As we move through Fall, I'm missing one of the most draining but at the same time one of my favorite parts of the year. School recruiting visits. When I came to Hunter, I started the Daedalus CS Honors program. We started small but now, each year, we take in about fifty students, give them a laptop and a scholarship and all sorts of extras and bring them in for a great CS education at a fraction of the cost of say NYU or Columbia.

Almost four and a half years ago I left Stuyvesant and joined Hunter College. One of the initiatives I was charged with was the creation of a computer science honors program - the Daedalus scholars. Now, a little over four years later, our first cohort is graduating. I'm super proud of that first cohort and what we've collectively been building. I joined Hunter at the end of January 2016 - a month after college applications had closed.

Two of the challenges faced by young computer science students are finding the time to build independent projects for their portfolios and getting feedback from and networking with tech professionals. Enter Hunter Codefest 2020 <style> .flip { -webkit-transform: rotate(180deg); -moz-transform: rotate(180deg); -o-transform: rotate(180deg); -ms-transform: rotate(180deg); transform: rotate(180deg); } </style> <br clear="all"> Hunter, like most colleges has a Fall semester that runs from late August through the end of Decemeber and a Spring semester that starts at the end of January and runs through late may.

Now that high school seniors have all committed to their respective colleges I though I'd share some information on Hunter's incoming Daedalus (honors CS) cohort. I joke about the first cohort saying that nobody applied to the program. That's kind of true. I jointed Hunter a little over three years ago in late January. That was after high school seniors had already applied to college and at that time the program didn't exist.

It's great to see how much Hunter CS has developed since starting here there years ago. The latest endeavor is Winter Codefest. During the fall I was approached by one of my students who had asked an older Hunter CS student about their portfolio and found that the senior's portfolio was lacking. This student said we should do something to help encourage younger students to build that portfolio. The result was Winter Codefest.

One of the bigger challenges faced at commuter schools is building a feeling of community. Students aren't on campus every day and come from far afield and even when they are on campus, we really don't have a CS "hang out" space. The space issue should be resolved soon - we're scheduled to get a CS student lounge next semester. I'm finding this to be even more of a challenge this year with my honors students.

I usually don't do year in review posts. At Stuy, not much changed year after year so I never felt it worth summarizing the past and projecting the future. At Hunter, now that I'm a couple of years in, projects are really picking up steam so I think it's worth talking about them. One of my two major missions at Hunter was to build a CS Honors program and raise the profile of Hunter's undergraduate CS program in general.

It's been a while since my last post and a while since I started at Hunter. Time to share a bit about what I've been up to. One of the better kept secrets in New York City is Hunter College's computer science program. It's been around for years and it's been that way for years. In fact, when I was looking to get my masters degree back in the mid nineties I carefully researched all of the area's MS in CS programs.