Caltech Club for Computer Science

Thanks to everyone who made IST Student Day such a success: the students who presented, the faculty and students in attendance, and our sponsor, EWT Trading.

The rainy season did not dampen our enthusiasm for the event as there were more than 20 posters by undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs, and more than 200 people visited the various posters and listened to the presentations. The event was so popular that we ran out of food. =P

Congratulations to the prize winners (not in any order) Tamas, Rishi, Xiquan, Emily and Matt. We hope the event has been helpful for students trying to find research opportunities, and enjoyable for people who were simply interested in learning more about research in the department.

As we say goodbye to 2008 and welcome 2009, we would like to wish everyone a happy new year.

It’s been quite a fruitful year for the Club for Computer Science. The advising dinner and and Women in Information Sciences events have both been really successful with quite a lot of people in attendance. It is always important that new students get the guidance they need (I remember how confused I was 3 years ago), and with increasing female enrollment at Caltech it is important that we attract talented minds of all kinds to the information sciences. I do think people are getting a lot out of the events and asking good questions, which makes us feel that our efforts are worthwhile.

We are now looking forward to Winter term to begin in a few days. The closest upcoming event is IST Student Day, sponsored by EWT Trading, where there will be poster presentations by upperclass students, graduate students and postdocs. Faculty, recruiters and other students will be present at the event. This is a great chance to present your work and receive valuable feedback, while helping underclass students find SURFs and research opportunities. There will also be prizes! Don’t miss out on the chance to present/attend!

It will be on January the 22nd, and you can find more information and register here:

http://www.ist.caltech.edu/news/student-day.html

(Alex is a UGCS sysadmin as well as a member of CCCS)

As you may notice from the URL, this blog is not hosted on Caltech’s IMSS servers, but on UGCS, a student run linux cluster. We are one of the few such completely student run clusters in the country. This allows us to offer cutting edge services to all members of the Caltech community during and after their time here.

Because it is run by students, UGCS is very flexible and allows many services that you won’t find at campus run systems. We also provide all the software you’d expect such as Matlab, Mathematica, and the like (available to x-tunnel straight to your desktop, if you’re running X11 on linux or mac).

Our immortal class shellservers (also available for login in the lab in the basement of Winnett Student Center) are available for everyday use and occasional demanding jobs. Our mortal class shellservers are just like the mortals except you may use as much compute as you wish, though we do reserve the right to deploy per-user quotas should it become necessary.

Our sysadmins study computer science, mechanical engineering, biology, and other majors, and go anywhere after college. We are not a training system for future sysadmins (though you will learn how to manage a rather complicated multi-user environment) but a place for like-minded people to share a hobby and provide its benefits to all.

If you’re interested in learning more about the cluster, obtaining an account (if you are currently affiliated with Caltech), or applying to be a sysadmin, please see our website at http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu. We look forward to informing, serving, or working with you!

(This post written by Professor K. Mani Chandy)

What can CS in particular (and Caltech in general) do to make the Caltech experience positive in addition to helping students learn material?

The Club for Computer Science can help by enabling students to create activities that improve the Caltech experience. Students in the Club have already demonstrated their motivation to help with the Caltech experience by taking leadership roles in setting up at least six new activities. The department can help too.

Let’s talk about what the Club and the department can do to make the Caltech experience positive and happy in addition to fostering creativity and learning.

(This post written by Professor K. Mani Chandy)
(NOTE: This is my personal opinion; it is not necessarily the position of the CS department or of Caltech.)

What is the one characteristic that makes Caltech special? It’s the creativity of students. We, the CS community at Caltech, should develop innovative ways to foster student creativity.

What are the best ways to organize classes, to teach, to have tutorial or recitation sections at Caltech? Students can learn both theory and systems development by working with course material, with information on the Web and in the library, and most importantly by working with other students and with faculty. There are two points about Caltech education:

1. Students often learn by collaborating in problem solving. The collaboration includes other students and faculty. The focus, though, is problem solving; working with others helps in developing problem-solving skills.
2. The critical, and most precious resource, is student creativity. So, our entire educational structure at Caltech should be designed to enhance creativity. How should we do that?

Is the traditional course, with lectures at fixed times, the best way to foster creativity and problem-solving skills? Are there more creative ways of doing that in Caltech CS? Let’s talk and blog about this.

This site was made to give people an idea of what it’s like to study computer science at Caltech.  Caltech CS students are encouraged to use this blog to introduce readers to the research, projects, and events going on within the CS department.