For a day, geek is chic

Diane Yang '16, preceptor Nate Hardison, and Kim Soffen '16 celebrate the completion of final projects in CS 50, SEAS' introductory computer programming course. (Photo by Eliza Grinnell, SEAS Communications.)

Often, college students party after final exams end. In CS50, Harvard’s introductory computer science course-turned-campuswide phenomenon, the final is a party.

Roughly 1,000 student hackers and their guests turned out Monday for the CS50 Fair, drawn into the basement of the Northwest Science Building by a trail of red, yellow, and blue balloons, and the thumping pulse of full-volume techno music. Amid a carnival atmosphere replete with popcorn, small mountains of candy, flying stress balls, and dozens of laptops — and what appeared to be enough extension cords to circumnavigate the globe — more than 700 students in CS50 (and its Harvard Extension School counterpart, E-52) displayed their mobile apps, websites, and other creations.

While the CS50 final projects only account for 10 percent ofstudents’ grades, the assignments are limited by not much more than students’ ambitions and imaginations.

“All we ask is that you build something of interest to you, that you solve an actual problem, that you impact campus, or that you change the world,” the assignment reads.

The more than 500 projects on display lived up to that formidable challenge. Some were practical: an Android app for WHRB, Harvard’s radiostation; a Harvard Crimson social media reader for Facebook; a website to allow Harvard students to buy and sell textbooks. Perhaps revealing undergraduates’ overarching concerns, an unusually high number ofprojects were designed to help users navigate Harvard’s dining halls.

Read the entire article—and watch the video—in the Harvard Gazette