Computer Science | Grinnell College

Thursday, December 7, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

A discussion of Summer Opportunities in Computer Science is presented by Professor Samuel A. Rebelsky and the other faculty of the department of computer science.

If you enjoy computer science (or at least computer programming), summer is an opportunity to explore new approaches, to develop new skills, and perhaps even to make some money. But what kinds of things can you do? While students tend to focus on a few options (e.g., internships and research with faculty), a wide variety of opportunities are available. In this session, we will discuss goals you might set for the summer and some opportunities that can help you achieve those goals. Then during winter break you can be starting applications and preparing to build your portfolios.

Note that this is *not* the presentation of summer research offered within this department; this is a broad overview of the kinds of opportunities one might pursue off-campus.

Thursday, November 2, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Building your own programming language and other reasons to go to graduate school is presented by Eric Van Wyk from the University of Minnesota.

To motivate a discussion on graduate school opportunities, Van Wyk will describe some of his group's work on techniques and tools that allow programmers to construct their own programming language, either from independently-developed domain-specific language extensions or by developing language extensions from scratch. Such extensions can provide new syntax and semantic analyses that address the computational task at hand. His specific interest has been on techniques to ensure that one can pick and choose these extensions with some assurance that this collection will in fact work well together.

Research work like this is indicative of what one can do in graduate school in computer science, be it in programming languages, robotics, machine learning, systems, graphics, visualization, bioinformatics, or a plethora of other areas. One has the time and opportunity to dive deeply into an area of interest and push the boundaries of what is possible. Van Wyk will describe what graduate school is like, both generally and specifically at the University of Minnesota and, hopefully, encourage to consider graduate school as part of your future.

Thursday, October 12, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Improving the reliability and security of software with formal methods and automated reasoning is presented by Cesare Tinelli from The University of Iowa.

Producing robust, reliable software, which performs its intended function and is less prone to errors and security vulnerabilities, is becoming more and more important as software comes to control increasingly large and critical aspects of modern society. This talk makes a case for using mathematically rigorous approaches based on formal logic to specify the behavior of safety-critical software and verify its correctness. These methods can reduce automatically large classes of program analysis problems to constraint satisfaction problems in some formal logic, and then solve them with the aid of automatic reasoners for that logic. The talk will give a brief overview of this approach and discuss its recent successes and applications in industry, focusing on research done at the University of Iowa in this area.

TUESDAY, October 10, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Come meet with Wes Beary '05, Cassie Koomjian '05, Terian Koscik '12, Alex Leach '06, and Ian Young '08, the alumni mentors for CSC 321. They will discuss issues they have encountered as computing professionals and answer questions you have about life after Grinnell.

Thursday, October 5, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Graduate School in Computer Science

Professors Anya Vostinar, Charlie Curtsinger, Peter-Michael Osera and Titus Klinge will discuss what graduate school in computer science is like, why you might consider it, and how to choose and apply to graduate programs. The panel discussion will include ample time for questions, so come prepared with your own questions.

Thursday, September 21, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Off-Campus Study for CS Majors: Why, how, and where?

Professor Weinman will lead a discussion about study abroad and how it fits into a CS major and what it can mean for your liberal education. Staff from the Off-Campus Study Office will also be on hand to to help answer your questions. Second-year students should plan to attend if possible, and first-year students are strongly encouraged to attend. All CS students who have studied abroad are also encouraged to attend.

Thursday, August 31, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817).
Everyone is welcome to attend!

Non-Compete and Non-Disclosure Agreements: What Students Need to Know Before Signing Employment Agreements

Many companies, particularly in technology fields, require student interns and new full-time employees to sign employment agreements. While these agreements typically cover items such as start date, salary, title, and benefits, they also may include clauses that could have long-range serious impacts on the employee's future career choices. Julie Foster will introduce students to these clauses, what they should be aware of, and questions they should ask prior to signing such agreements. Ms. Foster is Assistant Dean and Executive Director of Career Communities at Grinnell College's Center for Careers, Life, and Service.

On Thursday, May 11, students from this semester's “Analysis of Algorithms” will describe and analyze two algorithms with real-world applications.

Two problems will be addressed: “Worst Case Performance Analysis of Machine Learning Robustness” (Anna Blinderman and Reilly Grant), and “Formalizing Mimble-Wimble: Scaling Bitcoin” (three presenters who wish to remain anonymous). Both of these problems pose interesting design questions when considered from a theoretical rather than implementation standpoint. The presenters will describe their work in progress and encourage formative assessment from the audience.

At 4:00 p.m., refreshments will be served in the Computer Science Commons, Noyce 3817. The presentation, “Exploring Algorithms with Design and Analysis Techniques,” will follow at 4:15 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Who: CS students, CS faculty, and guest speakers
What: Discussion of inclusion in CS
Where: Science 2022
When: 4:15 p.m., Thursday, May 4, 2017 (Refreshments served beforehand in the same room)
Why: To address important issues
Direct questions or comments to Professor Rebelsky.

Thursday, April 27, 2017
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817).
Everyone is welcome to attend!

Project Gadfly: Students and Alums Coding for Social Good

Over spring break, six mentors and eight Grinnell students created Project Gadfly, a system designed to help U.S. residents contact their elected representatives. With Gadfly, users can create sample call scripts and share them with friends using QR codes. Anyone who sees these codes can scan them with the app and have the script and a button to call their representatives at their fingertips. The students created a web client, two native app clients, a database, a server, an API, and an Iowa non-profit in 12 days, balancing security and design decisions with rapid development. Students who worked on Project Gadfly will discuss both the design of the system and what it was like to work with mentors on a rapid-learning, rapid-development project.