robotics team (World Class - got second for the most prestigious award at the world level) as well. I am creating an app as well, with hopes of releasing it at the end of the summer. When I read other student’s chance me post, I feel like a could be doing more. I wrote to this forum in hopes that I could find inspiration.

Would the fact that I started the blog, newsletter, game studio, and club in junior year (I didn’t feel confident enough in my skills until now and I was encouraged to be well rounded by everyone I talked to in school) hurt my chances?

@happy1 I do have a full list of schools I would like to attend. I did a chance me post before, listing about 12 schools (five reaches, five matches, two safeties).

Companies like Google and Microsoft are not impressed by the brand names that impress HS kids. So while your “dream” may be Penn, it does nothing to advance your chances of employment. In fact, given the percentage of those from Ivy schools with engineering and CS degree that go to work on Wall Street, you may actually find stronger recruiting efforts at other schools.

Speaking of employment, when you get around to looking at the jobs posted on company websites for things like speech recognition you’ll find that what they’re typically looking for is at least a MS and often a PhD.

Of course companies like Google and Microsoft hire hosts of kids out of college. Take a look at https://careers.microsoft.com/students/apply for example. Maybe they have openings in areas you want for those with a BS, but more typically you take what they offer doing what they need done.

@mikemac Thank you for your advice!