Can you suggest some dazzling Extra curriculars for students who wish to be considered by top universities majoring in Computer Science.
Have you looked online for summer coding programs near you? (One that comes to mind for me is the program “Girls Who Code” if the student is a girl). There’s also various coding competitions a student can enter. If you’re really looking for “dazzling” ECs, I imagine a student who has developed their own website or app would be a very interesting thing to have on his/her resume. Aspiring computer science majors could also take community college courses in computer science if possible.
Every school seems to offer different versions of techy ECs. Some things that are nationally competitive like robotics or math competitions I think it doesn’t help you for the very top schools like MIT and Caltech unless you rank really well nationally. My CS major kid did do a tech club at school but it’s pretty low key. He was in a math honors society and did many many hours of tutoring through that which I think is a good thing for all involved. He also did a varsity sport. Our school does not offer any classes beyond AP Comp Sci which he completed in 9th grade so he took a number of community college classes in comp sci, not to use for college credit, to continue learning. They were mostly things like various languages which will be nice for college but not how they really teach comp sci in a 4 year college. Internships and any kind of summer research are always good options.
Thank you. I have a son. My son is also on the low key side. Hard to know if they clubs are amazing. There are always individuals who do wonderfully because of their parents mostly.
Don’t worry at all about which EC’s your son does in HS. Let him explore activities that appeal to him and continue in those he enjoys. Academic EC’s involving math will likely interest him. Sports and music plus other academic EC’s were things my son did. He majored in math in college then added the computer science major instead of math grad school. Some flagship U’s have excellent, good CS programs while some of the elite schools are not as good in the subject.
HS is a time for exploring many different things. Activities are for the student, not to look good on an application. btw- there is no way I as a parent could control which activities son chose or would not participate in. Strong willed, stubborn…(oh- kid and parents). The kids have to have the ability (given by parental genes plus work habits) themselves- parents can’t make a student shine who lacks the ability and motivation.
Remember that colleges look at much more than a student’s ability in the proposed major. Students are likely in competition with students in all other majors for spots in the top schools.
The main reason to do summer activities is because the student is interested. I presume your son would want to spend time in computer science related activities available to him. Math skills are good to have as well. Find out what is available locally and at instate colleges for starters. The budget will dictate options as well.
Sorry… how does one edit a post. I noticed a couple of small mistakes. I don’t seem to find an edit button anywhere.
I think every kid is different. This is what my CS kid did as best as I can remember:
At 7 he started teaching himself Visual Basic after watching dh put together something for the lab. At 9 he designed a website for me and somewhat later one for dh’s lab. At 11, we gave him a week of computer camp where he learned Java. In 9th grade he took AP Comp Sci. The summer after 10th grade he job shadowed his uncle and did some beta testing for some software. Around the same time he started teaching himself about the Linux operating system and going through MIT’s open courseware. The summer after 11th grade he took a course in computer programming and graphics at Columbia.The rest of the summer he worked for his uncle’s company and continued working part time during the school year. He learned SQL and some other stuff. He also did some programs in modeling and analyzing chemistry for some professors at the Medical School where dh works. For fun he also did the computer programming for a team that did a mod for the Civilization 4 computer game which won an award. (He played a lot of other computer games too.)
At school he did not participate in the computer club, because that was not actually something the smart kids did weirdly enough. He did academic team (where he was mostly responsible for math and science questions) and Science Olympiad, where he did various events, most successfully the physics ones. His school arranged for him to be invited to a Saturday lecture series sponsored by IBM and Saturday science classes at Columbia (he did something with quantum physics.)
None of these activities were particularly planned ahead of time, though I did speak to my brother about the job shadowing thing. Most of the other stuff fell in his lap because he was so competent.
If your kid really wants to do something “spectacular” in CS he should be half way there already.
He’d done MathCounts in middle school and enjoyed it, but the Math Team in high school wasn’t as much fun. He still did the ACM tests and AIME but there wasn’t really a social team the way there had been earlier.
Wis 75 as you mentioned, they will do what they like. At the same time, one can keep offering options and opening more doors just in case they bite! As students, exposure and enrichment are the first step. I was speaking to a prof today and he said it is often about relationships. The student likes this friend or that advisor or that teacher or a particular app or website or program. It is not always about the subject. At this age, he can become interested in a lot of things. He is generally interested in math and science. He has been “wandering around” the sciences and checking different things out. There are many options out there. Hoping to find the right match.
They can “do what they like” and still get some prep, test their interest in stem things, hone their skills. It often drives me nuts when CC tells kids to just do what they like and I know that, (at “top universities,”) adcoms can look for more.
What math and science ECs does the hs offer? What grade is he in now?
Thank you Mathmom for sharing your experience. Great idea to learn Linux. My son is a sophomore studying Intermediate Java . He is doing very well in the course but he does not have a lot of work experience. He gets perfect scores quite often on the assignments. May I ask, what kind of company did the uncle have? I wonder what kind of work they can do at this stage. He was considering a research internship, that way he will have a mentor to work with. Each internship will offer a different kind of proprietory software I assume. He likes building and making things. In middle school, he did some carpentry and took part in some physics contests and did well! He did make a few websites but nothing too complex. He particpated in a local app contest and won best pitch. But these are not on a national stage. He likes to tinker with this and that but I thought he should do something … not necessarily a contest but create something of his own… that would pose a challenge and be satisfying.
Lookingforwad, my son is a sophomore. You can read what I wrote to Mathmom. I think as parents, we can nudge them a bit this way or that way or at least draw their attention to stuff. If there is not that much peer pressure then parents have to fill in the gaps! He is studying Pre Calc this year, Will be doing Calc BC and Physics II next year. He does have an offer for a research internship this summer… though I am not sure how much he will learn. It is related to Operations Research.
My CS son started an introductory (hour of code type) class at our local library for young girls in our area. The library was very supportive and the class became quite popular. They already had the computers but never had anyone to attract the kids and teach the class. My son really enjoyed it and the classes became quite popular.
Of course he did the other math club/competition and robotics EC’s, but I think the computer class was the most interesting.
Look into the USACO online computer contests. If your son can get good enough to advance to the platinum division (and possibly get invited to the national training camp) it will be recognized as an impressive achievement by colleges.
The uncle’s company at the time was doing a lot of organizing databases for publishers. He also worked on the Sky and Telescope magazine’s website one summer. Did something to make pdf’s searchable for the World Health Organization another summer. And I know they did something with the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary.
He’s ended up working on the Linux kernel at Google so I assume all the time he spent on the Linux boards in high school was useful.
Trishka, the internship sounds great. I also love the idea of teaching kids to program. Easier said than done!
Robotics. My older daughter has been programming the arduino and raspberry pi boards that run the animatronics that she and her teammates have built over the past few years, and she programmed VEX robots in middle school as part of a team. Also look for capture the flag competitions (not the kind where you run around IRL chasing people). Those are fun.
Both daughters are involved with robotics, the younger one probably will go into marketing rather than CS, so she does the marketing aspects of FIRST and BEST robotics and on-demand video production rather than the programming. There are a lot of different aspects to the student technology associations-almost every kid can find something that interests them within that umbrella of tech stuff.
Thanks all for the replies.
My kiddo was accepted at multiple top Comp Engineering schools – her only Computer related EC was her admin of a Creative Writers’ forum. Her primary EC was being a top level athlete.
She did the coding behind the scene and developed web page development skills. No formal ECs outside of this. Of course having great Math/Sci test scores had a lot to do with her admissions success.
A top level athlete and great test scores. T2SEA winning combination.
Math, math, math. Any CS courses available. Robotics.