Google Student Blog: My Summer @ Google: Computer Science Summer Institute

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My Summer @ Google: Computer Science Summer Institute

March 8, 2013

Introduction: Earlier this week we launched the application for the Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI), a three-week summer program for graduating high school seniors who are interested in studying computer science. To give you some more insight into CSSI, we're bringing you stories from former CSSI participants through the My Summer @ Google series. Today you'll meet Chyheim, a CSSI alum and freshman at the University of California, San Diego who is studying computer science. If you'd like to learn more about CSSI, visit our website and apply today!

Coming from a high school that did not offer any computer science curriculum, I saw CSSI as an opportunity for me to learn the essentials and to obtain the skills to succeed in college. The majority of CSSI was dedicated towards teaching us the fundamentals of computer science and programming. In order to get our feet wet we started by learning App Inventor, then we dived into HTML/CSS, Python, JavaScript, and eventually the combination of all of those with Google’s App Engine. On a typical day, we would break away from coding and participate in a few activities and workshops. These ranged from tips on creating a resume and on being successful in a technical interview to a Lego challenge and a social with Google interns. One of the best parts of CSSI was the time I got to spend with my fellow CSSIers in the residence halls. On the weekends off from programming, we had trips planned for Saturdays and then Sundays off to ourselves.

Eventually it became time for us to put all that we had learned together and create a product. Essentially, everything the instructors taught was geared towards providing us with the ability to go on our own and build virtually any web application we liked. And that’s just what we did. Throughout the final week we worked to develop our very own web applications. My team created a web application called Gif.it. Using the Python Image Library and several tools in JavaScript, we constructed an application that allows people to upload pictures and generate their own animated Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) image.

Months after CSSI, I have come to realize that I owe a lot of my current success in college to the instructors and the mentors from CSSI. The exposure I had to concepts such as data types, conditional statements, loops, and arrays, has made it easier for me to grasp them in my programming classes. Aside from technical skills, CSSI has provided me with a large network of friends and professional acquaintances. I have made a number of friends that I continue to keep in contact with for support and advice. I have also gained mentorship from different Googlers that I met through CSSI. The bond that was formed between the students and the instructors made it incredibly hard to say goodbye once the program was over.

CSSI is definitely an opportunity you do not want to miss out on. Moreover, my advice for anyone who meets the qualifications is to APPLY. You should still apply even if you doubt your skill level. CSSI is all about giving students the opportunity to learn more about computer science, therefore only having minimum skills is perfectly acceptable. As long as you convey your passionate interest in computer science through the essays and the interview you should be in good shape. Don’t stress it. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain.

Interested in CSSI? Apply here!

Written by: Chyheim Jackson-Burgess, CSSI Participant