HCCPD Final Writeup

Posted on

It’s finally here! Today I’m officially done with college. My last requirement is to post my portfolio page which describes the work I’ve done in my Human Centered Computing Professional Development (HCCPD) over the past semester.

I honestly believe that this class is one of the most beneficially project classes you can take in the CU Computer Science department. This is the third time I’ve taken the course in my four years at CU and it has provided me the ability to do the non-standard academic activities that have molded me to be the person I am today.

This semester, I focused on three main tasks: finding a job, planning startups2students 2011, and determining how I can stay involved with the department after graduation. I’ll break down each of my achievements in the course.

Job Search

This was the original reason I chose to take the class again this semester. At the beginning of the semester I was not sure exactly how I could put in the necessary amount of time to start seeking a job earlier than graduation. I called Clayton Lewis and he suggested I take his course again with an emphasis on finding a job. I used the course for everything related to finding a job. I spent a lot of time working on personalizing my resume, getting my web presence in order, attending job fairs and other job-related events, and interviewing with companies. The sheer fact that I was able to spend 5 or more hours per week working with job-search related tasks, I am so grateful that I was able to get course credit while accomplishing these goals. I am so happy that I was able to end up landing a great job with ReadyTalk.

startups2students 2011:

This year’s startups2students event was the biggest and best yet! We had a huge amount of interest in the event and I’ve gotten a ton of positive feedback from students and companies report that they had many leads from the event! Without this class I would not have been able to make the event as great as it was this year. If you want more information on the event, check out our wiki. Additionally, startups2students sparked another event I worked without throughout the course of the semester, OutTurn CU.

Staying Involved

After finishing with the events and job search, I dedicated time to determining how I can stay involved after graduation. I worked specifically with Dirk Grunwald and John Black and the Computer Science advisory board to discuss the future of entrepreneurship and the CU Computer Science department. I hope to be invited to future advisory board meetings to stay involved with CU Computer Science.

You can find my final presentation here, though it’s not very interesting without hearing my actual presentation. It shows a series of photos that represent what I’ve done over the semester.

Welp, I’m officially done with college! w00t!

Find an issue?
Open a pull request against my blog on GitHub.
Ben Limmer