Category Archives: Student Life

HackWITUs So Cool

A hackathon is a friendly competition for students to network with other students – and sponsor representatives 🙂 – while making hardware or software tools and games. We provide free food, space, power, internet, other hackers, some hardware, some APIs, workshops, and prizes. Free.

One thing: we get a lot of questions about who can and cannot come to a hackathon. Everyone is invited and anyone should be able to enjoy the time. We have some events and workshops planned that require 0 computer science or programming experience. I’m not a computer science major…

Last week, the head of the group that is organizing Wentworth’s Hackathon announced that we have entered CRUNCH TIME. HackWITUs 2017 will be Wentworth’s first annual Hackathon. The planning committee has been preparing since fall semester for this event that lands on March 25-26. One of our members even made a blog just about us! We have our own website designed to spread information and show off our development skillz (even though it’s a static webpage, it’s cool enough that it feels interactive).

Behold our fancy logo and website!

We’ve been reaching out to sponsors all over the place to gather the resources to put this on for the people that come to the event. So far, we’re getting stuff/help from various departments and people around the school, Microsoft, Facebook, edX, kwidil, goPuff, and a few others. I always bring my resume to hackathons for a shot at jobs with sponsors; some companies sponsor hackathons and send a representative as a way of scouting talent.

Like us on facebook!

If you can’t come this year, this will be an annual event. So hopefully I can meet you next year :D.

❄❄❄ Snow Days ❄❄❄

These couple weeks have had two glorious snow days. Normally I’m the first one to detest snow. The cancellations set my education back a day and usually mean a good deal of shoveling at home. Those crystals spell white doom for the long-distance commuter. In previous years, my 90 minute commutes have doubled to nearly three hours.

This time around though, the lack of school saved me from a good deal of misery. I’ve been somewhat unwell since Monday, but by the time Thursday rolled around, I’d had more than my share. I had been sniffling and my hands were bone dry from washing them between classes.

On the day off, I caught up on ages worth of work. I closed some ends on my open applications for summer programs and grad school, cleaned my room, started a fitness challenge with my friend, and worked on planning Wentworth’s awesome first hackathon. I did some homework too: numerical analysis a day early, an outline for an essay due soon, and some molecular biology research.

Wolfram Visit

The start of this year has been absolutely crazy. I think perhaps I overcommitted and am in over my head. Regardless, cool things keep happening so I will try to keep it the work rate.

Last Tuesday, Stephen Wolfram visited the school to give a talk about what he does and what computational thinking can do for us. He is convinced that computational approaches to old problems are the future of science. In addition, he described ways that any number of normally boring processes can be automated, replaced, or obsoleted.

That’s the reason that he built his Wolfram Language. He was originally mostly a particle physicist, hanging around the same crowd as Einstein, but a bit younger; he was good friends with Richard Feynman.

Earlier that morning I had gotten to direct Wolfram to his presentation room and explain a little bit about the school. Because of this, some of the faculty from the computer science and math departments invited me to come along with them and Wolfram to dinner! They had made reservations at The Squealing Pig for that evening. By the time students attending Stephen Wolfram’s presentation were done asking questions, time had slipped away and the hour was slightly past 7:30.

Time had slipped so much, in fact, that we missed our reservations at The Squealing Pig and Wolfram opted to go to Au Bon Pain in the interest of getting food quickly. Talking is hungry business and everyone wanted to go home.

We did go to Au Bon Pain and talked for a long time there and two of the three students that came to dinner got autographed books.

Realizations

Like many students, I have a decent job on campus. I work for DTS as a junior media technician, so I regularly set up and supervise sound at all sorts of events. I enjoy my work because it pays well and I can do homework during downtime. This job specifically, is a boon because it presents opportunities to meet the people active around campus.

The other week, I got to talk to Dean Wenner, Robert Totino our CFO, and Carissa Durfee and Linda Bernazzani, director and assistant director of campus life. What I really liked about meeting all them is finding out that the people behind all the things that happen are so friendly, and even generous.

For example, this Friday I was covering sound at the athletics Hall of Fame event. It was more or less a black tie event, few of the attendees were students, and I was definitely the youngest one in the building. Anyway, my job mostly consisted of sitting in the corner and making sure all the media equipment was working. Dean Wenner, who was one of the guests (hopefully you will get a chance to meet her) approached me from one of the dinner tables. She had gotten up from her own meal to offer me, the student worker sitting in the corner, a full fancy dinner. Beyond this, she knew I would be embarrassed getting the food myself, because I was so out of place and underage, so she got me food!